100-Hour and Annual Inspections: Tracking Maintenance Without Surprises

Training aircraft that fly many hours a week reach inspection limits quickly. A school that plans around those limits keeps its schedule stable. A school that finds out on the morning of a lesson loses the aircraft, the lesson, and sometimes the student's confidence in the operation.

Inspection intervals differ by country, aircraft category and how the aircraft is used, so always follow your authority and maintenance programme. What follows is about tracking, not about replacing your maintenance organisation's requirements.

Track both hours and calendar time

Many deadlines are triggered by whichever comes first: flight hours or elapsed calendar time. An aircraft that flies little can still be due by date, and a busy one by hours. A tracking sheet that shows only one of the two will eventually mislead you.

Show what is left, not what has passed

"Next inspection at 1,450 hours" forces mental arithmetic. "22 hours remaining" does not. Whatever you use, display the remaining value and sort aircraft so the closest deadline is first.

Warn early enough to book the work

The point of a warning is to leave time to arrange the hangar slot and the downtime. For a busy aircraft, a warning at a few hours remaining is already too late. Decide in advance how many hours or days ahead you want a flag, and what each flag triggers.

Take the aircraft off the schedule before the limit

Make the schedule itself aware of maintenance. If the aircraft is due on a certain day, block it in the calendar so students and instructors cannot book into the gap. This is the cheapest way to avoid cancelled lessons.

Keep one owner and one source of truth

Every deadline should have a named person responsible and one place where its status lives. When the same number exists in a spreadsheet, a logbook and a head, they will disagree.

FlightDesk AI keeps aircraft hours, remaining time to the next inspection, and engine and propeller TBO in the same place as your schedule, and flags what is coming up. Related reading: Engine and propeller TBO tracking and Recordkeeping and scheduling safety.