Cost of doing business

[BeaverFixer]

Just got a invoice from Viking. It seems all their maintenance manuals are now on CD or DVD. You have to buy the DHC-2 parts, service, repair manual plus service bulletins as a package. That package is around $1000.00 plus $1000.00/year for updates. That is pretty steep for a couple of S/B's every few years.
As an AMO working on Beavers our shop is required to have access have "current manuals". That $1000,00 is pretty hard to blend in to the customers bill for a couple of Beaver inspections. I know, it is the A/C owners responsibilty to provide manuals, but that doesn't happen very often in the real world.
Just part of the cost of doing business I guess.
I always thought the aircraft manufacture should proved S/B's for free as they are usually a safety issue.
Just saying!!!!

[Bulawrench]

I knew this was coming for a while and if they don't update the manuals as well i would consider it a cash grab.
However, most other manuals are on CD and subscription so it is probably time. Our AMO spends close to $ 5000 a year.
I will have to add it up and see.

[Heliian]

consider it the cost of safety. To do our jobs properly, we need the most current technical manuals and the subscription service keeps us legal. Some manufacturers don't charge a fee, some do. But it's highly important that you use the correct and up to date manuals. Added inspections, revisions to text, supplier changes, part number changes, s/b's, tech bulletins, operational safety notices and so on and so on. Yes, the aircraft hasn't changed much but the years of experience and feedback from customers allows them to streamline the publications so that there is more relevant information and modern logic applied to the systems.

In short, yes, that's the cost of doing business.

[twistedoldwrench]

Its a real catch 22 situation- in the real world private owners wouldn't dream of all the life overhaul schedules in the manual- 800 hr OH on a 985- get real. Operators by law need to have access to current manuals, and overhaul components time should be approved on their own maintenace schedule approval. If it were me I'd approach your customers with a cost sharing scheme to purchase the current manuals/services with the cost being split up by as many customers as you can. Lets face it actual how to information in the maint manuals hasn't changed in 50 years- Parts is diffent story with all the modifications incorperated on most beavers these days and any special maintenace instructions specific to kits- but that should be part of the STC info!

[BeaverFixer]

Reading the invoice/information sheet over again, I quote "Viking has reached a long term agreement with Aircraft Technical Publications (ATP) to provide the digital formatting and user functionality via the Navigator V document manegment program.
.....ATP is providing the format, but all sales, support and service will continue to be provided directly by Viking."
I don't think ATP was ever known to be cheap to deal with.
The cost sure does add up, just renewed the Cessna S/B package for $364.00 for the initial CD and $260.00 for one year revision service.
On the flip side, the computer based manuals are sure nice to use and as they are all priced in US $$ of course, it is a good thing we don't have a 60 cent dollar anymore.

[Beaver Driver]

I agree that $1100 is really steep for these manuals. In the last year there was one temporary revision to the Maintenance Manual, and no revisions to the other manuals. That is one expensive piece of paper.

But yes it is a cost of doing business, so basicly Viking has you by the balls and can charge whatever they want.

[sprayrail]

And hey anybody who's had extensive dealings with ATP in the past will understand that they get the added bonus of manual revisions when ATP feels like it not when the actual tech pubs have been revised.