Scudrunners

One fascinating subject that doesn't get any interest these days is Conflict of Interest.

Let's say someone is selling you an airplane, and they tell you it's perfect and worth twice
market. Would you believe them? Why not?

See the recent dust up on the acro mailing list ...

https://groups.google.com/g/aerobatics/ ... oter&pli=1

You need a pre-purchase inspection on an aircraft. Would you have the AME that's been
signing off all the recent annuals do it? Why not? Would it matter if the AME is the brother
in law of the seller?

Everyone is trying to sell you something, to better themselves. Not you. They have a conflict
of interest that they forgot to mention. You need to have some healthy skepticism when people
tell you some crazy narrative.

Ask yourself: why is this person pushing this crap at me, so enthusiastically? Do they
have something to gain, if I make a mistake and believe them?

Sometimes, when someone pushes crap at you, they aren't actually an evil genius. Few
people are. A lot of the time, they are just pushing crap at you, that someone pushed at
them, and they want you to buy into it, to validate the stupidity of the herd.

They will tell you, things are great if you buy into our narrative. Well, they are at this moment ...



Ask questions. Think for yourself. Examine the motives of narratives, and the people
that push them so violently. Cults rarely do any good for anyone who isn't at the top.

You know. Kommissars.

The first plane I bought I didn't bother getting a prepurchase. I just checked the logs, did a test flight, and took a chance. It worked out ok, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

But even when getting a prepurchase, you need to make sure you use someone competent. I wasted over $1000 getting a prepurchase when the AME discovered from the logs that the plane had flipped over in a windstorm. The owner had told me "no damage history" because his (cheap AME who operates from a van) prepurchase inspection hasn't noticed it. I really should have checked more of the logs before handing it over to my AME. I checked back about 20 years, but the flip happened 30 years ago. It was all repaired properly, but two main problems remained: [1] My AME told me that it was still "damaged goods" and [2] I just didn't trust the seller. Anyway, I ended up getting a much better plane for 3 times the price, so it worked out ok in the end.

People have written books about buying airplanes, but I see it in three stages:

1) Paperwork. Does the aircraft have a valid C of R? Liens? Clear title? Does
it have a valid C of A? AD research on airframe, engine, prop, avionics, misc?
Time to examine the logs since new. Long periods of disuse? Based in high
salt/humidity areas? Damage? Who did the last engine overhaul? How many
years ago? Any aircraft without logs since new either gets heavily discounted,
or walk away.

2) Quick Inspection by someone that knows the type, and quickly knows where
to look at the high wear / likely damage places. Also look for the documented
damage history repair - quality? - and physical compliance with the paperwork
AD's - check the numbers on the parts (airframe, engine, prop, misc parts) to
make sure they match the paper! Try hard to spot undocumented damage.

3) Annual inspection by your AME. Airplane completely comes to pieces,
spread it out all over the hangar floor. One day firewall forward on the engine,
one day on the airframe. Get that first, horrible, expensive annual out of the way
during the purchase. Your AME will have a ridiculously long list of stuff that he
insists is "mandatory" - now, what does that say about the last AME? - and you go to
the seller and negotiate a better price with the necessary parts and labor to make
it airworthy.



Generally, you can reject most aircraft after steps (1) and (2) which you can
often do yourself, with a little research and a flashlight.

What I would suggest to most people, it to first choose a type. Fly some aircraft.
Do you like high wing? Low wing? You a Cessna guy? Piper? Grumman? Beech?

Research the hell out of the type. Generally the AD's and SB's will tell the story -
learn about them. Learn about specific models and years - sometimes, AD's will
be very selective about which serial numbers apply. Spend far too much time
online. Learn about the airframe. Learn about the engine. Learn about the
prop. I don't have to tell you to learn about the avionics, pilots are all over that
like fat kids on a Smartie.

^This here is just good advice for spending tens of thousands of dollars on anything. I’ve mentioned similar to friends and they often turn their nose up at the thought of doing a day or two of hard homework, only to have it bite them to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. If a penny saved is a penny earned, just imagine if someone was paying you fifty thousand bucks for two days worth of reading. You’d do it, right?