Light Aircraft

An Introduction to Quality, Part 1

When Dr. James Allen decided on an avionics upgrade, he wasn't planning on fixing up his Cherokee 235's dowdy interior.

There was no question that the interior needed some attention. A big hole in the headliner leaked insulation and the door seal admitted daylight and freezing air in the winter. Some brilliant non-aviation upholsterer had redone the pilot and copilot seats are few years earlier in a distinctly un-aviation fashion. And much of the interior plastic was missing, cracked, and falling apart.

Allen was most excited about the useful new avionics suite that he wanted for the Cherokee, the UPS (now Garmin) CNX-80 with a colorful moving map, integrated coms, navs, and transponder and upcoming WAAS capability.

As was his usual practice, Allen consulted with fellow airplane owners before selecting an avionics shop not too far from his airport base outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

While visiting this shop, which we'll call Vendor A, Allen learned that the company also does interior work although interiors isn't the company's specialty. Along with the avionics quote, Allen asked for a price on new interior sidewalls, headliner, and replacement of the worn plastic with new PMA parts that Allen had already purchased.

Allen, who admits that he isn't much of a sophisticated buyer when it comes to shopping around for quality work on his airplane, was relatively satisfied with the quote provided by Vendor A. He did obtain a quote from one other shop, but Vendor A was convenient and the company's owner said that they could handle the interior work as well as the avionics. Allen didn't think it significant that the owner didn't even suggest reupholstering the seats, which would have shown that the company recognizes poorly done work and is also on the lookout for other ways to serve customers, not to mention add revenues, something that any business owner ought to be doing. As it turned out, there were many other revenue/service opportunities that Vendor A ignored. Another big red flag was that the workscope was agreed to verbally, with no written estimate or outline of the expected work.

The avionics portion was a quality job, but the interior part of the job was somewhat, well, lame. "In retrospect," Allen said, "I got no real support from Vendor A saying, `You made a good decision and you'll be happy with this interior.' In selecting this vendor, I got no positive feedback.

"The other issue," he added, "was consulting services. I mean, somebody who's going to hold your hand and tell you, `There's a lot of things you can do with this interior.' Such as, `You don't want a red headliner, you want light inside the cabin.' And, `You want to match the seats with the rest of the interior because you see them first.'"

During one of his visits to Vendor A, Allen and his airline pilot daughter Mary were shown some sample materials. "Vendor A's helper showed me some samples," he said, "and said, `I've seen this color and this together.' There was no consulting there.

"The whole issue of consulting is a real issue. I'm not color blind but I'm colorchallenged. I've got a small airplane, and the way to make it big is by adding light colors at the top. There was no just sitting down and talking, about how the company relates to me as a consumer, about reinforcement that I'm doing the correct thing getting this new interior. Now I realize that it's really nice to sit in an airplane that feels nice and fits together. I used to think the interior was a distant third to avionics, but it's nice to have a great interior."

Within a few minutes, the Allens chose materials that they would be living with for probably as long as they owned the Cherokee. There was no discussion of the pros and cons of various materials, no suggestion that leather, while expensive, might make a better choice for the long term, no consultation with a designer, no options for soundproofing to be added under the sidewalls, and most important, no written agreement that specified Allen's desire for the plastic to be replaced and for the correct type of Piper side pockets to be installed in the forward sidewalls.

At the time, Allen had never been exposed to a high-quality aircraft service company. Operating his airplane in his small corner of the aviation universe, Allen was unacquainted with the kind of shop that might be considered more high-end and that charges high prices. Allen, like many pilots, would rather spend an available sizable chunk of money on a nifty modern moving-map avionics box. As he learned, however, a true high-quality interior does have its attractions.

First, Allen got to experience the how-not-to-do-it school of aircraft interior installation with Vendor A. The material selection process was over in a flash, which included his clear request for the Piper-style map pockets and for the new plastic to be installed. As it turned out, Vendor A finally told Allen that it would be impossible to install the new plastic parts, which included a new overhead console and the Piper floor-mounted elevator trim cover. The reasons were not exactly clear, but had something to do with the fact that the parts were PMA parts and not factory original parts (which are not even available for this early 1960s-era Cherokee) and that there might be some difficulty lining up holes or some other lame excuse.

As for the map pockets, Allen said, "I told him a number of times, and he guaranteed to do it." But when Allen came to pick up the airplane, he immediately noticed that the installer had cut slots into the sidewalls instead of sewing on the requested map pocket.

In retrospect, Allen recalled during the initial meetings with Vendor A, "I was kind of bothered. I kept telling him about my requirements, but he never took down any notes. A waitress does it when she's taking orders."

Although the avionics installation was done to his satisfaction, Allen was more than a bit surprised at the condition of his interior. The Cherokee's cabin was dirty, he said, "and nobody had vacuumed it out." There were spare--hopefully!--screws on the floor and a lonesome drill bit. Worst of all, however, was that someone had installed the pilot's seat incorrectly. A Cherokee seat slides onto the seat tracks via a slot into which each side of the seat's roller brackets must be inserted. One side of the seat was installed so that the bracket surrounding the rollers rested on top of the seat track instead of gripping the seat track so the roller rolls on the track. "When I saw it was all dirty," he said, "I wondered who was supervising this? Hopefully they didn't drill holes in wires or fuel lines."

Disappointed, Allen flew home thinking, "I just wasted my money. At least I don't have dirty sidewalls and the headliner looks better."

At Allen's insistence, the Vendor A technician had tried to install the trim wheel cover, but the position of the trim indicator was not visible because the technician didn't cut open the slot over the indicator. So Allen had no way of knowing the trim tab position. Allen also noticed that Vendor A had installed rear seat headphone jacks for the passengers, which he had requested. But the jacks were installed in little brackets mounted where the Cherokee's ashtrays used to be located, and the brackets were positioned so that they restricted the opening of the rear seat, which is supposed to provide access to the fuel selector and critical flight control cables and the flap system during routine inspections. "This was another quality control problem," Allen said.

What Allen learned through the experience of having paid for a low-quality interior job is only part of the story. The real story is that Allen ended up with a much better quality interior and learned how high-quality interior refurb shops operate and what to expect from a company that truly cares about its customers. -- By Matt Thurber

Read about Allen's ultimately satisfying experience in the next installment.