"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
...
On Jul 17, 3:45 pm, "Mike" wrote:

Many people seem to care about aircraft total time, so obviously it does
affect resale to some extent and right or wrong that should be a
consideration because it affects what the aircraft is worth on the open
market. I would personally be much more concerned about an aircraft
that's
sat around in some field with grass growing around it for years on end.
High time generally means the aircraft has been regularly flown, well
maintained, and upgraded for it's entire life. My airplane has almost
9,000 hrs and I'm not at all worried about it. I know a guy that owns a
172
with over 17,000 hrs on it and it's still going strong.

I think that's a concern in the industry though. As our fleet ages we
may find that planes will start falling from the sky at some point.
Boeing puts limits on how many cycles a plane can have. It would make
sense too that a spar can only flex so many times, wouldn't it (I'm
not metal expert though)?

Perhaps there is such a point, but I don't believe that point is within the
realistic life of a small GA aircraft. The limit Boeing puts on aircraft
will be in the neighborhood of 40,000 hours or more. Even at that you have
a lot of 727s and 747s still flying at well over 70,000 hours. You're also
talking about aircraft that endure extremes of pressure and temperature on
every flight and routinely penetrate severe weather that no pilot of a small
GA aircraft would purposely go anywhere near. Corrosion is a much greater
threat to GA aircraft than metal fatigue.