Based on what others describe as the typical buyer, I am thankful for that.

I am your budget jet operator, for sure, where I squeeze every bit of performance I can for every dollar.

Mike C.

We have a guest house here on the farm. You and yours are welcome anytime. Bring a fishing pole and multiple firearms if you like to hunt, or just blow %#$@ up.

I have found things in my airplane that were presumably done at a Textron service center which resemble your radiator hose solution.

For example, fixing a leak in the pressurization control system plumbing by gooping RTV on the fitting.

The fitting costs only $15, so I bought a new one and fixed it properly.

There were about a dozen things which were oddly "off" I have found on my airplane. The plane was exclusively maintained at Textron service centers from new until I bought it. Now it is maintained at a local rural airport and is in better shape.

Mike C.

I have found things in my airplane that were presumably done at a Textron service center which resemble your radiator hose solution.

For example, fixing a leak in the pressurization control system plumbing by gooping RTV on the fitting.

The fitting costs only $15, so I bought a new one and fixed it properly.

There were about a dozen things which were oddly "off" I have found on my airplane. The plane was exclusively maintained at Textron service centers from new until I bought it. Now it is maintained at a local rural airport and is in better shape.

Mike C.

Is Barron Thomas back in biz?


Robert T

Yes. Cost and quality don't always correlate despite your advice to your customers.

No service was done to the airplane from the last Textron service center visit to when I owned it (which was only 36 days). The dealer I bought it from owned it for just a few days. He couldn't have done all the wrong things I found in that time.

For example, this was the fresh air duct in the tail:

As you can see, this has gone bad over a long period of time, and has had many sloppy attempted repairs, usually slobbering on RTV to try and fix things. It was a disaster and was potentially causing damage to other equipment in the tail.

So you think this dealer you dislike, in just a few days, went all over my airplane and put in bad stuff? Why would they spend time doing that?

So, yes, I believe everything questionable I have found in the airplane was done at a Textron service center and the prior operator was a hands off, take it to the service center kind of guy. This fresh air duct was clearly in the airplane in this condition when the plane went through phase 5 inspection at SWF Textron service center just a year before I bought the plane, so even if they didn't do the hack job, they still let it pass inspection. This was also likely true of the pressurization fitting shown earlier.

Mike C.

It just seems really odd and while I have had my share of negative experiences with Textron Service Centers, them doing crappy repairs instead of just replacing parts hasn’t been an issue I have seen.

Did you make the service center aware of the problems you found?

Like they give a crap. You know better than that.


Robert T

Like they give a crap. You know better than that.


Robert T

Chip

You are either not paying attention or dumb. You know some expensive shops do really poor work. I have plenty of examples myself of the High dollar shops doing work that wasn’t OK.

I can’t believe the stuff I have found on my plane. You can’t trust anyone anymore. Paying a premium does not insure premium quality. In fact in my experience it’s the opposite. These big shops get young inexperienced mechanics that take forever to do repairs and then you get to pay them to do it twice or even 3 times. That’s if you know enough to check their work.

I have had two major repairs done by a very well known big shops. Both were literally 3x the cost of what it should be and both were done very poorly. Maybe 20 years ago the top shops were the best quality but in my experience that’s not the case anymore.

The fact that you argue this is showing your bias.

Mike

Umm…that’s a deal!

I have found things in my airplane that were presumably done at a Textron service center which resemble your radiator hose solution.

For example, fixing a leak in the pressurization control system plumbing by gooping RTV on the fitting.

The fitting costs only $15, so I bought a new one and fixed it properly.

There were about a dozen things which were oddly "off" I have found on my airplane. The plane was exclusively maintained at Textron service centers from new until I bought it. Now it is maintained at a local rural airport and is in better shape.

Mike C.

Why do some people have such hard ons for service centers? From what I understand the people doing the work at those places dont even need to be A&Ps.

I have found questionable repairs and practices in my airplane. Photo evidence provided.

The plane was maintained by Textron since new until I bought it. You can come read the logs if you like.

The issues existed at least during the phase 1-5 inspection by Textron at SWF in 2019, so things like that damaged and sloppily repaired fresh air duct were signed off as passing inspection.

You are free to draw your own conclusions from the above evidence, but fair folks will conclude my plane did not always get the best care from Textron from the above.

Mike C.

The widespread fallacy that what you spend is what it is worth.

Is someone going to spend $100K on an inspection at a service center and then tell others they aren't very good? Of course not, they have to defend them otherwise they are mentally conflicted.

Mike C.