tony roberts wrote in message news:nospam-4DDD2A.22064411082004@shawnews...

One thing that I don't understand, and hopefully someone here will
enlighten me, is why it is so sacred to have an aircraft that hasn't had
accident damage.

Karma. Any 172 that survives 5000 hours of rental use without a good
pranging must have gotten an extra coat of magic pixie dust at the
factory.

Two of my friends each have aircraft that had accident damage over 30
years ago.
So What?
They have flown beautifully for more than 30 years since the accident -
so what is the big deal? I absolutely don't get it. - It would be
different if the accident was 5 flight hours ago - but these are more
than a major TBO away.

Shh! If everybody starts figuring out that a modest scrape a few
decades ago doesn't make a plane unflyable a lot of the good deals
will disappear.

In Alaska the definition of an salable PA-18 is one on which you can
still make out the registration plate. They'll happily rebuild the
whole plane around it with 90% new parts. But hey, it'll still have a
major damage history.

-cwk.