How long is too long ...

[TexasAviation]

... for a plane to not be flown regularly?

I'm shopping for my first plane (fixed gear, IFR rated for me to do my instrument training, decent cross-country machine, preferably with GPS and autopilot under $50k or so ... but realizing I might have to go up in price to get that). And maybe because of the price range I'm shopping in, I'm finding lots of interesting planes that just haven't been flown much in the past few years.

Example: There's a Musketeer Super III nearby that checks most of my boxes, but it only has around 300 hours on an engine last overhauled in 1999. So it's only been flying an average of 18 hours/year for 17 years, and just 10 hours in the past year. That can't be good.

Same thing with a Cherokee 180 that flew 12 hours in the last year.

I know this is common because that's why a lot of people sell planes. They just don't fly them much, so time to sell. But I worry that when I start putting 150-200 hours/year on it, all that sitting will start to show up in my repair bills, big time.

Is there a magic number for hours/year a plane to be flown recently that should make me comfortable with it? Or is it just a case-by-case, you can't tell until an A&P inspects it kind of thing?

 

[denverpilot]

Hoses, baffles, anything flexible will often have to be replaced. Engine itself is a bit of a toss up, but if it starts and runs for 10 hours it'll likely go many more. Your maintenance expenses will be in anything that rots. Seals, bladders, hoses, rubber bump stops, whatever that airplane has.

 

[edo2000]

Lots of factors to weigh. If it is hangared in a dry climate it is way better than outside in a marine climate. Also, what are the longest stretches of inactivity? How complete are the maintenance logs? If you fly an airplane one hour every 2-4 weeks and maintain it well, it won't accumulate much time, but the engine will age quite well. But if you fly it 10-12 hours in the summer then let it sit for 11 months, that's very bad. You can get a sense of this from the maintenance log books.

 

[James331]

Sitting around (in a hangar) isn't nearly as bad as the peanut gallery would like you to believe. I wouldn't really put any number on it for a part 91 airplane. ITS ALL IN THE PRE-BUY INSPECTION, everything else is just trying to read tea leaves.

 

[GRG55]

Corrosion internal to the engine is one of the major issues; expensive to fix these days. Cylinders can be observed using a borescope during a pre-purchase examination. On Lycoming engines the camshaft is on top and is more exposed to potential corrosion than a Continental. Every case history will be different so there's no blanket rule to apply here. An otherwise good potential candidate probably shouldn't be rejected without some investigation of the history, location, how stored and so forth as others have posted.