Scudrunners

Canadians like to continually smugly shit over
Americans about the supposed superiority of
our aircraft maintenance.

Ok, I accept and embrace that rhetoric.

Note the C-reg on the aircraft that had it's wheel
fall off at Buffalo during landing:



http://www.wgrz.com/story/news/local/20 ... /29973255/

Good job!  Next time, use a cotter pin.

I have seen sketchy maintenance on both sides of the border, but sometimes even the best wrench turner misses things.

I have flown aircraft maintained by "amateur" mechanics who do a superior job to a professional wrench turner.

A professional is on the clock.  If an amateur
knows what he is doing, because he can lavish
the time on it - some homebuilders will spend
10 or 20 [b][i]YEARS[/i][/b] on an airplane - they can
do a much better job.

Monte Barrett, who rebuilds both certified and
hotrod piston aircraft engines, says that he cannot
justify the many hours spend balancing and blueprinting
to his customers because it does not increase horsepower
on the dyno, but it produces a much smoother-running
engine.

And as you say, there are good and bad mechanics on
both sides of the border.  Same with flight instruction,
etc.

It annoys me when I see parochial advocates boosting
their local industry (no conflict of interest there, uh huh)
and inevitably the biggest boosters have travelled the
least and have little knowledge of how things are done
elsewhere.