Advice request -- buying an airplane

Hello all,

I have an opportunity to buy a 1978 C-172 that appears to be in better
than good condition for a better than good (for me) price. The logs are
current and an annual was completed in February -- I've talked to that
mechanic and he said the ship is in good shape.
I thinking about offering a $500 good faith deposit, refundable only if
I find something wrong in a pre-buy inspection and have cause to back out.
Does that sound fair? Should it be more or less?
I have a recommendation for a good mechanic who has never seen the
airplane but know nothing about avionics shops. The aircraft is nearby Wm.
J. Fox field in Lancaster. Any comments on the local folks there?
And to make things lively, I welcome any other suggestions about buying
my first airplane. Well, except from the PT Barnumphytes

Regards,

Casey Wilson

Replace dot with . to send email

Okay .. been thru this a few times ..advice follows:

If you're going to put money down be sure you have a contract that spells
out all the details. Such as .. under exactly what conditions do you get
your
money back. What level of discrpencies on the prebuy will trigger a refund?
What if you fail to complete the sale? What if major airworthiness issues
are
found and you can't come to an agreement on an adjusted price?

As far as the amount .. I've always been asked for at least $1000. But this
is between you and the seller. Of the planes I've sold I've never asked for
a
downpayment or a contract. I've simply held it for each buyer while they did
their prebuy and told them if they changed their mind .. just walk away ..
no
big deal. The last couple planes I sold went very quickly .. less than a
week.

Have AOPA run a title search. It's worth the $95. They'll search for
accident
and incident records, liens, all 337s on file with FAA, registration history
on file with FAA. Make sure there are no breaks in the title chain and
all transfers were correctly filled out. Make sure the logs jive with the
337s and accident history.
I've found accidents on file with FAA and no 337s or log entries as to
how it was repaired. Damage history isn't neccessarily a deal killer if it
was repaired and documented properly.

Use an escrow agent. Buy title insurance.

If you find something good, don't dawdle. In my search for my current
plane every time I though I found a good prospect and called .. it was sold.
The good ones go fast.

In the logs look for a consistent history of fixing things regularly as
needed.
Be suspicious of paint and interior right before a sale. Could be covering
something up.

Expect some things to come up after your purchase. There just always seems
to be some things that you want to do .. or that need attention .. no matter
how good the prebuy was. I try to have about 5% of the purchase price
set aside for this.

Do a good estimate on the costs of ownership. Now double it.

Enjoy your plane. It's nice having a plane sitting there waiting for you
that
no one touches but you.

OW

"Casey Wilson" wrote in message
...
Hello all,

I have an opportunity to buy a 1978 C-172 that appears to be in
better
than good condition for a better than good (for me) price. The logs are
current and an annual was completed in February -- I've talked to that
mechanic and he said the ship is in good shape.
I thinking about offering a $500 good faith deposit, refundable only
if
I find something wrong in a pre-buy inspection and have cause to back out.
Does that sound fair? Should it be more or less?
I have a recommendation for a good mechanic who has never seen the
airplane but know nothing about avionics shops. The aircraft is nearby Wm.
J. Fox field in Lancaster. Any comments on the local folks there?
And to make things lively, I welcome any other suggestions about
buying
my first airplane. Well, except from the PT Barnumphytes

Regards,

Casey Wilson

Replace dot with . to send email

"Otis Winslow"
If you find something good, don't dawdle. In my search for my current
plane every time I though I found a good prospect and called .. it was
sold.
The good ones go fast.

Absolutely. Conversely, don't fall in love with the first thing you see.
If you've been searching awhile, viewed a few, etc. OK. If this is the
first candidate you've seen, be careful. It's unlikely you can spot a 'must
have' deal unless you've viewed a few.

After a few false starts and several months of searching, it became obvious
to me that one way to find the good deal was express mail of Trade-a-Plane
(7 years ago). When I spotted it, I knew enough to jump on an airliner and
show up in person the next day. There's a lot of stuff out there that seems
decent but the truly good deals go quickly.

Enjoy your plane. It's nice having a plane sitting there waiting for you
that
no one touches but you.

amen.

On 15-Apr-2004, "Casey Wilson" wrote:

I have a recommendation for a good mechanic who has never seen the
airplane but know nothing about avionics shops.


Others are offering good advice about shopping and prebuys, but you also
asked about avionics shops. Apparently, you are thinking about having the
avionics "checked out." While it would certainly be possible to have each
"black box" bench checked to verify conformance to specification, this would
be quite costly. Fact is, aside from knobs, switches, and such, solid-state
avionics don't "wear out" in the sense that engines do. A bench checkout
today in no way reduces the probability of failure tomorrow. Were it me, I
would check out operation of all of the avionics myself during flight
testing. Make sure everything works, the radios sound good (both receive
and transmit -- ask ATC for a radio check), the altitude encoder works
properly (ask ATC for verification of altitude readout). You get the idea.
It might be a good idea to make up a list of tests to perform to make sure
that you check all of the onboard avionics. Pay particular attention to
autopilot operation if there is one, and don't forget to check out the
glideslope receiver and indicator.

One other thing I would do is poke my head up behind the radio stack to see
the condition of wiring harnesses. What you should find is neat and secure
wiring, not a rat's nest of wires going every which way.

Then, the only reason to involve an avionics shop would be to give estimates
for repairing any faulty equipment, or to perform a transponder check if one
is due or near due.

--
-Elliott Drucker

Casey,

I purchased an airplane back in December. Very interesting experience.
The process took me about 4 months.

I found a book called "Purchasing and Evaluating Airplanes", by Brian
Jacobson, to be very helpful (published by Odyssey Aviation
Publications). The best thing you can do is to spend a bit of time
educating yourself (as you are doing on this forum) about what you need
to do.

In addition to doing a pre-buy inspection, I got a pre-buy professional
evaluation. You can find your nearest evaluator by contacting the
National Aircraft Appraisers Association. I think these cost around
$200 or so. I found them to worthwhile. They read the logs thoroughly,
rate the paint, panel, interior, etc.

I would strongly suggest that you have the pre-buy inspector (A&P)
create a full report that includes all the things he inspected. There
seems to be no standard on what to include and not include in such an
inspection, especially with respect to the engine. Pay a little more if
you have to. You are making a big investment, it is worth checking it
out thoroughly.

Read the logs cover to cover. Then read them again. Look for any major
repairs that suggest an accident of some sort. The logs do not say
"repaired damage from pilot ramming into the side of a building really
hard with right wing"; they just list a whole bunch of repairs. You
have to conclude what the cause was and become comfortable that the
repairs were done adequately. Also watch for long periods of time where
the plane was not operated. Having an engine sit around can be very
damaging.

Doing all of these does not guarantee you will not have problems. I
purchased my aircraft in January of this year. I had an engine failure
(in-fligth) 2 weeks ago which will require a $22K major overhaul. Was
there something more that I wish I did while buying it that could have
found the fault. I am not sure. I think, in retrospect, I would have
asked for a more thorough pre-buy on the engine itself (of course, that
is easy to say with hindsight). I think I might have also asked for a
few more recommendations on good A&P mechanics that know how to really
do a good pre-buy.

Best of luck to you!

-Sami
N2057M, Piper Turbo Arrow III (temporarily out of commission)

Casey Wilson wrote:
Hello all,

I have an opportunity to buy a 1978 C-172 that appears to be in better
than good condition for a better than good (for me) price. The logs are
current and an annual was completed in February -- I've talked to that
mechanic and he said the ship is in good shape.
I thinking about offering a $500 good faith deposit, refundable only if
I find something wrong in a pre-buy inspection and have cause to back out.
Does that sound fair? Should it be more or less?
I have a recommendation for a good mechanic who has never seen the
airplane but know nothing about avionics shops. The aircraft is nearby Wm.
J. Fox field in Lancaster. Any comments on the local folks there?
And to make things lively, I welcome any other suggestions about buying
my first airplane. Well, except from the PT Barnumphytes

Regards,

Casey Wilson

Replace dot with . to send email