Most Reliable Plane You've Owned vs. Least Reliable

Ted

Ted

The pilot formerly known as Twin Engine Ted
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The [most/least] reliable car thread got me thinking. So, what's it been?

Caveat: The 310, 414, and MU-2 were/are all owned by Cloud Nine, but for the purposes of this I'll include them since I've been operationally and financially responsible for them.

Least reliable: The 414. After the initial honeymoon phase that plane had a hard time going more than 15 hours without needing something done to it. Although I knew it was going to be a restoration going in, this was a situation where the physical fuselage itself and the wings were the primary items that didn't cause trouble at some point.

Most Reliable: The MU-2. In December I had the first issue pop up that had to get addressed outside of a shop visit in close to 400 hours of flying it, which specifically was a fuel boost pump. Otherwise, each inspection I've gone in with a minimal number of squawks. Last inspection it went in with literally no squawks.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
The [most/least] reliable car thread got me thinking. So, what's it been?

Caveat: The 310, 414, and MU-2 were/are all owned by Cloud Nine, but for the purposes of this I'll include them since I've been operationally and financially responsible for them.

Least reliable: The 414. After the initial honeymoon phase that plane had a hard time going more than 15 hours without needing something done to it. Although I knew it was going to be a restoration going in, this was a situation where the physical fuselage itself and the wings were the primary items that didn't cause trouble at some point.

Most Reliable: The MU-2. In December I had the first issue pop up that had to get addressed outside of a shop visit in close to 400 hours of flying it, which specifically was a fuel boost pump. Otherwise, each inspection I've gone in with a minimal number of squawks. Last inspection it went in with literally no squawks.
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Not cloud nine @ CID...? Right?
 
Mooney M20C is both since it's the only one I've owned. ;)

Really the only non-planned downtime I've had is early on when the start gear came from together due to someone putting the wrong ring gear on, so I had to source the correct ring gear as well as replacing the starter. Took a couple months to figure out the problem and find the right part.

Oh, and the 11 months it took me to do my own overhaul, but I don't fault the aircraft for that since it didn't break down, I chose to do it preemptively.
 
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Most Reliable: Skywagon - It hasn't stranded me or even had an unscheduled mechanical issue *knocks on wood*

Least Reliable: Skywagon - It's needed a LOT of maintenance as a flying restoration.

Okay I've only owned one plane.
 
Nice!

Most reliable: Old Taylorcraft. Annuals were a "change the oil/clean the plugs" affair. No electrical so no problems there. Nothing ever broke.

Least reliable: Experimental with high hours and a revmaster. Nature of the beast I think.
 
Most reliable: C-172N (Lyc. O-360-A4M)

Least reliable: CubCrafters Sport Cub, because of its Continental O-200-A. The airframe was great. The engine ... well, Continental must have forgotten how to build them since the old days.
 
Most reliable: Ryan Navion B.
Least reliable: Ryan Navion B.
It's the only one I ever owned.

Airframe hasn't ever really let me down. The Gopher engine was pretty abused when I got it so I wasn't surprised when it blew a cylinder.
The Continental IO-550-B was practically new and well maintained until it blowed-up (as we say in NASCAR). I see another IO-550-B exploded in a smiliar way in the current issue of Plane Crash Monthly. I bet the NTSB invent the cock-and-bull explanation for that one as they did for my engine.
 
I've only owned one plane, but I do have to say she's been a solid bird. Hard to believe it's been 12 years now, holy cow time flies!
 
As a renter, I have one that shines as least reliable. The Apache PA-23-150 I tried to get my multi rating in. Made it all the way to sign off for the checkride but was never able to finish it. The last straw was leaking fuel tank bladders when preflighting for the solo flight to my checkride. Flight school ultimately wouldn't fix it and told me to only fill half full since it was only leaking from the dry rotted tops of the bladder. That thing was constantly out of service, door hinge problems, and all sorts of things...

The runner up would be that same schools 7AC Champ, whose tail wheel was always out of whack....I never finished that sign off either.

Most reliable I think would have to be the school's 172N
 
We had an pair of Cessna 172F models, nobody liked them because they were old and haggard, but man, they just soldiered on without much fuss. Simple and reliable things, and the O-300 motor was way smoother than the O-320s in the fleet.

Those old ARC avionics, though, ugh, life got a lot better after we chucked those.

Took one of the motors from 0 to 4400 SMOH, it started making metal, then we flew it from CA to Mena for a quick swap and back on the line a few days later.

I feel like the most reliable plane is the one that flies a lot. Once they sit and rot, they're all terrible until they get some time under them and "shaken out"
 
My RV-6 and my old Tomahawk are/were equally reliable. From an equipment and complexity standpoint, they are near equivalent, and I never had dispatch problems with either one.
 
Most reliable was our Sundowner we had for nine years. That plane always answered the call, we still miss her.

least reliable... the Deb. I guess that’s not really fair,but, she did try to kill me. ;)

The jury is still out on the recent purchase of our Commander. So far in nine months she left me AOG due to a mag and then on Christmas Day the parking brake valve puked out all my hydraulic fluid. She’s fixed and ready to fly once again.
 
Most reliable airplane I’ve owned: 1933 Waco F2. (And I bought it without a prebuy!)

Least reliable: my first airplane - a 1948 Cessna 170. It had been neglected by many previous owners. Learned a lot of valuable lessons with that one.

The Beech 18, Baron and T6 have all been pretty reliable, but can’t claim to be as trouble free as the Waco.
 
I've only owned one aircraft, and that was a Wills Wing Falcon hang glider. Zero problems, of course.

My father had a Skylane and a Skyhawk at two different times, and neither had much in the way of problems. The only thing I remember ever needing attention was the transponder in the Skylane quit and needed a repair. Of course those airplanes were only a few years old. That was back when most people flew airplanes that were less than 10 years old.
 
I have no concept of what’s normal, have had only one, my current 182P. I guess as long as inexpensive stuff happens, it’s ok, but I always have some tabs in my fuel log for stuff to be looked at next annual. Jeez, if I were to have deferred stuff over the last 2.5 years, that’s a LOT of little stuff. And I’m still making improvements to older or cosmetic things.
 
Man that’s tough. I suppose the Venture is the most reliable. I’ve had some radio and gyro problems but everything else has been great.

My Grumman was the most reliable airframe but least reliable engine. It always needed something and I despise working on Lycoming engines.

The C150 has been reliable for the most part. I’ve had to tinker on the engine but that’s because it sat for 15 years so it was expected.

My dads Luscombe is the most reliable I’ve ever seen. Nothing to go wrong with no electrical system and the little A65 just will not die.
 
Least reliable... United Airlines... most reliable Southwest...

Oh! My bad we're talking airplanes not airlines... I'll just grab my coat and hat and let myself out... carry on! :)
 
Ventucky Red said:
Least reliable... United Airlines... most reliable Southwest...

Oh! My bad we're talking airplanes not airlines... I'll just grab my coat and hat and let myself out... carry on! :)
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History with three owned airplanes. Most reliable was my 1948 CESSNA 140. It had the simplest systems, no training wheel in the front and initially I didn’t expect the pre whistle stop to work anyway, broke a flap bracket once ( exciting when you are at 300 feet on final and one flap blows up and one still down, there is not enough aileron to overcome the roll, glad it had stick flaps), tail spring broke once. Next a 1963 Cessna 210 - Narco radios suck! Vacuum pump failure once, nose strut seals, nose gear linkage broke, electrical charging system failed once, hydraulic pump failure. Now a 1970 210K, most sophisticated panel but no issues with the Avidyne & King stuff. Some issues with the hydraulic gear ( nose gear cylinder cracked and main gear door cylinder seals that were old ), runout motor that was replaced not the fault of the airplane, a couple of wiring issues. Basically the simpler the airplane the more dependable!
 
Not really a fair comparison as it puts apples and oranges in the same population.
Planes with fewer and simpler systems should inherently be more reliable.
 
I've owned several TC'd planes and 3 Experimentals .. 2 of which I built. I'd have to say the
Warriors were the most reliable. The two Sonex the least. And the issue with the
Sonex isn't the plane itself .. it's pretty bulletproof. My experience has been the
lack of reliability of the Aerovee engines. Constant tweaking, maintenance and failures
leads to a lack of trusting the engine.
 
RogerT said:
I've owned several TC'd planes and 3 Experimentals .. 2 of which I built. I'd have to say the
Warriors were the most reliable. The two Sonex the least. And the issue with the
Sonex isn't the plane itself .. it's pretty bulletproof. My experience has been the
lack of reliability of the Aerovee engines. Constant tweaking, maintenance and failures
leads to a lack of trusting the engine.
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Have you heard if the corvair guys have had any better luck? My thinking is the VW is pushing well over its original design HP but the corvair isn’t. I know there were a few corvair crank issues that are now resolved.
 
Including co-ownership my experience, in order from most to least:

RV-6A
C177RG
PA32-300

To be fair, the solely owned plane has the advantage of a single (bad) pilot and one person's idea of how things should be maintained.
 
reliability of airplane has little to do with the plane and more to do with the history of use and deferred maintenance.
 
Grum.Man said:
Have you heard if the corvair guys have had any better luck? My thinking is the VW is pushing well over its original design HP but the corvair isn’t. I know there were a few corvair crank issues that are now resolved.
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The Corvair fleet hours has to be a tiny number. I'm not sure we'll ever know if the crank issues are in the rearview.
 
Stewartb said:
reliability of airplane has little to do with the plane and more to do with the history of use and deferred maintenance.
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As a generality, that is true. But there are airplane models for which their inherent systems complexity or design shortcomings make them objectively less reliable even when normalized for individual ownership variances. But that gets people butt hurt when you call their baby ugly, which is why the sampling of the question is worthless to begin with (no offense OP! :D).
 
FORANE said:
Not really a fair comparison as it puts apples and oranges in the same population.
Planes with fewer and simpler systems should inherently be more reliable.
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SHOULD be, but not always the case.

As mentioned earlier, my 1948 Cessna 170 (a very simple airplane) was by far the most unreliable and money pit. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun plane and I loved flying it, but it had several decades of owners doing the absolute bare minimum that it was constantly in the shop. Every time it would go in for something simple like a oil change, we'd find something else about to come apart and we'd address that.

Compare that with the post just before yours of the guy who's most reliable airplane was a 1948 Cessna 140. Same manufacture, same vintage and very similar airframe with some common parts. The difference is how people cared for the airplane over several decades.
 
Most reliable: 182
Least reliable: 182
It's the only one I ever owned.

Never had any issues... leaky fuel tank, but that doesn't really count. I've only done the normal maintenance and ads-b.
 
I've never owned a plane, typically fly club planes. Something needs fixing, call the maintenance officer for that plane. Easy!
 
Only owned one (PA28) and really the only things that have broken in 3 years ownership are avionics. Lost an attitude indicator and a DG. So far the Lyc O-360-A4M has been rock solid.
 
Only owned one. 182.

Been more reliable than me and was built about the same time. LOL.

Just out of annual. DG decided to die, one cylinder is a little lower than usual on compression. Refurb DG and monitoring.
 
FORANE said:
Not really a fair comparison as it puts apples and oranges in the same population.
Planes with fewer and simpler systems should inherently be more reliable.
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True, but some aircraft are just better built than others.
 
denverpilot said:
Only owned one. 182.

Been more reliable than me and was built about the same time. LOL.

Just out of annual. DG decided to die, one cylinder is a little lower than usual on compression. Refurb DG and monitoring.
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I thought you guys had G5s in that thing.
 
Grum.Man said:
My Grumman was the most reliable airframe but least reliable engine. It always needed something and I despise working on Lycoming engines.
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My Tiger was opposite. NEVER had any problem that left me stranded. Previous owner put a ton in avionics and I was chasing some issues there at the end (Comm 1 radio problems and a couple of AI's ...). Engine was great. Did have an alternator come apart in flight at night that occurred just after annual ...
 
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