If you’re reading this, then this blog somehow made it through the institutional censors. Of course, everyone abhors the thoughts of “censors”, so these guys refer to themselves by the more palatable term “proof readers”. Professional proof readers call themselves Editors, and if you make a living writing, you’d better be careful to appeal to your target audience lest you find yourself edited out the door. OK, enough fun with this sarcasm.   Businessmen and academia are perpetually analyzing the...

Your customer has an urgent need for hard to find new Hi-Lok fasteners. You finally locate some New Surplus parts, but your source shares that the trace is to government military stock. Your customer’s Jurassic policy is that they will not accept any parts with trace to a government/military source period, so their aircraft languishes for lack of parts, and they will pay a lot more waiting for the commercial sources to get stock. Is this policy in the best interest of their fleet and budget? We’...

We need to have a frank talk about a continuing pattern of injustice and seemingly anti-competitive behavior in the aftermarket. I’ll start. Due to the current covid crisis, and perhaps to the delight of OEMs (herein manufacturers who are Production Approval Holders, PAH, or have Production Organisation Approvals, POA) who in recent years have made major forays into the aftermarket, there are many small independent MROs staggering on the brink of business failure. Aside from covid, are there any...