Maintenance Records

[swixtt]

what have others made/created for keeping track of all maintenance that are due? Spreadsheets at all?
i think having a quick glance at certain items that will be coming up throughout the year would be helpful. ELTs, Props, Mags, etc.

[Kyle Boatright]

I have a dry erase board in my hangar.

It shows last oil change (date and hours), plus due dates for the next condition inspection, ELT battery replacement, transponder check, medical exam, and biannual flight review.

I figure having all that stuff posted and obvious will keep me out of trouble one day.

[nomocom]

I started using a iPhone app "road trip" for my wheeled vehicles, then one day realized it has settings that make it very appropriate for airplane use.
Since their is no odometer on the airplane I initially didn't even think about using the app for the airplane, but the app does allow you to select hours rather than miles, so when adding fuel, doing maintenance and etc, one can just use tach or hobbs time.

A few of the things it does
1) tracking fuel use, gallons per hour
2) tracking maintenance, date, tach time.... however complex you want to make it, though it probably makes since to keep simple, since details are going in a log book anyway.
3) Reminders (this is the one l really like) Either by hours or date, or both, for instance one can set up a tickler for 50 hours and 6 months, so which ever occurs first will give you a reminder.

If you want the tach time reminders to trigger, you'll want to use the fuel functionality. When you do a fill up (partial or complete) the input screen requests a tach time number, and that's the data the program needs for at least some of the reminders. Of course one could just keep an eye on the category of upcoming expenses and be doing the same thing, but the software won't "know" where you are at hour wise if you aren't putting occasional fuel use in.

In my reminders, I've got the ELT battery, transponder cert, and the annual set up as calender time triggers. Magneto IRAN reminders are based on tach time only. Oil changes are tach time or calender, whichever happens first. The app may be overkill, as I realize a strategically placed note or white board as Kyle uses can do the same thing.


Big picture costs- without to much effort, it can give you a pretty good summary of operating cost, presuming you took the time to add $ per gallon and the expense of the maintenance activities.


best