"Jay Honeck" wrote
In my opinion, these little things tell the tale of an aircraft. An owner
isn't going to put out that kind of effort, and then skate on oil changes,
for example. You can usually judge a book by its cover, IF the airplane has
been in the same hands for a while.

Nonsense. These airplanes are old. Unless you're talking about a
hangar queen that flies 20-50 hours a year and gets worked on 200-500
hours, there's no such thing as a perfect airplane out there. They
all need SOMETHING. Everywhere you look, something is wearing,
something is corroding, something is cracking, something is out of
rig, out of tune, out of adjustment. Maybe it's not safety critical
right now, but eventually something will have to be done - and it's
usually cheaper to do something small now than wait for it to break.

So it's not a question of - should I be doing something for the
airplane. The only question is, what should I be doing.

The owner who has the time to keep the paint and interior immaculate
is usually the same owner who just doesn't know enough to fix stuff,
so he does what he can. Then he tells you that NDB approaches are
inaccurate, forgetting that once people shot them to 200-1/2. The
reality is that he doesn't know how to properly adjust the antenna and
shield the receiver, and assumes there's nothing he can do. He'll
tell you that LORAN's all go flaky as soon as it starts to rain -
because he doesn't even realize his airplane doesn't have the full
complement of static wicks. He'll tell you it's normal for the
airplane to drop a wing in the stall - because he doesn't know how to
rig it properly. There are lots of other examples.

On the other hand, I know of owners who fly around in the doggiest looking
pieces of crap you've ever seen, who are fairly meticulous about the
mechanical condition of their aircraft. This is not usually the case
(most aircraft owners take pride in the appearance of their aircraft), but
I've seen it more than once.

You've seen it more than you think. It's a matter of priorities -
those who really know the airplane are too busy to clean it because
they have more important things to do.

Those aircraft are your best bargains, if you can find them. An aircraft
with crappy paint and interior, but in great shape mechanically, will be
your best possible buy -- but they're really hard to find.

Yes, they're usually hard to find - because they're usually sold
locally, by word of mouth. If you see one advertised, it's because
the owner doesn't want to let it go at a bargain price. He wants to
see some return on his effort. Usually he won't get it.

So what he will do, once he has decided to sell the aircraft, is let
it go. Stop doing these repairs for the long haul. Then he'll send
it to the shop for a coat of paint and interior, and it's down the
road.

Our first plane was a '75 Warrior that had been ridden hard and put to bed
wet. Used as a trainer, it had some hangar rash, a mid-time engine, high
total hours, but great paint and a good interior.

Yeah, exactly. Typical.

Michael