If you are on a budget the only way to own an aircraft is to learn how to do it yourself. Around here you are lucky to get an annual inspection from a shop under five grand.
I agree. However it can be harder to do in some places than in others and you'll need to shop around to find the right mechanic.
In my experience there are a couple different approaches to annual inspections:
1) The "make it as perfect as possible" approach; and
2) The "make sure it is airworthy and fix the required/flight critical items" approach.
#1 will cost $4K-5K per year. #2 will cost about $1000-$1500 on the same aircraft, but a good mechanic can still produce a safe to fly aircraft with the less expensive annual.
To be fair the FAA has been pushing number 1 in the recent past, no doubt as part of the growing focus on bureaucratic butt covering rather than a more field focused approach. However that creates a massive problem when it costs a Champ or Citabria owner $4K per year ($333 per month and $40 pre flight hour if the owner flies it 100 hours per year), just to keep the aircraft in service. It ultimately prices that whole segment of general aviation right out of aviation.
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There are also mechanics who support owner assisted/supervised maintenance and other mechanics who complain and say it's really hard to work with owners and that they don't support it at all. I suspect to some extent it depends on how well the mechanic in question can mentor, teach and supervise. When I hear an AP/IA that doesn't support owner assisted maintenance and won't work with them to complete an annual inspection, I question how competent that IA really is at not just inspecting and signing off on work, but also at mentoring A&Ps to advance their skills.
Admittedly some owners may means well but still do something not quite right. For example, taking out all the spark plugs, which then requires the the AP/IA to put the lower plugs back in to do a bleed down test on the cylinders. Is that more work for the IA/AP? Not really, and if the AP/IA communicated what needed to happen in a more thorough manner the owner probably would not have done it, and in any event will know better next year.
However, if the owner has reasonable ability with tools, owns the basic tools and can take direction and follow instructions, owner assisted maintenance works just fine.
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There are also good and not so good AP/IAs, and I think owner assisted maintenance can lead to a better overall annual.
When I bought my 7KCAB it came with a fresh annual and that annual was on the very low end of #2. In fact, I'll argue it was substandard given the items I found that were concerning enough to bring in my own mechanic to look at it.
For example, I noted the belt on the generator was not aligned with the pulley behind the prop, was showing abnormal wear patterns on the belt, and had eaten into the front baffle about 1/4". Once the lower cowl was removed I discovered the safety wire was missing from the bolt securing the generator to the adjustment slide, was broken on the bolt at the top of the slide, and one of the nuts was totally missing from the front attachment point on the generator. I strongly suspect the AP/IA that did the annual never removed the lower cowl. Even without removing the lower cowl, I'm amazed he didn't spot the generator issue.
The end result of the consult with my mechanic was a punch list of small items to correct (proper safety wiring of the gascolator, tape under the ties on the engine mount (and I replaced the zip ties with tie string), adding grommets and fire sealing the through holes in the firewall, stop drilling a few cracks in the engine baffles, etc.
Had I just accepted the aircraft after it came out of annual, it would have almost certainly suffered a generator failure during the year due to either belt or bearing failure, the cracks in the baffle would have progressed, the un-grommeted and unsealed holes in the firewall would have caused wear on wires and fuel lines as well as posed a fire risk, and the un safety wired gascolator could have potentially lost it's bowl in a hard landing or on a rough strip and caused engine failure, stranding the aircraft at best.
The big benefit for me is not just saving a lot of money on labor costs but also knowing my aircraft much better than I ever knew any of the aircraft I rented.
