Bear in mind I'm no AP but I have surveyed enough ships with ship surveyors over the years and then had to repair them as well as project manage the build of 3 ships for owners. I sort of get it about how things are put together. I have built light stucture dinghys and kayaks with my own hands and then trusted my life to them. With that as prelude...
How I got 41G:
Bought and read the club book.
Read everything on offer on the AOPA website.
Set a budget, desired spec and deal breakers.
Got funds in place so I could buy on the spot if I liked.
Avoided eBay as overpriced and too many conditions in favor of seller and not buyer.
Scoured Barnstormers and came up with 16 x 150's in the New England area that met the criteria.
Called and emailed the owners for more details. This immediately eliminated 10 with what I would call "could not be bothered to get me the information I needed to help me make a decision" -itis.
Used "Gut" instinct during the phone calls about how a couple of folks sounded and eliminated those planes.
This got me down to 5 planes that seemed to meet the criteria.
Pulled FAA paperwork on the first two.
Got sample insurance quotes on those two.
Asked around for reputation of the first two.
Someone warned me the first one was full of well hidden corrosion. Went to see it anyway but didn't bother to take a mechanic or anyone else - used this one as a toe in the water and walk away. Found enough to scare me off in the first 5 mins without any need for another pair of eyes. Spent another couple of hours looking at it to get an idea of what to look for.
Second one sounded better. Had a documented damage history and FAA paperwork on the incident and the repairs. Took my CFI and a mechanic to look at it. Based on serial number took along 12 inches of paper representing all AD's, SAIB's, SEB's and maintenance I was looking for on the plane. Also arranged a prioritized list of "walk away if found, negotiate hard if found, negotiate soft if found" based on AD SAIB and SEB compliance and actual state of the damage repairs.
We ended up putting 24 man hours into inspecting it (3 people x 8 hours).
At the end I had two questions:
To mechanic - "Would you let your kid learn to fly in this plane?"
To my somewhat anally retentive in the maintenance department CFI - "Are you comfy flying this plane blind off this grass strip with me in the left seat and you in the right having never seen her before?".
On both saying "I'm OK with that" we test flew her for 40 mins. We did a little airwork. My CFI confirmed she was in rig and just fine. I got to do my first soft fields!.
I negotiated the price down a 5% based on:
- Cost of putting right minor defects found during pre-buy.
- Softer market prices that week on Barnstormers for the same advertised spec.
- Recognition that mounting an inspection day with a mechanic, CFI and travel was going to cost $1,200 per inspection. If I could not squeeze off the last $600 - another inspection day was going to be worse!
I've not regretted it and the only "surprise" was a Turn Coordinator that quit about 30 hours after purchase. Anything after this is my wear and tear on the plane and not the fault of the seller.
Anyway - that's how I did it and YMMV!
