Purchasing in Oshkosh, Airventure 2013

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NavByte

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It's my first time traveling to Oshkosh for Airventure this year. I have heard many people there have their aircraft labelled "for sale". I'm wondering how it works. Are there A&Ps available for pre-purchase inspection?

I'm planing to buy a Glasair II FT or an RV-6(or 7)A.

Appreciate your advice/experience.

November Bravo
 
NavByte said:
It's my first time traveling to Oshkosh for Airventure this year. I have heard many people there have their aircraft labelled "for sale". I'm wondering how it works. Are there A&Ps available for pre-purchase inspection?

I'm planing to buy a Glasair II FT or an RV-6(or 7)A.

Appreciate your advice/experience.

November Bravo
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I would think you could strike a deal based on an inspection after the event. I wouldn't buy airplane that I didn't have time to have inspected. In other words, I wouldn't rush into a purchase, because there are 200,000 other potential buyers at the event.;)
 
I wouldn't have a strange mechanic at a distant airport do a prepurchase inspection. The guy who inspects the aircraft is going to be the same guy who does the annual.

But the show is a good place to go airplane shopping, plenty for sale.
 
I've been to at least 9 air shows and they are not good places to buy an airplane. The planes there tend to be extremely over priced.

Good place to learn specific information about a model. Talk to dozens of owners of the same model or even camp out with them.

go enjoy and learn. If you see one that you think you might want to buy that is great but chance are not so good.
 
Tony_Scarpelli said:
I've been to at least 9 air shows and they are not good places to buy an airplane. The planes there tend to be extremely over priced.
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One of those rare times where I agree with you, Tony. :) I've never seen such starry-eyed dreams such as those on the "price" line of an Osh Kosh for sale sign... land of the $60,000 cessna 150. :rofl:
 
For a while the EAA sponsored a big auction at the show, but I haven't seen anything about it lately and assume it didn't work out. You can almost see the sellers thinking "wow, all that traffic in a concentrated area, that would be a great place to unload this pup."

And it might be if they could only resist the urge to stick about 30% on the price in the window, while forgetting that the people who attend OSH are the same ones who read all the trade rags every week.
 
I haven't observed that the prices on the "for sale" sign at OSH are consistently higher than the prices on trade a plane or controller. That said, this is still a buyers market, so those prices generally won't be what the plane actually sells for.

My concern about buying at OSH wouldn't be the price on the for sale sign, make whatever offer you are willing to pay and if they accept it then fine, but the risk is putting pressure on yourself to get a deal done while you're there because that's why you went.

Go to the show. Kick the tires. Make an offer you think is fair. Treat the whole thing like an instrument approach. Plan on going missed and if you end up landing consider it a bonus.

There are advantages to looking at planes there. You can very easily tell the one with the 100ft paint job and appraise for yourself how the entire plane looks. Much easier to go for a test flight if you're serious also. Just don't fall into the trap of having to buy something and you'll be fine.
 
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I figured all those old dudes in floppy hats were carrying loads of cash in those heavy plastic bags....



:)
 
Thanks for the good advices.
I am familiar with the market for Glasair and Glastar as I have been watching it for a while on at least 5 different websites and talked to many sellers. So, I can probably say if an airplane is badly overpriced.

But at the same time I'm a little bit afraid of sellers reaction if my offer is much lower than their asking price (I'm not irrational but I don't wanna pay too much either). So, sometimes it's better to ask the seller to lower their price rationally before making an offer. Or just walk away if they are selling a C150 for 60k :)
 
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