[hharney]

After reading Mac's opinion on aircraft manufactures support I have to decide how I will post a comment. I don't know if I can agree with him concerning the charge for services, of an item that a company produces, based on the items age. If Beech produced the product and sold it with no limitations then they should at the least provide customer service for this item. Think about our situation with the potential SID documents, there are some similarities here. Revenue. Take a look at the story below.


Left Seat
By J. Mac McClellan

The Economic Life of Airplanes
Airplanes, particularly in general aviation, are living longer than anyone could have imagined 40 or 50 years ago. To most of us, an A36 Bonanza, for example, built in 1970 is still a perfectly good and useful airplane. And there are many airplanes, particularly piston singles, still regularly flown that were built a decade or two before 1970.

For some reason when it comes to airplanes we count time in dog years. The 1970s, or 80s seem like yesterday when assessing the age of an airplane. But do the math. We're talking 30 to 40 years ago. If an airplane were any other type of vehicle, it would be enshrined in a museum by that age, or at least awarded historic license plates by the owner's state DMV.

But airplanes cannot continue to live forever without significant economic investment in their longevity. Hawker Beechcraft reminded us once again of the high cost of keeping airplanes airworthy when it announced a new plan to charge for technical support of airplanes it built many years ago. Now when you call the Hawker Beech technical support people with questions on part numbers, service instructions, serial number searches and so on you will have to pay for that information that had been previously provided at no charge for an airplane of any age. The new policy applies to airplanes that have been out of production for nearly 30 years, such as the V-tail Bonanza series and the Musketeer family, but also to older airplanes even though the models are still in production such as the King Air 90 and 200.

Since my Baron 58 has a serial number low enough to fall into the "legacy" category for which technical support charges will be made, I expect to possibly feel some financial pain in the future. But I do understand the position all of the manufacturers are in when it comes to support, whether they build airplanes, or the engines, avionics and accessories it takes to make the airplanes fly. The manufacturer sold the airplane or component many years ago and earned some level of profit then, but the revenue stream has dried up. It costs a great deal of money to keep the technical experts employed to provide the necessary support and that money has to come from somewhere.

There is, of course, profit in selling spare parts, but why should an airplane owner who needs no technical assistance, just a replacement part, pay for the staff who is researching information for other owners? I think the new Hawker Beech support policy for older airplanes is logical and fair, and I wouldn't be surprised to see other aviation product manufacturers follow the lead. Hawker Beech is doing the right thing by not cutting back on support, or walking away from its legacy airplanes, but is simply asking owners of older airplanes to pay for their upkeep. Our airplanes really can live almost forever, as long as we are willing to spend the money it takes to keep them in airworthy condition.