Hello All,

 

A couple of months ago I wrote an e-mail stating that I was looking for a great IV-P for less than $250k. Within minutes, I was overwhelmed by dozens of e-mails, many of which were very generous with thoughts, advice, and offers of time to educate me about the market. Thank you so much to the more than a dozen of you who called or sent me e-mails with offers to call me in the hours after my e-mail went out. I am truly overwhelmed by your generosity and hope to meet all of you one day, and am sorry I could not respond to everyone in a timely manner.

 

Many others called and e-mailed offering to sell me your planes, and others wrote just to ask what I learned and to post the most interesting feedback so they could learn from it as well. This is an effort to follow up on those latter requests!

 

 

Here are some of your collective suggestions in terms of the plane itself:

 

1.       A majority of you advised not purchasing a IV-P built by anyone other than a professional shop (and by professional, they mean a shop that has built a number of Lancairs) due to the difficulty of detecting some potential issues. A minority dissented, saying there were great builds by first time builders too.

2.       Several people said to look for stock engines by Barrett.

3.       I was warned to inspect the following: overall cosmetics as a proxy for build quality, paint, wing skins, shape of wings, mating of wings and control systems, anti-static grounding, leaky hydraulics, gear that aren’t square, customized engines or fuel systems, chewed up gearboxes, heavy planes, binding of controls, poor ventilation, weak A/C, pressurization problems in doors and outflow valves, one wing heavy, old nose gear, shimmying nose gear, lack of rudder trim, lack of any electric trim, tires more than two years old (especially in hot climates), older serial numbers, tail heavy planes, nose heavy planes, planes built by low wage labor, planes built by a variety of specific individuals, specific planes with all kinds of colorful individual histories, poor electrical installations, strike finders, planes that sat for a while and therefore might have some hydraulic issues, and I obtained several winglet opinions. I was told to test the radios 100 miles out due to potential antenna problems. I forgot to do this in flight testing. I should have carried a checklist with me when I went to check out planes.

4.       Almost every person I spoke with was cool with a gear up landing on a runway.  More than half of the IV-Ps for sale right now have had some sort of prop strike, but no one seems too bothered by that. Of course, with an engine like the TSIO-550, I would not purchase a plane that had so much as a hint of a sudden stop without a full tear down. Others may differ, but that’s where I draw the line.

 

What I learned about the purchase and training process:

 

5.       I was strongly advised to hire Brad Simmons, Performance One, or Tim Wilson for the pre-buy, and I did hire Tim.

6.       Almost everyone I spoke to was pretty passionate about LOBO training. I intended to take that training even before it was imposed on me by the insurer.

7.       It was suggested I take a class by GAMI to learn more about the TSIO-550.

8.       It was suggested I purchase a book by Bob Knockoll. I have not yet located this book, but apparently it has something to do with electrical systems. Multiple people spoke of the need for a standby alternator, standby battery, and appropriate wiring to withstand a huge short.

 

What I learned about costs.  Please do not shoot the messenger – I am just sharing what I have learned for the benefit of everyone who asked!

 

9.       The insurance is astronomical! The best quote I got for liability and hull is $11,885 and requires 50 HOURS of dual! At 100 hours a year, the insurance cost alone is $118.85 an hour. And unfortunately, I can’t blame the insurers. There were two hull losses last week alone. At least one was apparently a plane with a Performance engine in it, which appears to have suffered a catastrophic engine failure. The other was descending IFR, at night, though 3000’ at over 270 knots if I recall correctly. I’m horrified for the friends and family of those who have perished and really frustrated by the circumstances of these crashes.

10.   I have been repeatedly warned that the plane is lot more expensive than I think it will be, but no one would tell me how much. So I made a spreadsheet. I came out to almost $44,000 a year for 110 hours. That’s $400 an hour for those who are counting. That includes $11,885 of insurance, which is 27% of the total projected cost. To be honest, that’s a whole lot more than the $250/hr. I expected and comes close to putting the Lancair in the cost category of much larger aircraft.

11.   No one could really tell me exactly what they thought any given plane was worth and reminded me that the market is very illiquid. A couple of people did say that in the current market, there is no piston-powered IV-P worth more than $300K. Several planes in 10/10 condition have traded for under $200K. The least expensive deal I had credible information about was $140K.

 

 

--Jeff