Sad finds

Dean

Dean

Pattern Altitude
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Mar 11, 2005
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Southwest Missouri
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Dean
My second job takes me around the state to small communities, so I try and stop by the local airport to see what has been forgotten. Today I found this V-Tail Bo just wasting away in a run down hangar. Last year I found a nice old Ercoupe sitting in a hangar that had a tree growing up in front of the door, from the size of the tree I would say it had been there over 15 years.
 

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Unfortunately, I see finds like that all over. :(
 
Today I was polishing the 24, and hearing a angle grinder being used in the hangar behind mine, So, thinking what the heck I'll go see what they are doing on a cold drizzly day.

After knocking on the door the pilot/owner opens, we get aquatinted he shows me the prettiest Twin Navion I've ever seen, nice barn find, nice guy, new customer. :)
 
If someone had made a reasonable offer they could have probably bought it long ago.
 
Mental note: Create a "Save the Plane" foundation once I become a billionaire.
 
Henning said:
If someone had made a reasonable offer they could have probably bought it long ago.
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Unfortunately, that doesn't always work. I have seen several owners turn down good offers because they were "just saving up money for a new engine", or some other excuse,and 10 years later, the airplane is still sitting there rusting away.
 
Tom-D said:
After knocking on the door the pilot/owner opens, we get aquatinted he shows me the prettiest Twin Navion I've ever seen, nice barn find, nice guy, new customer. :)
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In 50 years of airport wanderings and growing up in GA I had never heard of a Twin Navion until this very moment. A quick Google and sure enough, it lives. It's like finding treasure. :)
 
Dave Theisen said:
Unfortunately, that doesn't always work. I have seen several owners turn down good offers because they were "just saving up money for a new engine", or some other excuse,and 10 years later, the airplane is still sitting there rusting away.
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True, but having sampled the 'reasonableness' of offers I also elected storage. I paid a $7k premium to get my plane over a period of over a decades storage and overhaul and have about $6k more to go that are non critical items; so storage under proper conditions isn't necessarily that hard to come back from.
 
Dave Theisen said:
Unfortunately, that doesn't always work. I have seen several owners turn down good offers because they were "just saving up money for a new engine", or some other excuse,and 10 years later, the airplane is still sitting there rusting away.
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This is very accurate.

An airport I frequent has a Baron 56TC sitting there. I find the 56TC to be a really neat aircraft, and one that I would like to own someday. Yes, I know I'm insane, those TIO-541s are orphaned for good reason.

The plane has been sitting for years. The owner can't afford to fly it, so he pays the ~$100/month to have it tied down outside in the salt air. The plane looks like hell. I asked the FBO manager about it, he said the guy was convinced he could have it back up and flying in one hour, and it would be just as good as when he parked it.

Poor airplane. :(
 
Henning said:
If someone had made a reasonable offer they could have probably bought it long ago.
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It's funny how people think their things are worth more. I chashed down a couple of orphan owners and was stunned by the prices they had to have. A rental 150 with a seized engine and bad glass & plastic, tires, paint, etc. He wanted $15,000.
 
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A lot more of this will continue to happen.

Boomers fall back on their experience of a U.S. economy with heavy growth (driven by the huge wave of people in the system). They think "it has to come back someday".

They haven't figured out that there aren't nearly enough GenX'ers (and certainly not GenY'ers yet) with enough personal wealth to buy up all of their used toys. Many of the toys will rot sitting outside or in hangars.

Prices will continue to fall. At least until inflation catches up. If wages rise with inflation, sole of these birds will be rescued at great expense. If not, they'll rot.

It's just a numbers game. Lots of birds will be destroyed by neglect. Proper storage may keep the aircraft from being destroyed but it won't recover the value no matter how long someone waits to sell. Well, unless they have at least 20 years to wait...
 
denverpilot said:
They haven't figured out that there aren't nearly enough GenX'ers (and certainly not GenY'ers yet) with enough personal wealth to buy up all of their used toys. Many of the toys will rot sitting outside or in hangars.
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I think it has less to do with this, and more to do with the fact that there are just fewer people interested in flying an aging GA fleet around themselves. Doubly so if you purchase a "bargain" plane that ends up requiring multiples of its purchase cost to return to airworthy condition.

This is pretty typical in a number of areas, not just aviation. People have a toy, they don't use it, it sits, it deteriorates, and then it becomes worthless. It sits in a barn because "It's worth more than [amount]..."
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I think it has less to do with this, and more to do with the fact that there are just fewer people interested in flying an aging GA fleet around themselves. Doubly so if you purchase a "bargain" plane that ends up requiring multiples of its purchase cost to return to airworthy condition.

This is pretty typical in a number of areas, not just aviation. People have a toy, they don't use it, it sits, it deteriorates, and then it becomes worthless. It sits in a barn because "It's worth more than [amount]..."
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and 40 years later someone pulls it out of the barn and pays a million dollars for it just to have the hull to restore. Collectors markets are cyclical. The only reason there isn't one currently is all the major wealth is tied up in gold which doesn't do anything positive for the economy.

You have a point with aging aircraft (and even design) desirability, Cirrus's success and Mooney's failure played that out.
 
denverpilot said:
They haven't figured out that there aren't nearly enough GenX'ers (and certainly not GenY'ers yet) with enough personal wealth to buy up all of their used toys. Many of the toys will rot sitting outside or in hangars.
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Yeah... $50k for a 1950s way out of annual Bonanza with a timed out O-470 and avionics from 1971? :rofl:

I have a friend my age who bought a plane in the last year, asking price was $46900, friend offered $35k and the seller was probably smart to take it.

I looked at Mooneys recently but the ones I could afford (=<$35k) had goofy panels, nobody would come down significantly in price, and I found too many of them with wings painted tetraethyl blue so I joined a well established flying club instead.
 
Usually these airplanes, old cars, etc, sit rotting away with an inflated dreamers price. They only sell after the owner dies.
 
It's not always older aircraft. I was driving around the field where I have a "storage" hangar and I spot a Lancair Columbia 300 with a "For Sale" sign on it. So I stop in and talk to the guy. It's about a 2002 sitting up on blocks with the wings used as storage shelfs, covered with dust, it hasn't flown in about 3 years. He tells me how great the plane is and how in 2006 he turned down $350K for it. Now he "might" take $300K, but no less. Sure after a new engine and about $25K in other work to get it back in shape you might have something. The owner is getting up in age and his flying days are over. He could probably get $100K, and have that cash vs. an asset just devaluing more and more.

All I could say is, "he should have taken the $350K, have you looked at Controller?"

"Nah, we know what we have here."

Isn't blind faith amazing?
 
Henning said:
and 40 years later someone pulls it out of the barn and pays a million dollars for it just to have the hull to restore. Collectors markets are cyclical.
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You are correct that collector's markets are cyclical. Part of the requirement for something to turn into a collectible, however, is for it to be old enough and rare enough to be collectable. So for example, a number of my Jaguar friends (decades older than me) bought an XKE or XK120/140/150 when the cars were simply "old." Later, they became classics, and worth a lot of money that people will now pay ridiculous sums for.

The difference as I see it with GA is that the GA fleet is still working, and a number of these aircraft were built for decades. I don't think of a Cessna 310 as collectible, and I doubt that many other people do, either. Certainly an Aztec or an Apache isn't, and the same goes for most of the fleet. It seems that the majority of aircraft that are considered collectibles are either Warbirds or else other early aircraft that harken to the romance of aviation.

You have a point with aging aircraft (and even design) desirability, Cirrus's success and Mooney's failure played that out.
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That's the thing. With few exceptions (P-51s come to mind), people still need airplanes to be functional when they buy them. Only a few people have the money and desire to keep a fleet of aircraft for the sake of collecting them. I think more people have the money than the desire.
 
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