For owners of piston airplanes
Whatever just broke on your airplane has already broken on somebody else's.
PocketSquawk is a crowdsourced squawk board for piston owners. Post what went wrong, how long the shop had it, and what the bill came to. Then look up the same squawk on the other 4,128 Piper PA-28-140s flying today, and find out whether you are looking at a four hundred dollar afternoon or a two month wait on a part.
Free to post your own. Nineteen dollars a year to see what everyone else's airplane has been doing.
How it works
Three things, and nothing else
Post the squawk
Pick the system, say what happened, note the tach or Hobbs reading. Fifteen seconds standing at the wing. The hour matters, because “the alternator quit” is hangar talk and “the alternator quit at 1,180 hours” is something the next owner can plan around.
Close it out with the two numbers nobody shares
How long the airplane was down, and what the invoice came to. That is the part owners never put on the forums, and it is the whole reason to have a place like this. Post a range if you would rather. Post nothing if you would rather. But somebody posting it is what makes the next guy's estimate real.
Compare notes
Open your model and see what other owners are fighting: which squawks come up most, roughly when in the airframe's life, how long the fix took, and what it ran. Then decide whether yours is normal, whether the quote in your hand is fair, and what to ask about before you buy one.
Why a crowd and not a database
Your airplane is not unique. That is the good news.
There are 4,128 Piper PA-28-140s on the registry. They are wearing out the same parts in roughly the same order, getting quoted by the same kinds of shops, and waiting on the same back-ordered parts. Nobody is writing that down in one place. That is the only thing PocketSquawk is trying to do.
Nineteen dollars a year
What comparing notes is actually worth
Nineteen dollars is less than one quart of oil. You should still be able to point at where it comes back.
Those are ranges from what owners report and typical shop rates, not a promise. Your airplane and your shop will do what they do.
No airplane yet?
Then you are exactly who this is for.
Every model page is free to read: how many are flying, how old they are, and what owners are posting about them. If you are about to write a very large check, spend an hour here first.
Before you sign anything
One model, everything owners are saying about it
The squawks that come up most on the model you are looking at, the hours they tend to show up, what owners paid to fix them, and a checklist to hand the shop doing your prebuy. Same nineteen dollars as everyone else pays.
Fair questions
Is this supposed to replace my aircraft logbook?
No. Your airframe, engine and propeller logs are legal records, they stay with the airplane, and entries in them get made by the person who did the work. Nothing here touches that.
PocketSquawk is owners comparing notes: what broke, how long it was down, what it cost. Useful for deciding what to do next, worthless as a maintenance record, and it does not pretend otherwise.
I would be member number twelve. What good is this to me yet?
Honestly, less than it will be at member number two hundred. This is a crowd product and the crowd has to show up. We would rather say that than pretend a network effect exists before it does.
What we can do on day one is start with your model. When twenty owners of the same airplane are posting, that model page turns on and stays useful. So the fastest thing you can do is drag three people who fly what you fly.
Do I really have to post what I paid?
No. Cost is optional on every squawk, and you can give a range instead of an exact figure.
But it is the number owners most want and least often get. A squawk with a downtime and a dollar figure on it is worth ten without. Post what you are comfortable posting.
Will this end up attached to my N-number?
Never. What gets published is the aggregate — “18% of this model reported a brake issue, median repair $340” — with no tail numbers and no way back to an individual airplane. A tool that could hurt your resale value is a tool nobody would tell the truth to.
Experimental? Light sport?
Post away — everything works. Model comparison is certified piston first, because the FAA registry lists nearly one distinct model code per homebuilt, which makes grouping them honestly a harder problem. Van's RV owners are next in line; there are enough identical RVs flying to do it properly.
Is any of this maintenance advice?
No. PocketSquawk records what owners tell it and counts it up. It does not diagnose your airplane, and it will never tell you something is airworthy. That is your A&P's job and yours.