First Flight following complete paint job.

Greetings,

This is a request for input from AP’s/AI’s that wish to respond. Or anybody with experience with post-major maintenance shakedown first flts. Just finishing a complete paint job on my ‘77 Commander 112 TCA. By complete I mean control surfaces removed and hopefully balanced prior to reinstall.

Any observations, recommendations and advice would be greatly appreciated. The shop does have an A&P to perform and sign off this part of the job. I have offered to provide copies of pertinent maintenance manual sections. Should be done in the next week to ten days.

Regards and thanks,

Ed

A bit late, but for anybody following up on this - check all the "masking tape" is removed. Meaning everything added for any reason during the strip, prep, paint, reassemble process. Example. Beautiful new RV aircraft had a fresh paint job from a 2-states-away paint shop. And one wing's fuel tank trim stripe didn't quiiiite match up. The owner had missed a tiny spot of tape over the vent and the tank collapsed in flight on the way home. The paint shop said "send us a replacement tank and we can match it from our masking records for your aircraft." Close but no cigar. So they offered to make it right if he flew it back to them, but he decided to leave it as a reminder to check everything on preflight.

I ONCE left tape over a fuel vent after a wash job I did myself - but saw the wing skin pull slightly and switched tanks before it collapsed. Your smileage may vary.