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I'll say. We've come to the Big D to look at a 1977 Cessna Cardinal, a contender for the 2007 AOPA Sweepstakes airplane, which alone qualifies the trip as an exciting one. Dallas Air Repair has its hangar door open to the warm October morning; today's temperatures will hit 80 degrees before plummeting with the arrival of a cold front late in the afternoon. By the time we show up with coffee and the Cardinal's current owners, a team of four technicians have already run up the engine and uncowled it, and are busy pulling inspection plates.

Prebuy choices
Some budding aircraft owners buy an airplane like they might buy a pampered used car from a family friend — a cursory walkaround, maybe a quick flight, and they're ready to exchange a check for the keys. However, I like an approach that reflects Ronald Reagan's famous line, "Trust, but verify."

I also know my aviation strengths fall primarily into the "pilot" column, and not the maintenance one, so I prepared a team of my own as I made arrangements for a prepurchase inspection. If and when you decide to buy an airplane, I strongly recommend asking for experienced help — which can come from a variety of corners, as you'll see below — rather than going it alone.

First, I joined the Cardinal Flyers Online (CFO), a type club dedicated to the brand (our Featured Contributor; see box), so that I could access the incredible amount of Cardinal-specific information on its Web site. Included in the site's contents is an entire section on prepurchase inspections. Replete with photos, this information prepares you for a highly detailed walkaround and test flight of a prospective airplane. Common problem areas are not only discussed, but illustrated with photos and anecdotes from CFO members.

I often get inquiring looks regarding my choice of reading material (accident reports, anyone?) from fellow passengers while traveling on the airlines, and that was certainly the case on the 6 a.m. American flight from Baltimore to Dallas-Fort Worth. Hey, you in 22F, why are the wings off that airplane? My printouts from the CFO site gave me many points to ponder. Investment in a type club membership should be one of your first moves when considering an airplane purchase. Rarely is the cost more than $40 a year — less than an hour's shop labor, to put it in perspective.

The CFO site also features a "Members Helping Members" section, in which I found my second team selection: the right maintenance facility. CFO member Robin Maas bases his airplane at Northwest Regional/Roanoke Airport, the same airport at which my prospect airplane was based. His post included a tip on Dallas Air Repair for any local Cardinal maintenance. With a phone call to friendly shop manager Jack Schedcik, I determined that the shop had not been responsible for the current maintenance on N18729, and thus it was a good choice for making an independent inspection.

A fresh set of eyes is critical — no matter how good the previous maintenance has been on an airplane, you want to pick a shop or A&P for the prebuy who hasn't been wrenching on it for the past 10 years. As a bonus, the folks at Dallas Air Repair know Cardinals well (shop owner Tom Crismon worked for a Cessna dealer during several of the years that the Cardinal was in production), and they proved it during the process.

The final component to my team would provide not only another set of experienced eyes (and a valuable second opinion on any squawks found) during the inspection, but also help us to streamline the entire sweepstakes restoration process. Dan Gryder, owner of The AvNet, an aviation training and consulting company (see "Douglas DC-3: Together We Fly," December 2005 Pilot), will serve as our in-the-field project manager, and he joined me for the prebuy as well. His job starts in earnest with phase 1 of the restoration, which encompasses airframe rejuvenation, avionics install, paint, and engine hang. But we figured that if he was on the scene while I selected the airframe that he'd be in charge of refurbishing, he could start thinking about specific strategies for that airplane from the moment I decided it was the one. If you plan to conduct extensive restoration on an airplane after you make the deal, you might consider enlisting a similar consultant from the start as well.

The squawk sheet
After a couple of hours, Schedcik had gone over the aircraft logbooks meticulously ("about as clean as you can get," he said) and, with the technicians, generated a discrepancy list similar to one you might see during an annual inspection. Such a squawk sheet can also provide negotiating points during your discussions on price with the aircraft seller.

As Schedcik, Gryder, and I went through the sheet, only one safety-of-flight item needed correcting (a cracked alternator bracket). Other items on the list were expected for a 30-year-old airframe with a run-out engine that had seen plenty of flying and maintenance care, but little or no refurbishment. In choosing potential candidates for the sweeps aircraft, I focused in on late-model Cardinals with factory long-range tanks (you can't get a supplemental type certificate (STC) for additional fuel tanks in the Cardinals), simple panels, average paint and interior, and high-time engines. We wouldn't spend money on the things we're going to replace anyway.

Our squawk sheet included cracked plastic interior components and fiberglass exterior fairings, worn cowl fasteners, and a couple of minor exhaust leaks on cylinders number 1 and 4 on the Lycoming O-360. (If you had seen north of 2,400 hours, you'd probably leak a little too!) But the stabiliator didn't wiggle when I checked it for unwanted play, and the doors closed tightly, with only small gaps between the trailing edge of the door skin and the fuselage, and no bent skins to indicate internal damage to the fuselage forward of the door hinge points.

The upshot? We had a clean, straight airframe from which to build our masterpiece. It was time to call the current owners and go fly.

Catching up with the Joneses
Ben Jones had started flight lessons back in college, but like so many aspiring private pilots, his plans were derailed by life and finances. Fortunately, a quiver of years later, his wife Roxanne (the daughter of a since-retired Delta pilot) encouraged him to pick it back up again. With his newly minted certificate in hand, he bought N18729 in 2001. Since then, Cardinal 729 has been a traveling airplane; the two enjoyed camping trips taken all over Texas and central Arkansas. There's an airstrip at Petit Jean State Park in the Arkansas River Valley that's almost 6,000 feet long, "with a campground practically right at the end of it," says Roxanne, that is a particular favorite of theirs (see the Web site or call 501/727-5441 to check on services; at press time the FBO was closed and no fuel was available).

Ben figures they put about 525 hours on the airplane in the five years they owned it. His challenge? To find the next airplane, one suited to flying into less-improved strips, or even a floatplane, to suit the couple's outdoor adventures. "It's been a great airplane," says Ben. "I'm going to have to work to get some hours in, in the meantime, without it around."

This time around the patch, Ben would get his first taste of the back seat, as we chauffeured him and Roxanne in circles around the airport for our post-maintenance test flight. In flight, 729 appeared to fly straight and true — a challenge to any light single, given the gusty conditions following the cold front. The control rigging was accurate and tight, and I got another taste of why the Cardinal appeals to so many pilots. It feels familiar enough, as a Cessna should, but the handling is sporty and more immediate than that of the 172. This is a step-up airplane, but a very manageable one for most pilots.

A test flight is an important part of the prebuy process. The difference between what you find during an inspection versus a test flight strikes me as similar to that between seeing an airplane in a museum and watching one fly by: The first gives you a sense of what the airplane looks like, but the second tells you how it moves and breathes. The flight need not be long, and it usually is conducted with the owner near a set of controls for insurance purposes — unless you have enough experience to qualify under the current owner's insurance policy's open-pilot clause, as I did in this instance.

With a crosswind Cardinal landing now under my belt, I taxied in, noting some softness in the brakes that would get overhauled somewhere in the months to come. Later, over a steak at the Salt Grass restaurant in nearby Grapevine, we would settle on a price agreeable to both parties.

The AOPA 2007 Catch a Cardinal Sweepstakes project team now has its star player: N18729.

E-mail the author at julie.boatman@aopa.org.

Combined, Millner and the Petersens have nearly 45 years of Cardinal experience between them, and it shows. With many photos to illustrate common concerns, sources for parts and maintenance, and forums for members to share ideas and experiences, the CFO is a rich resource for Cardinal pilots — or wannabes.