As the owner of the microlight I find myself solely responsible to perform the maintenance on the aircraft. It is my choice to do it myself or hire a professional. It is also my responsibility to maintain an accurate logbook. Unfortunately as you have to trust the AP, he has to trust you to be truthful in the logbook and with the quality of work done.
As Gr8-dad said, the best solution is to get an AP who is highly knowledgeable of you particular model to do the inspection. In my case, Peter Wolf, here in CT is the agent and AP for Challenger aircraft and he did all my inspections when I still had AUKie. Doing an inspection with him is a pleasure because he understands the model so well, when improvements were made, which bulletins are relevant etc. Gr8-dad can attest in great detail, as other owners of Challengers that other certain AP's have done a potentially life threatening inspection on planes.
It is difficult for other AP's to give you an accurate inspection if they don't have this knowledge. They are fooling themselves and you. However the big problem is access to the guy who knows your plane. If there is only one sitting in Loeriefontein, how do you get an inspection in Durban.
What would be a brilliant idea IMHO is to start a central repository, within CAA(yeah right) or Aeroclub or probably Misasa, that documents the details around each and every model in great detail. Build a file on the BushBaby, service bulletins, torque specs, measurements, expected lifespan of components, replacement schedules, faults etc etc that is accessible to every registered AP in South Africa.
I would go one further for example and have the most highly qualified Bush Baby AP, set up the checklist with all the data in it i.e. how many millimeters play should there be on the main axle bearings, or how should the linkage between control column and aileron bellcrank be set up. This information is then held centrally, the AP doing the inspection can go online and study the notes and download the relevant checklists. In this way you can ensure that the trustworthy AP will perform a given level of inspection Additionally it is the responsibility of each and every manufacturer of new aircraft to provide this central repository with the recommended inspection lists for their aircraft.
