Any experience of salvage auctions?

[Marc B]

Hi,

Every so often there's an aircraft that I see for auction (sometimes salvage) that catches my eye. I don't have anything that I'm looking at actively at the moment but would love to hear from anyone who has experience in buying at auction, in particular sealed bid auctions. How did you decide your bid, perhaps based on Vref or similar value and then estimate repairs plus estimated extra depreciation from accident history, etc? I assume there are no sealed auction that publish winning bid numbers after the fact?

Thanks in advance!

Marc

[KSMooniac]

I have a little bit... I won my first blind sealed bid for a salvage J that was not repairable from a landing accident.  I traveled to the storage location to evaluate it myself, and discovered the crank was severely bent on an otherwise seemingly nice 220 SMOH engine, so that devalued the salvage a good bit.  I discovered some extras that were not listed in the ad copy like removable rear bucket seats and the turbo normalizer kit, that had extra value for me.  I made a spreadsheet of what I didn't need and thought I could sell, and assigned value to the components/upgrades I wanted to keep to improve my plane, or stock my spares stash.  I tallied all that up and bid appropriately and won!  I paid to have it delivered to me, and after a few years of disassembly and selling things on the side, I actually made all my money back and a bit more, plus had upgrades and spares for my J.  (My labor was $0/hour though!)  I don't believe sales prices are ever disclosed... insurance companies obviously want to keep that secret as well as the salvage businesses that compete against each otehr.

Over the next couple of years, I bid on 2-3 more and even traveled to look at one, but did not get them.  I bid lower since they would have been nice to have but not as great of deal as my first one, but others got them of course.  You're generally bidding against salvage operators that need to make money on them, so if you're doing one for your own use you can likely outbid them.  I think most of the salvage folks will value what is easily sellable within some short period of time and bid based on that, and everything else is gravy but those parts must be inventoried, listed, and stored and that has expense.  Some like Wentworth have taken to stripping an otherwise fixable airframe of avionics and maybe even an engine, and then listing the empty airframe on ebay... I hate that practice.

If you're wanting a fixer-upper to fly again, you'll have to consider getting it transported to you in such a way that it doesn't cause additional damage, or fixing enough on-site to get a ferry permit.  Both of those options are more effort/expense vs. bring a hulk of an airframe somewhere that won't fly again.  If you're trying to turn a salvage fixer-upper into a flipper for profit, I suspect in most cases you'll need to get it for nearly free to make that pencil-out.  If you want to do it as a way to use sweat-equity to get into your own plane and enjoy it for years, then it might be worthwhile if you have the skills and the time.

[201Steve]

Where do you see these up for auction?

[Marc B]

 

5 minutes ago, 201Steve said:

Where do you see these up for auction?

 

One site I've looked at:

https://www.underwriterssalvagecompany.com/

[Marc B]

1 hour ago, KSMooniac said:

I have a little bit... I won my first blind sealed bid for a salvage J that was not repairable from a landing accident.  I traveled to the storage location to evaluate it myself, and discovered the crank was severely bent on an otherwise seemingly nice 220 SMOH engine, so that devalued the salvage a good bit.  I discovered some extras that were not listed in the ad copy like removable rear bucket seats and the turbo normalizer kit, that had extra value for me.  I made a spreadsheet of what I didn't need and thought I could sell, and assigned value to the components/upgrades I wanted to keep to improve my plane, or stock my spares stash.  I tallied all that up and bid appropriately and won!  I paid to have it delivered to me, and after a few years of disassembly and selling things on the side, I actually made all my money back and a bit more, plus had upgrades and spares for my J.  (My labor was $0/hour though!)  I don't believe sales prices are ever disclosed... insurance companies obviously want to keep that secret as well as the salvage businesses that compete against each otehr.

Over the next couple of years, I bid on 2-3 more and even traveled to look at one, but did not get them.  I bid lower since they would have been nice to have but not as great of deal as my first one, but others got them of course.  You're generally bidding against salvage operators that need to make money on them, so if you're doing one for your own use you can likely outbid them.  I think most of the salvage folks will value what is easily sellable within some short period of time and bid based on that, and everything else is gravy but those parts must be inventoried, listed, and stored and that has expense.  Some like Wentworth have taken to stripping an otherwise fixable airframe of avionics and maybe even an engine, and then listing the empty airframe on ebay... I hate that practice.

If you're wanting a fixer-upper to fly again, you'll have to consider getting it transported to you in such a way that it doesn't cause additional damage, or fixing enough on-site to get a ferry permit.  Both of those options are more effort/expense vs. bring a hulk of an airframe somewhere that won't fly again.  If you're trying to turn a salvage fixer-upper into a flipper for profit, I suspect in most cases you'll need to get it for nearly free to make that pencil-out.  If you want to do it as a way to use sweat-equity to get into your own plane and enjoy it for years, then it might be worthwhile if you have the skills and the time.

 

Thank you for your detailed reply. My ideal find would be an aircraft that is still complete, not wrecked, but needs a lot of TLC to get back into good shape. It would be for my personal use. My goal would be a fixer upper that would fly again with enough spare parts and sweat.

Many thanks!

[Brian2034]

EBay usually has salvage repairable aircraft mainly from Wentworth aircraft listed regularly.

I’ve also bid and purchased sealed bid aircraft salvage, remember when determining a bid value that disassembly, storage and transportation is a major cost related to a bid item.

I’ve spent more on those items than what was paid for the initial salvage aircraft.

[Parker_Woodruff]

Here are some other salvage sites you all might find of value. "Login as guest" is available on the sites that have a login page.

Old Republic Aerospace: https://aircraftsalvageonline.com/Account/Login?ReturnUrl=%2f 

USAIG: https://www.usau.com/claims/salvage/

Starr Aviation: https://starraviationsalvage.com/login

USSIC, Avemco, HCC: https://www.tmhcc.com/en-us/contact-us/underwriting-teams/aviation-group/avemco/aircraft-salvage#!/list

 

[moodychief]

This G model may still be at Willow Springs MO (1H5).

[1980Mooney]

19 hours ago, Parker_Woodruff said:

Here are some other salvage sites you all might find of value. "Login as guest" is available on the sites that have a login page.

Old Republic Aerospace: https://aircraftsalvageonline.com/Account/Login?ReturnUrl=%2f 

USAIG: https://www.usau.com/claims/salvage/

Starr Aviation: https://starraviationsalvage.com/login

USSIC, Avemco, HCC: https://www.tmhcc.com/en-us/contact-us/underwriting-teams/aviation-group/avemco/aircraft-salvage#!/list

 

@Marc B  here is a Mooney currently on the TMHCC site that you can bid on. It’s that knucklehead J that crash landed that high voltage transmission tower in Maryland. 
 

https://www.tmhcc.com/-/media/project/tokio-marine/shared/aircraft-salvage/n201rf-salvage.pdf

https://www.tmhcc.com/en-us/contact-us/underwriting-teams/aviation-group/avemco/aircraft-salvage#!/list
 

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/280966/
 

 

 

[Marc B]

3 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

@Marc B  here is a Mooney currently on the TMHCC site that you can bid on. It’s that knucklehead J that crash landed that high voltage transmission tower in Maryland. 
 

https://www.tmhcc.com/-/media/project/tokio-marine/shared/aircraft-salvage/n201rf-salvage.pdf

https://www.tmhcc.com/en-us/contact-us/underwriting-teams/aviation-group/avemco/aircraft-salvage#!/list
 

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/280966/
 

 

 

 

Thank you, I'll have a look at the listings. I don't remember reading that report, will do a quick search. 

[1980Mooney]

On 1/3/2025 at 1:57 PM, Marc B said:

Hi,

Every so often there's an aircraft that I see for auction (sometimes salvage) that catches my eye. I don't have anything that I'm looking at actively at the moment but would love to hear from anyone who has experience in buying at auction, in particular sealed bid auctions. How did you decide your bid, perhaps based on Vref or similar value and then estimate repairs plus estimated extra depreciation from accident history, etc? I assume there are no sealed auction that publish winning bid numbers after the fact?

Thanks in advance!

Marc

This pilot gave an interview on tv after his embarrassing mistakes. Read the Final. His statements during the TV interview are either delusional or outright lies. The Final notes that he was advised that the plane before him went missed because ceilings were down to 200 ft. The Final noted that he could not fly to the fix which he was assigned.  Then he could not follow ATC instructions for headings.  He claimed that he misprogrammed his GNS430 (probably the only thing he said that was accurate). However, during FAA/NTSB interview he could not explain how to program or use the 430 - especially the Vertical guidance or glide slope.   He said that he used a hand held VFR GPS only “to avoid complex keystrokes “. 
 

He had previously crashed a plane in 1992 (with his family who survived) in which the NTSB cited his poor inflight decisions.  
 

https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/106368/pdf

https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-news/maryland/exclusive-pilot-in-montgomery-county-crash-talks-about-flight-prior-crash-30-years-earlier/amp/

https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/301805

Edited January 6 by 1980Mooney

[76Srat]

While technically not a winning bid from a salvage auction, my very good friend in Texas (Mark Hasse, sadly flew west in 2012, God rest his soul) won a sealed bid from some tiny county in the Carolinas on a '65 310K.  All the listing said was something to the effect of "Seized/forfeited aircraft; Cessna 310; locked with no keys; no known records; seized in drug raid; unknown condition, sold as-is, where-is".  All interested parties were to send in written sealed bids via US Postal service to the county clerk (in other words, the selling entity wasn't aviation-related at all).  Nearly wincing at the potential of offending the county, he sent in a bid for $10,000.00, thinking the IO470 cores would be worth at least double that (this was in the early 'aughts).  He then went about his usual business and forgot all about his bid.  

About 3 months later, he gets a call out of the blue from the "X County Courthouse".  He was a retired prosecutor/lawyer at the time, so getting a call from a "county Courthouse" wasn't altogether unusual.  He answered and the very nice lady on the other end of the line said, "Mr Hasse, congratulations, you won the bid."  "What bid?", he replied.  She said, "the airplane that was seized here in South Carolina in the drug raid".  He then remembered his sealed bid.  She told him he was literally the only bidder.    

Now to the juiciest parts of any similar aviation auction/sealed bid-related story you'll ever hear:

Mark was a consummate A&P/IA and an extremely cunning individual.  He flew commercial out to see his "new-to-him" acquisition imposed upon him by the local authorities by virtue of his forgotten-bid (evidently the listing in the aviation auction periodical where he found out about it in the first place wasn't completely accurate, or at least had scared off everyone else because it made everyone think that the aircraft had actually been used in running drugs to and fro and was thus seized during an actual drug raid--it hadn't been and suffered no such fate.  It was merely owned by some local idiot who had been caught running drugs elsewhere and this was merely an asset of his).  Anyway, back to the story:

Mark arrives at the county courthouse to give them his $10,000.00 cashiers check.  The nice lady there giving him his bill of sale then tells him "go to the airport and ask for Jed.  He'll take great care of you.  Thanks so much for helping us out with this nightmare airplane problem."  Still thinking he got a complete piece of crap, Mark then hops in his rental car and goes to the airport where the aircraft was sitting on the ramp, still in its "seized state", all locked up without keys or "records".  

Mark hoped that the old wives-tale about all 1960s-era Cessna locks being identical to unserialized Samsonite luggage locks was true.  By damn, it was true.  With less effort spent than tying his shoelaces, he was able not only to unlock the cockpit door, he also unlocked both nacelle lockers and guess what was inside?  Yep, all records, from new, with fresh annual sign-off and fresh, complete OH on both engines AND props, full-stop--the owner had evidently overspent some of that hard-earned drug running money on his own airplane and had just returned to his local airport from that lengthy, extraordinarily expensive shop visit.  Icing on the cake was that the other engine nacelle locker had 4 sets of brand new DC headsets.

Remember "Jed"?  Well, Jed was the local groundskeeper at this tiny little county airport in the middle of fly-over Carolina and explained to Mark that the county seized all of the owner's property because he was a known, local drug dealer and hadn't paid his property taxes.  This was never a "drug seizure" and the aircraft was never involved in anything nefarious.  Mark corroborated this with the local FBO guy, too (Mark used his jacks and shop to do his own gear-swing and ferry flight permit inspection to fly it back to his own shop for further eval in TX).  

My buddy got a great twin that I flew in with him for dozens of hours in later years for about 10% of its market-value, all for responding to a no-pictures, written ad in an auction periodical from some tiny, random county in the Carolinas who truly had no idea a) how to properly list a aircraft for sale; and b) how to determine its true condition and c) literally gave zero effort to even try to unlock the aircraft and find out what was inside.  The local sheriff just wanted it gone and the lovely clerk at the courthouse saw to it that it was gone with minimal effort.

PS--this story is 100% true, even down to the county waving any and all ramp fees/storage and they even paid a full fuel top-off since Mark was "so nice and pleasant to deal with".  With ode and respect to my great friend Mark Hasse, Rockwall, TX.  A true gem, if there ever was one on this planet.  May he rest in peace.