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Why do they let them sit unflown


rainman

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Today I flew into 50R at Lockhart Texas. In the FBO hangar there is a 1975 M20F (N7431V) that has been parked with flat tires and lot's of dust for 11 years and never flown or annualled. According to the desk person at the FBO, the owner moved to another state several years ago. The owner has declined several offers for the plane in the past, and he dutifully pays his hangar rent (it's not abandoned). I understand the emotional connection to one's plane, or perhaps the loss of one's medical being issues for an owner. But really, letting the plane sit for years is like slowly killing any chances of the plane ever flying again. What am I missing? There may be more to the story than I know, but it just looks sad. Ray

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It’s the same or maybe worse at almost any marina. Once-beautiful yachts are deteriorating, half-sunk, peeling varnish and weathered teak, hulls and decks begrimed with mildew, ratty rigging. I can only imagine what shape the motors or sails are in.. A gorgeous day might have one or two boats on the bay. A hundred others never leave the slip, or the driveway. I guess it was fun for a season or two. Keeping the dream alive, maybe. I have no room to talk... my once-good bicycle has hardLy been ridden in 20 years...ummm 35 years? 

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an older guy came into my IA's hangar to talk about an annual for his Lance.  he bought out his partner several years ago, but hasn't flown it much.  It's basically been sitting there.  It's got a vintage panel and dated interior from what I can gather.  He asked us what selling price would be on it.  You could tell by his reaction that he was shocked.  He said that was 30k less than he had in it, but he didn't know what to do with it.  I think situations like that get the ball rolling with some of these planes.  Owner doesn't want to admit to the monetary loss, so he keeps it out of denial.

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Life tends to get in the way at times, started flying in 78' and then stopped and I'm not sure why, some 28 yrs later I pulled out all my books and found a CFI. Now my motorcycle sits in the garage for the last 7 years, so if history repeats it's self I'll drag it out when I'm 80 and start riding again....lol

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There’s a really nice J on the ramp at DVT.  Got a cover on it and everything.  Been sitting there for 3+ years.  Tires starting to go flat.  I’m watching it rot before my eyes.  Owned by some corporation out of Florida that seems to have gone belly up.  I half wonder what would happen if I dragged it over to my hangar, got an annual done, and started flying it, lol.  

 

 

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1 minute ago, ragedracer1977 said:

There’s a really nice J on the ramp at DVT.  Got a cover on it and everything.  Been sitting there for 3+ years.  Tires starting to go flat.  I’m watching it rot before my eyes.  Owned by some corporation out of Florida that seems to have gone belly up.  I half wonder what would happen if I dragged it over to my hangar, got an annual done, and started flying it, lol.  

Good idea.

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It’s sad seeing any plane with flat tires and sitting alone not being touched in years. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again if my plane ever just sits there for more then a month I give you all permission to kick me in the crouch till I sell it.....


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Sometimes there is a story.

There were three planes on our ramp at KPTD with a story.

1) A C182 was owned by a fellow who committed a felony and was sent to prison.  And the airplane rotted and rotted and rotted until it was barely recognizable as an airplane.  And eventually it was confiscated and taken away.

2) A C150 was owned by a nice fellow who stopped flying as he got older.  It took him a long time to come to the decision to sell it.  Meanwhile every winter when loaded up with snow it would sit on its tail.  And in the summer it would right itself.  Eventually he got it sold to a fellow who was also a mechanic and spent like a week fixing it and flew it to Alaska.  A long trip from here in a C150!  I was checking flight aware on that flight hoping he made it.

3) There is a very sad Cherokee on the ramp now, for about 5 years.  It used to be a nice plane and it still looks like a nice plane but its been a long time since it flew.  And all that time sitting.  And it had a cover that eventually tattered in the wind and blew away. That plane was owned by an older fellow who sadly died in a driving accident.  It is now owned by his family/estate who don't seem to understand the value it had or how to sell it.  Some local airport people have reached out to help to sell it and also there were lowish but I hear reasonable offers on a no longer flying airplane. Anyway there it sits.  He was a very nice fellow with a thick Boston accent.

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There IS a story behind each one... some clearly more interesting than others... some just a story about a person and a machine...

 

Picture a giant hill...    /\

1) We all know how much effort it takes to get up that hill... sometimes we are retired by the time we get there...

2) At the top, we have the license, we got the plane, every thing is good... we hang out at the top for decades...

3) Then something life changing happens... oh crap!

4) reminder, It takes a whole bunch of effort to stay at the top of the hill, not as much as getting there though...

5) It seems like, with a little effort, a little recovery, a little more time, something will allow a person to get back on top...

6) Somebody May remind you, sell today, you can always buy another plane once you recover...

7) You know better than anybody else... You are lucky to be alive.  Your chances of flying again are slim. But that machine gives you drive, hope, and a mission... selling at anytime is probably a one way trip, with what you have been through...

8) What you can’t see while you are away, is how quickly things can go south... a Million types of damage can occur to the plane... the costs of achieving an AW status start to mount... small at first, but exponential if somebody bumps into an important part of the plane...

9) Simple things can help get the ball rolling back towards the top of the hill again... flying discussions, MS, a flight, a fly-in, nothing more motivating than being called about going to a fly-in... when you can’t even drive yourself...

10) I admire people that have planned things so well, and followed through with the execution... Bennet did a great job!  His Perfect forever plane showed up under new ownership recently...  Well executed Bennet!

11) Live every day! Make every day count...  there are legal documents to handle what happens to the plane when you are done.... get them written before you need them...

12) It’s only a machine.  With a heart and soul.  And probably a nick-name too...

PP thoughts only, not an age therapist, or lawyer, I have very little experience in this area...

I credit Cris, 201er, Marauder, and our NJMP friend Patrick, for giving me the guidance earlier on... to be able to write such a thought provoking piece... :)  MS has some really good motivating people all spread evenly around the world...

Best regards,

-a-

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6 minutes ago, carusoam said:

There IS a story behind each one... some clearly more interesting than others... some just a story about a person and a machine...

 

Picture a giant hill...    /\

1) We all know how much effort it takes to get up that hill... sometimes we are retired by the time we get there...

2) At the top, we have the license, we got the plane, every thing is good... we hang out at the top for decades...

3) Then something life changing happens... oh crap!

4) reminder, It takes a whole bunch of effort to stay at the top of the hill, not as much as getting there though...

5) It seems like, with a little effort, a little recovery, a little more time, something will allow a person to get back on top...

6) Somebody May remind you, sell today, you can always buy another plane once you recover...

7) You know better than anybody else... You are lucky to be alive.  Your chances of flying again are slim. But that machine gives you drive, hope, and a mission... selling at anytime is probably a one way trip, with what you have been through...

8) What you can’t see while you are away, is how quickly things can go south... a Million types of damage can occur to the plane... the costs of achieving an AW status start to mount... small at first, but exponential if somebody bumps into an important part of the plane...

9) Simple things can help get the ball rolling back towards the top of the hill again... flying discussions, MS, a flight, a fly-in, nothing more motivating than being called about going to a fly-in... when you can’t even drive yourself...

10) I admire people that have planned things so well, and followed through with the execution... Bennet did a great job!  His Perfect forever plane showed up under new ownership recently...  Well executed Bennet!

11) Live every day! Make every day count...  there are legal documents to handle what happens to the plane when you are done.... get them written before you need them...

12) It’s only a machine.  With a heart and soul.  And probably a nick-name too...

PP thoughts only, not an age therapist, or lawyer, I have very little experience in this area...

I credit Cris, 201er, Marauder, and our NJMP friend Patrick, for giving me the guidance earlier on... to be able to write such a thought provoking piece... :)  MS has some really good motivating people all spread evenly around the world...

Best regards,

-a-

Nice Anthony.

You can call my airplane the Blue Pi-Plane

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A month ago I contacted the owner of a Cessna 150B that has been sitting, unmoved, for 20 years.  The owner said to me, "I paid $10,000 for it 15 years ago, I'm sure it's worth at least that much now.  You know they don't make those anymore." (I didn't bother to tell him I checked the FAA records and he actually bought it more than 20 years ago.) I tried to explain engine overhaul prices, new radio, accessories, rusted control cables, etc., and he asked why I thought it would need an engine overhaul?  "It hardly has any hours on it."

And he finished by noting that he has been paying storage on it for a long time, so he's got quite a bit of money tied up in it.  I feel bad for him, he has terminal cancer and doesn't realize his airplane is effectively worthless to anyone but an A&P- and honestly not worth it then, either.

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A month ago I contacted the owner of a Cessna 150B that has been sitting, unmoved, for 20 years.  The owner said to me, "I paid $10,000 for it 15 years ago, I'm sure it's worth at least that much now.  You know they don't make those anymore." (I didn't bother to tell him I checked the FAA records and he actually bought it more than 20 years ago.) I tried to explain engine overhaul prices, new radio, accessories, rusted control cables, etc., and he asked why I thought it would need an engine overhaul?  "It hardly has any hours on it."
And he finished by noting that he has been paying storage on it for a long time, so he's got quite a bit of money tied up in it.  I feel bad for him, he has terminal cancer and doesn't realize his airplane is effectively worthless to anyone but an A&P- and honestly not worth it then, either.
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That’s cherry..... He probably thinks it’s worth more since the airworthy planes don’t come with dirt all over them. Sad times for him and the plane.


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5 hours ago, Andy95W said:

A month ago I contacted the owner of a Cessna 150B that has been sitting, unmoved, for 20 years.  The owner said to me, "I paid $10,000 for it 15 years ago, I'm sure it's worth at least that much now.  You know they don't make those anymore." (I didn't bother to tell him I checked the FAA records and he actually bought it more than 20 years ago.) I tried to explain engine overhaul prices, new radio, accessories, rusted control cables, etc., and he asked why I thought it would need an engine overhaul?  "It hardly has any hours on it."

And he finished by noting that he has been paying storage on it for a long time, so he's got quite a bit of money tied up in it.  I feel bad for him, he has terminal cancer and doesn't realize his airplane is effectively worthless to anyone but an A&P- and honestly not worth it then, either.

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You can tell from the tail that is a very early 60s model

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9 hours ago, Amelia said:

It’s the same or maybe worse at almost any marina. Once-beautiful yachts are deteriorating, half-sunk, peeling varnish and weathered teak, hulls and decks begrimed with mildew, ratty rigging. I can only imagine what shape the motors or sails are in.. A gorgeous day might have one or two boats on the bay. A hundred others never leave the slip, or the driveway. I guess it was fun for a season or two. Keeping the dream alive, maybe. I have no room to talk... my once-good bicycle has hardLy been ridden in 20 years...ummm 35 years? 

A couple years back I helped my friend get his sailboat out of dry dock out of a huge boatyard in Ft Pierce, Florida, can’t remember the name. He had it there for a couple years to do some work it. There were literally many hundreds of boats up on stands layers deep in this boatyard and about 10% of the boats had people living on them. The place had kind of a surreal feeling about it. It was like there was a subculture of folks living on their dry docked  boats, and the craziest thing about it was that it is clear that the vast majority hadn’t been in the water in years and wouldn’t ever sail again.

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17 minutes ago, Sabremech said:

Too many airplanes and not enough pilots anymore. 

Probably a big factor. Another recent thread documented that from '64-'68 alone 3500 Mooneys came out of the factory. Piper, Cessna, Beech and others were no doubt producing thousands of planes as well. That's a lot of airframes with AARP cards. Only those that have been kept airworthy and flown will escape ignominious deaths.

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Back in the 90s my Friend Rene and I reseracted a 231 from a hangar at KPHX. The hangar hadn’t been opened in over 10 years. The plane literally had 2 inches of dirt on it along with the rest of the hangar. I wish we took a picture, it looked like an archeological dig. After we shoveled all the dirt out and cleaned the hangar, we drained and changed the oil, fuel and brake fluid. Put in a new battery and flew it on a ferry permit to Gateway to do the annual. The annual went surprisingly well. We added a Merlyn wastegate and an intercooler. Replaced the autopilot and installed a new transponder, 530 and 430. The doctor owner gladly paid the bills. When we were done we flew it to Oshkosh for a shakedown. The owner got himself current and learned how to work all the new avionics. After that he put it back in the hangar and didn’t touch it for another 10 years. 

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My hangar is paid automatically. I don’t see it. It comes from an auxiliary account I have to refresh with my hard won treasure, but if it came out of my main accounts I could just as easily forget I’m paying it. Well, not me. The outflow is too big to go unnoticed, but I’ll bet it can go unnoticed at cheap hangars in the styx, and expensive ones in the city for the more we’ll to do. Out of sight, out of mind. A pity of course, but somebody said it. There are more airframes than pilots to fly them. Our ranks grow thin. What we wind up with are the survivors.

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11 hours ago, Andy95W said:

A month ago I contacted the owner of a Cessna 150B that has been sitting, unmoved, for 20 years.  The owner said to me, "I paid $10,000 for it 15 years ago, I'm sure it's worth at least that much now.  You know they don't make those anymore." (I didn't bother to tell him I checked the FAA records and he actually bought it more than 20 years ago.) I tried to explain engine overhaul prices, new radio, accessories, rusted control cables, etc., and he asked why I thought it would need an engine overhaul?  "It hardly has any hours on it."

And he finished by noting that he has been paying storage on it for a long time, so he's got quite a bit of money tied up in it.  I feel bad for him, he has terminal cancer and doesn't realize his airplane is effectively worthless to anyone but an A&P- and honestly not worth it then, either.

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I’d like to believe that getting a ppl ticket... then buying an airworthy plane takes at least an average amount of common sense. I do not subscribe to the fact that people that have let a plane decay believe what they are telling others about how the engine is “low time” and all that other fluff. After all, they had to pay for at least a couple of annuals... surely.

I don’t think those people saying that garbage are dumb at all. They are just looking for a sucker to believe their story. They took a gamble and lost (medical, lost interest, etc)... and they know this. It is not the next owners responsibility to pay for their gambling. The story is a sad one for GA and the plane that has to suffer the fate of that selfish owner. 

The best thing for GA is for people to call BS when that conversation starts. 

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