The "bottom line" in having a successful outsourcing experience for Don Baldwin is "aligning yourself with a good, trusted maintenance manager to handle the oversight of it," the former flight department manager (Texaco, Coca-Cola) said recently.

Outsourcing heavy inspections has become the norm, NBAA Director, Technical Operations Eli Cotti observed recently. "It seems to me that the majority of single-aircraft operators that do not have a maintenance department are having to outsource everything," Cotti said. "So who do they have as a resource or someone with the experience to help them go through a major inspection without fumbling and potentially losing a lot of money?"

At last count, among all of its diverse operating companies, NetJets, Inc., had 734 business jets in its worldwide stable. NetJets Aviation, the conglomerate's higher-profile fractional ownership division, accounted for 440 of them in its North American operation. So it knows about maintenance management.