From the get-go, we're going to make a definite statement that you can count on as being fact: In most situations you are better off shopping around for the best and probably most expensive airplane of its type. If it is in flawless shape, you can fly it for 100 hours and resell it for at least what you paid for it, and probably more. Inflation can be a wonderful thing! A creampuff airplane of any kind, especially if it's a later model, will always return at least its purchase price - assuming you didn't go crazy when buying it and you take care of it. Even if you did overpay, you'll still get your money back, but you'll have to wait a little longer for inflation to catch up with the price.
The primo airplane is virtually guaranteed to work as a fly-for-free airplane because there is always a hot market for the best of any kind of airplane - especially the more popular models. Later-model Cessna 172s and Piper Archers come to mind. Also, its near-perfect condition means you aren't likely to spend very much on it while learning to fly. You can get your certificate in it, then play with it for another 50 hours before selling it. Of course, selling it will be the really hard part: Sometimes it's hard to force yourself to part with a good flying machine.
The obvious downside to going with a top-of-the-market airplane is the high price of the ticket to get into the game. So, what about the fixer-uppers? How about picking up a ratty Cessna 152 or Cessna 140 or Piper Cherokee, putting a little sweat equity into it, and letting the increased value from both rehabilitating the airplane and inflation work for you? This is where things get very gray and the potential for a black hole to develop directly below your wallet increases greatly.
What most of us picture in our minds when we say "fixer-upper" is the airplane on the back line that desperately needs some TLC. It may not have flown for a while, or if it has been flying, nothing has been done to keep it up. This is where you have to sit back and do some serious evaluating. First, evaluate yourself and your situation, then evaluate possible airplane candidates.
Who and what are you? Is your mechanical aptitude and equipment up to doing work on an airplane? And, if so, how much? Don't forget that, while you as the owner and pilot can do relatively minor work to an airplane, an airframe and powerplant mechanic's signoff is required on more complex projects. Even the minor work that you can do yourself, however, may tax your current abilities. How do you feel, for instance, about splitting the rims and changing the tires? How about the brakes? You can do the interior and all the cosmetic work on the instrument panel yourself, but are you talented enough to do it? Actually, you don't need the talent. All you need is the desire to learn how to do the work, but it does take a huge amount of dedication.
The question of dedication to a project is something only you can measure. Only you know whether you can start a project and see it through to completion. If your track record lists a lot of uncompleted projects, go find a flight school and pay to rent a plane for your fight training. It'll be cheaper in the long run.
Projects the size of an airplane tend to expand like a dry sponge the further you take them apart. Don't tackle an airplane with the idea of taking off the wings and bringing it home. The airplane has to stay in one piece, and the work accomplished at the airport, or the scope of the project changes exponentially. The vast majority of home workshop projects that include disassembling an airplane may start out as two-month projects, but the lucky ones - those that are eventually finished - turn into two-year projects. Most, however, are never finished and are sold for less than was paid for them. You must understand that as soon as you disassemble an airplane you just went from an effort to update an airplane and resell it for a profit to a restoration project. Besides, if the wings are off you won't be training in your plane. Once you get an airplane taken that far apart, you will see so much more work that should be done that you'll put far more time into it than you can imagine.
Time is another factor you have to analyze carefully. Not even free time is free. If you are going to spend hours and hours out at the airport messing with an airplane, you aren't at home with the family, or working, or doing any of the other stuff responsible people are reputed to do. So, look at your situation and see exactly how much time you actually have to put into the project. Little Jenny has to be taken to play rehearsal, and Scotty has a basketball game. The gutters need cleaning, and Aunt Edna is coming over. Can you fit an airplane project in between all of life's demands? Be brutally honest about the answer. If you aren't honest and you proceed anyway, the project will never be finished. This is another statement you can count on as being true.
So, let's assume you have neither time nor talent to do any of the work on the airplane. Now what? Do we hire it done? Not if we think we are going to make this fly-for-free thing work. The instant you choose to have someone else work on the airplane, you've decided you definitely are not going to fly for free because the labor costs will quickly eat up any margin.
In case the message wasn't clear enough: The only way the fly-for-free thing can work is if you do all of the labor-intensive jobs (paint stripping, basic interior work, disassemble/paint the instrument panel, etc.) and only get an A involved for the stuff that absolutely requires that certificate.
And then it comes time to evaluate the airplane itself. In this case, it's a mythical airplane because what we're about to say applies to just about any airplane purchase. First, recognize we're not looking for an airplane that requires a complete restoration. If we are then the rules have to include buying the least expensive airplane available that has a solid, straight, corrosion-free airframe. For our purposes, what we are looking for is an airplane that fits one of several categories:
- It has a clean, solid airframe with a low- to mid-time engine but the cosmetics are bad. It needs paint and/or upholstery. This is the most desirable type project for the fly-for-free concept.
- It is a really good-looking airplane with good paint and interior, but the engine has gone south and the difference between the asking price and what it will sell for is significantly more than the price of rebuilding or replacing the engine. Leave a wide margin here because lots of surprises pop up when you start taking apart an engine. When doing your pencil work, always assume a worst-case scenario for the engine. Lately, we've begun to see increasing numbers of owners put their airplanes up for sale because they've run out of TBO and they can't, or don't want to, invest the money required for an overhaul.
- The engine has a fresh overhaul from a known shop (well-known names attached to an overhaul are worth a premium), but the airframe, which is clean and straight, needs everything. This is a longer-term project, depending on the situation, but a fresh engine is something that warrants the work. There are certain things you absolutely must avoid:
- Never buy an airframe with corrosion. Check it carefully to make certain there is none. Get an A to poke mirrors inside of it so you can see the farthest reaches of the airframe. Any corrosion kills your chance to turn the airframe over for a profit.
- Avoid obvious airframe damage like hail. The next owner will want a pretty airplane, and damage will turn him or her off.
- Don't buy a super dog-an airplane that needs everything, regardless of the cost. It may be cheap, but you'll be years and thousands of dollars away from flying.
- Be suspicious of an engine that hasn't run for a long time or has flown only a little in the past few years. Cylinder bores are easily examined, but rust loves to form on cams, and these are not easily inspected. Err on the conservative side and avoid long-dormant engines because the unknown factor is too big.
Ideally, the goal should be to get an airplane that requires the type of work that doesn't interfere with the airworthiness of the airplane for any length of time. You can be stripping the paint and still have a flying, although ugly, airplane. You can have most of the interior lying around the hangar and, as long as you didn't have to disconnect any wiring to get it out, you can keep taking instruction in the airplane. There is nothing illegal about flying an airplane that is incredibly ugly inside and out, as long as none of the primary systems has been altered.
There will be times when the airplane has to be taken out of service. If your airplane is clean and needs only a little cosmetic work, but the engine needs an overhaul, then obviously it's going to be down for a month or more. If you're painting the airplane, don't even think about doing it yourself unless you own a paint shop. A badly done fresh paint job detracts from the value, while a skillful professional paint job greatly increases the value. The better shops will remove all the panels and control surfaces, so plan ahead, because it'll be down a month or more.
About radios: Don't get sucked into the big black hole labeled "avionics." Next to the engine, upgrading avionics is the easiest place you can go wrong quickly. Look for an airplane that has fairly current radios that you aren't going to be forced into replacing because of age or regulations. You'll get every dime back out of a decent paint job, but it's really easy to install an avionics suite and only realize 30 percent of its value in return.
Glass is another area you want to give premium points to when selecting an airplane. If it's scratched you can polish the scratches out. If it is crazed, it'll need to be replaced, which can be a real pain in the butt if you do it yourself.
So, what kind of airplane do you start looking for? Does it have to be a trainer? An argument could be made that it makes some sense to look for the type of airplane that resells the quickest. That automatically says, "clean, late-model Cessna 172." But there are alternatives. A case in point is the Desert Dog the author and his wife purchased. It was a 1949 Cessna 140A. Being an "A" model made it special within the Cessna 140 clan, which was a definite plus, but it was a very scroungy-looking airplane when we bought it. It had no paint and had the skin pallor of a long-discarded cooking pot. The basic interior was reasonable, but the instrument panel was a 50-year-old collection of hastily completed radio and instrument installations and had never been repainted. Every exposed piece of metal in the cockpit had been chipped and dinged from so many years of people getting in and out. Besides being an "A" model, its real saving grace, however, was that it had clean sheet metal, and the engine was a 400-hour Continental O-200. The engine was not only a larger engine installed under a supplemental type certificate, but also it qualified as low time, even though the airplane didn't look it.
The wife started taking flying lessons in it, and the husband started cleaning up the ugly places. The entire panel was eventually removed, all the bent parts straightened, and everything painted. It cost about $35 in spray cans custom-mixed to match the instrument panel and interior plastic, and another $35 for a replacement plastic panel behind the throttle and mixture controls. The little comm radio and ugly ARC transponder worked fine, but the installation was redone to make them look better.
The exterior took a giant leap forward when a friend agreed to do a complete polish job and paint on the side stripes. After 100 hours of flying, when we sold it the $16,500 Dog brought $20,500. We put a lot of our own time into fixing it up, but it was fun and the effort paid off. What made it work, however, was that we started with a basically good airplane. Underneath all that grime and oxidation was a cute little airplane waiting to be freed. All it needed was a lot of hours put into the cosmetics. Nothing was done that couldn't be done easily by the average airplane owner with no input from a licensed mechanic.
So, can you buy an airplane, learn to fly in it, and then sell it for enough to recoup the costs of your lessons? If done right, absolutely. Ignore a few basic rules, however, and you'd be better off renting because you'll find yourself spending far more time fixing than flying and that's not our goal. The only thing free in aviation is your imagination and brainpower, so use the gifts you were given to orchestrate the right union between you and the machine. It can be done, but you have to think about it first.
For more information about buying an aircraft, visit AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/members/files/guides/tipsbuy.html ). Ed.
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