How much do airframe hours matter?

[philiplane]

For what it's worth...

A 1975 vintage Mooney with only 3,000 flight hours, has been sitting for 435,648 hours. Sitting, gathering dust, rain water, mice, insects, sun, hot weather, freezing conditions, battered by winds, moved by careless line men, etc, etc.

[1980Mooney]

1 hour ago, AndreiC said:

Well, the reason I was asking is that my "cheating eye" was caught by a 1977 J-model with 7100 hours on Jimmy Garrison's web site. The price seems great. But the hassle of selling my 1970 E-model with only 3600 hours, and paying 40 AMU difference made me think twice, and I was hoping you guys will tell me "don't buy it, it has too many hours."

 

Looks like a nice plane.  473 SMOH.  That is a big plus in this market.   New Garmin G500 Autopilot - I bet it replaced a Century that was biting the dust.  Nice interior.  If you look at history, it has only 2 owners since 1999.  

[MikeOH]

1 hour ago, Justin Schmidt said:

Just saying...you can argue to the bank they don't know anything til you're blue in the face, they still won't finance 

I could care less what the bank thinks or wants...I pay cash for toys...just sayin'

[DCarlton]

2 hours ago, AndreiC said:

Well, the reason I was asking is that my "cheating eye" was caught by a 1977 J-model with 7100 hours on Jimmy Garrison's web site. The price seems great. But the hassle of selling my 1970 E-model with only 3600 hours, and paying 40 AMU difference made me think twice, and I was hoping you guys will tell me "don't buy it, it has too many hours."

 

It's the "hassle of selling" plus the sales taxes that go down the drain and increased property taxes forever that always stops me from making a move... yet I keep looking.  The ones that tempt me are the Missiles that have been looking for a new owner for so long.  They deserve a good home.  

[201Steve]

9 hours ago, Justin Schmidt said:

Just saying...you can argue to the bank they don't know anything til you're blue in the face, they still won't finance 

A.) This isn’t a thread about what banks like

B.) don’t finance. Case closed your face won’t be blue. 

[Paul Thomas]

We can all talk a big game about the banks but they do have an impact on value because so many people do finance an airplane. I know I'd like to get the most money out of it when I sell. Knowing what a bank will/won't finance will impact my purchasing and selling decisions.

[LANCECASPER]

1 hour ago, Paul Thomas said:

We can all talk a big game about the banks but they do have an impact on value because so many people do finance an airplane. I know I'd like to get the most money out of it when I sell. Knowing what a bank will/won't finance will impact my purchasing and selling decisions.

I couldn't agree more. 

When people are in the buying mode they get nearsighted on their purchase side of the transaction. Everything you buy someday will get sold. As long as you buy it with your eyes wide open, and don't let yourself get driven by emotion and pay too much, when it comes time to sell you'll probably be OK. If you buy a "great deal" airplane that's been hard to sell, expect that it will be the same when it comes time for you to sell. As long as you factor all of that in, and you're Ok with it, you're good.

[Echo]

13 hours ago, DCarlton said:

It's the "hassle of selling" plus the sales taxes that go down the drain and increased property taxes forever that always stops me from making a move... yet I keep looking.  The ones that tempt me are the Missiles that have been looking for a new owner for so long.  They deserve a good home.  

My old plane is one of those sitting missiles.  Jimmy has it brokered for my two old partners.  It is priced to high in my opinion.  We sealed tanks, added two G5's, upgraded engine monitor and 530 to 530w.  We also i-raned the prop by our friend in Arkansas.  The engine is past tbo, but had a top right before our purchase.  Was a GREAT plane.  I think $120k is the "right number".  A LOT of plane for that.  Not sure why they have not lowered price?

[201Steve]

3 hours ago, LANCECASPER said:

I couldn't agree more. 

When people are in the buying mode they get nearsighted on their purchase side of the transaction. Everything you buy someday will get sold. As long as you buy it with your eyes wide open, and don't let yourself get driven by emotion and pay too much,

These micro calculations about how to come out good on an airplane are just plane crazy (pun intended) exercises in futility. Like really, if I’m trying to make predictions about who might be able to afford my airplane in 5-10 years when I sell it, so I can predict to save 5k, 10k on the front end, or ensure that I might be capable of selling it to a financed buyer on the back end to capture a greater amount they may be willing to pay… come on. It’s a drop in the bucket. Everyone thinks about money differently, and I respect however you(general) choose to do it, but the practical truth of it is, ya done F’d up the second you decided to buy an airplane. 

[1980Mooney]

17 hours ago, DCarlton said:

It's the "hassle of selling" plus the sales taxes that go down the drain and increased property taxes forever that always stops me from making a move... yet I keep looking.  The ones that tempt me are the Missiles that have been looking for a new owner for so long.  They deserve a good home.  

It surprises me that they sell for the same or less than a similar aged M20J. Only 55 J’s were converted to Missile 300’s by Rocket Engineering. And some have already bitten the dust (N52840, N5670M and N3515H to name a few that have been totaled fatalities).   There are 3 Missile’s for sale on Controller right now. That’s about 6% of the Missile fleet currently idle and for sale which is 4 times higher than the overall active Mooney fleet. 
 

It just proves the adage that don’t expect modifications to add value to your plane and don’t expect to get your money back. I paid Rocket Engineering $65,000 for the Missile 300 mod back in 2000. Only do a major modification if you plan to keep your plane forever. I would be dollars ahead and it would be easier to sell if I kept it as a plain M20J.  However I have enjoyed the performance and the accompanying “spending 50% more on fuel”! I will fly it until I can’t and then I won’t care. 

Edited Thursday at 08:06 PM by 1980Mooney

[LANCECASPER]

26 minutes ago, 201Steve said:

These micro calculations about how to come out good on an airplane are just plane crazy (pun intended) exercises in futility. Like really, if I’m trying to make predictions about who might be able to afford my airplane in 5-10 years when I sell it, so I can predict to save 5k, 10k on the front end, or ensure that I might be capable of selling it to a financed buyer on the back end to capture a greater amount they may be willing to pay… come on. It’s a drop in the bucket. Everyone thinks about money differently, and I respect however you(general) choose to do it, but the practical truth of it is, ya done F’d up the second you decided to buy an airplane. 

The calculations haven't been an exercise in futility for me, but everybody gets to do it the way they choose. In 40 years of airplane ownership on 10 of the 14 airplanes I've owned I've sold them for more than I paid. Overall the 10 that I've sold for more than I paid more than made up for the other four. I haven't skimped on maintenance at all but I've established relationships with people whom I trust. Although aviation is not an inexpensive hobby, if it's done right it doesn't have to be obscenely expensive. 

[Ibra]

Obviously condition matters but when you open the logbook you are looking for a consistent record of 50h-200h per year, then it's likely a good one. For 30-40 years old aircraft one is looking to see TTAF from 1500h to 6000h, the distribution over time matters a lot as well...

* Under 50h/year, it's not used that much, so watch for corrosion or lack of love (no money, no time...) 

* Above 200h/year, it's used too much likely school or training, so watch for abuse...

Check if it's same pilots or zillions of pilots, same pilot or two others regular pilots fine? if it's +200h/year with new name every day, well it's likely to be in a bad state (I saw an Arrow like that, I felt sorry for the owner who bought it but he was happy).

I am assuming logbook history is authentic, that has to be checked later 

I noticed from playing with numbers that Vref depreciate price with total airframe hours (TTAF) without taking into account manufacturing year (MFY): the model assumes that 40 years old aircraft with 0h TTAF is worth more than 40 years old aircraft with 3000h TTAF  maybe they should adjust price toward the mean TTAF for given "fleet/type/mfy"? anything under 40h (1h per year) or above 16000h (1h per day) is dodgy ! 

Edited Thursday at 08:16 PM by Ibra

[AndreiC]

2 hours ago, Ibra said:

Check if it's same pilots or zillions of pilots, same pilot or two others regular pilots fine? if it's +200h/year with new name every day, well it's likely to be in a bad state (I saw an Arrow like that, I felt sorry for the owner who bought it but he was happy).

I have no idea how you would check that, at least in the US all you see is annual inspections in the log books, which tell you how much it was flown in between but no other information (as in who flew it). You can look through ownership history, but that is pretty opaque.

[AndreiC]

3 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

It surprises me that they sell for the same or less than a similar aged M20J. Only 55 J’s were converted to Missile 300’s by Rocket Engineering. And some have already bitten the dust (N52840, N5670M and N3515H to name a few that have been totaled fatalities).   There are 3 Missile’s for sale on Controller right now. That’s about 6% of the Missile fleet currently idle and for sale which is 4 times higher than the overall active Mooney fleet. 

I think a lot has to do with the higher price of fuel and especially the insanely high price of overhauls. The Missiles I have seen are all close to TBO. Once you factor 100 AMU or more on top of the purchase price, you're already in the league of Ovations or Acclaims.

[Ibra]

1 hour ago, AndreiC said:

I have no idea how you would check that, at least in the US all you see is annual inspections in the log books, which tell you how much it was flown in between but no other information (as in who flew it). You can look through ownership history, but that is pretty opaque.

I forgot there is no such thing as "flight/journey logs" for aircraft flying in US only hours at mods, inspections, ovefhauls...are endorsed on aircraft logbook.

I was assuming things are like this side of pond, where aircraft keep separate "flight/journey ourney logs" (from current owners and previous owners), this would have a list of flights logged with all details: pic name, departure, arrival. From that aircarft history one can get some feel easily: training flights are usually: A to A, 1h- 2h max, 2-3 per day (weekday, different name, writing), private owner flights tend to be A to B (weekend, same name).

One can still download last years of ADSB logs to see latest trends, no idea about pilots but it give an idea of the missions flown 

The good news with Mooneys they are not used for school training and are more "owners platforms", so number of TTAF hours are usually on lower side ! 

Edited yesterday at 12:04 AM by Ibra

[DCarlton]

9 hours ago, Echo said:

My old plane is one of those sitting missiles.  Jimmy has it brokered for my two old partners.  It is priced to high in my opinion.  We sealed tanks, added two G5's, upgraded engine monitor and 530 to 530w.  We also i-raned the prop by our friend in Arkansas.  The engine is past tbo, but had a top right before our purchase.  Was a GREAT plane.  I think $120k is the "right number".  A LOT of plane for that.  Not sure why they have not lowered price?

I think the problem now is the budget and wait time required for an IO-550 overhaul.  Sounds like you're up in the 75-80K range by the time you're finished.  I haven't studied the issue but it sounds like Continentals are taking a long time too.  

[Echo]

21 hours ago, DCarlton said:

I think the problem now is the budget and wait time required for an IO-550 overhaul.  Sounds like you're up in the 75-80K range by the time you're finished.  I haven't studied the issue but it sounds like Continentals are taking a long time too.  

That is a lot of plane for $200k. Glad I got to experience a bargain basement ovation for a couple years.  

[Echo]

On 1/16/2025 at 4:47 PM, AndreiC said:

I think a lot has to do with the higher price of fuel and especially the insanely high price of overhauls. The Missiles I have seen are all close to TBO. Once you factor 100 AMU or more on top of the purchase price, you're already in the league of Ovations or Acclaims.

Not true.  Controllerhas a nice low time Missile.  I could do 170 knots on 13.5gpm.  The reduced flying time with the extra speed significantly offset the additional fuel burn cost.