bought me an aeroplane

Ah, well, hey, it's done now. I've got one! A nice '79 152 with a
decent mid-time engine. Well, not entirely done yet but close. Here's
the story.

After I decided to bail on the 150 I had the pre-buy on I was itchy (not
a great thing, I know) to find myself an airplane. I pored over all the
online ads again and called on a few. Most promising prospect was down
in Kankakee, IL, about 2 hours from me. Sounded good on papar: 7500TT,
1200 SMOH (overhaul done in '98 - I learned to ask about time since
overhaul!), typical otherwise. $19.9K, just reduced from $22K. All
logs. Flight school plane. Called and got more details and a bunch of
pics sent. Owned by a doctor that runs the flight school.

I decided to take a drive down there. Here comes the part where the
group is going to yell at me (I understand - it's Ok). I felt that I
learned a lot watching the pre-buy on that 150. The guy on the phone
had told me he'd make one of his mechanics available to me to do
whatever I wanted at no charge. So, I planned on going down there,
flying the thing, having the mechanic pull all the panels and let me
look inside, do a compression test, cut the filter, and look behind the
panel. I decided there could at least be a chance I'd be satisfied
enough to buy that day, so I came with a cashier's check made out to me
that I could sign-over if I so decided.

So, get down there and look over the plane. The owner had warned me the
paint was not great, but there's nothing wrong with it. Minor dings &
scratches. I was never out to buy a beauty contest winner. I had no
problem with the P&I (seats were just recovered). I started by going
through the logs. I spent a good hour. Nothing out of the ordinary -
except maybe that the logs themselves were not in good condition, with
loose pages and stains all over. Showed major of the engine in '98 as
stated, top overhaul 400 hours after that with 4 recon Lyc jugs,
annualed 1/04, good compression numbers all over. Had tires, break
discs, windshield replaced at annual.

I was pleased at what I saw behind all the panels - essentially no
corrosion to speak of, and cables & pulleys looked well-lubed. My
mechanic had explained that mild corrosion (the white powder) can almost
always be stopped dead with that spray-on corrotion treatment, but there
was not even more than just a hint of that in a couple places anywhere.
It was shiny aluminum or, in some places, dirty/greasy aluminum - but
no corrosion.

Before going into the compression check I wanted to do a runup. Oh, one
big problem: no flying today. The wind was unreal - they recorded a
gust of 41 knots. That was a big bummer. I was sure I was not going to
buy it without flying. Anyway, the static runup gave 2200 RPM. Now, I
complained about that, citing that the POH specifies 2280-2380 as
normal. We were at 600' msl. I was told the tach could be off, etc.
Who knows. We'll see how it flies. It sounded normal to me - it
sounded fine.

Compression checks turned out mid to high 60s - which isn't great. I
was told by the mechanic that it is more typical to do them hot - the
cylinders were barely warm to the touch after the brief runup. It makes
sense to me that the numbers are going to be higher with a hot engine,
with the rings properly expanded.

I'll stop here and note that this reads like I very well could have been
being taken by this bunch - the owner, the friend/broker, the mechanics.
I feel I am a pretty good judge of people. The mechanic struck me as
honest and disinterested. The owner's got litterally millions of
dollars worth of aircraft in the hangar were sitting in - a pristine
Stearman bipe, a Yak-52, others. Is he going to try to screw somebody
badly on a $20,000 152? Anyway, as we'll see in a bit, I did basically
buy it but I had a contract written with a complete, no string attached
"out" for me: when I come down to pick it up, I get a test flight, with
the option to cancel the deal for any reason I see fit.

So, anyway, that was the deal. The airplane looked reasonable, I know
there isn't a corrosion problem, there's full logs and I know it's been
maintained, I know the engine has a fresh overhaul and lots of time
left, and I have an out anyway! I signed the contract (which I
dictated, and yes I had to fight a bit for that out clause), gave them
the check, took the logs, and went home. I will probably pick her up on
Tuesday. I have already decided to demand another compression check
after the test flight, and if the numbers don't register at least
slightly higher than may cancel the deal for me. I also plan to talk to
my mechanic at length about compression numbers before heading down.

As I said I payed $19.9. VREF puts the value at $22.6. I tried
negotiating further, of course, but was told that the current price was
firm - and that someone from Fargo, ND was possibly coming to look at
the plane that very day. And that got my attention, because a flight
school in Fargo had just bought the run-out 152 my FBO was selling the
day before! They came while I was waiting for that 150 to arrive. So,
if he'd been BSing to worry me about the plane being sold to another, he
couldn't have picked a better city. (I took this, actually, as another
confirmation of my assessment of this operation as "kosher".)

So, congragulate me or call me a fool - your choice. :-)

~Paul

P.S. The route home takes me directly over ORD - O'Hare - I mean within
1 nm of directly over the field. Well, we'll see how much I get
vectored around! Maybe it's just better to cirumvent the bravo altogether.