Ramp Rot Pics

Those are not pictures of airplanes. Those are pictures of what used to be airplanes. Now they may as well be soda cans and pie tins.
 
1600vw said:
I spoke with the owner of this airplane. He believes its worth 60 large. I just walked away shaking my head.
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Wow. Just... wow. 10% of that would be a tough sell. Sad part is, his heirs will probably believe that and be heartbroken when someone "takes advantage" of them and gets Grandpa's plane for what they think is a totally unfair price.
 
1600vw said:
I spoke with the owner of this airplane. He believes its worth 60 large. I just walked away shaking my head.
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I have a group of friends that just bought a comanche 250 for 15k,needed work and paint but was flyable the day they bought it.They are refitting some of the avionics and the bladders,and one bad cylinder.They say the plane flys great.
 
1600vw said:
I spoke with the owner of this airplane. He believes its worth 60 large. I just walked away shaking my head.
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It is...but ONLY to HIM.

He would have to pay me to clean that spot up...
 
N801BH said:
Is it just me not seeing correctly, or, is the whole tail section missing?:dunno::confused:
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It is. I'm guessing it might be under the blue tarp. I'm thinking he just slipped on his decimal point. I think you might be able to get $6,000 worth of parts and scrap salvage out of it.
 
60 large is what he wants. We told him 6 was all its worth.
 

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My home airport has tons-I'll have to get some pictures when I'm out there tomorrow.
 
Dav8or said:
I'd take the Comanche nightmare any day over that wooden nightmare!:hairraise:
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That is complete missing nothing, it even has what the owner called the flying deck or something like that. Its the top. Also has the stock head that is hand pumped, he had to remove that in order to float her in the Great Lakes.
The engine was rebuilt and pickled then parked right where you see it 40 years ago.
 
joeparrilla said:
Can we not do this, its depressing...
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What is depressing is the owners will either not turn loose or wants such a hi price no one will ever pay it.
The man whom owns this airplane and boat will have them until he dies. Then whom ever gets them will junk them, or maybe give them away for a fraction of what others have already offered to pay.
I told this man, both those have been setting in that building for 40 years, why not turn them both into some cash.
He talks about them and you can see he is living in the past. If the owner was charging him storage maybe he would sell, but free storage, they will never move.
This is not the only ChrisCraft he has. I could take pics of the other 1956 run-a-bout but it would make you sick. Its in great shape though, hard to see from the dust.
 
1600vw said:
What is depressing is the owners will either not turn loose or wants such a hi price no one will ever pay it.
The man whom owns this airplane and boat will have them until he dies. Then whom ever gets them will junk them, or maybe give them away for a fraction of what others have already offered to pay.
I told this man, both those have been setting in that building for 40 years, why not turn them both into some cash.
He talks about them and you can see he is living in the past. If the owner was charging him storage maybe he would sell, but free storage, they will never move.
This is not the only ChrisCraft he has. I could take pics of the other 1956 run-a-bout but it would make you sick. Its in great shape though, hard to see from the dust.
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I wonder if they truly plan to fly it ever, or if its more of a pride thing.

Before I started training, I made the tough decision to sell my '93 Audi S4. It was a car that I had sought out for many months and finally found the one I wanted. The reality was that I just didnt drive the damn thing. I take the subway to work daily, and my weekends usually involve some activity in the city or some other non-driving destination. I looked at it a lot, and had hopes of doing work on it... but time and lack of any garage space just had it sitting in my parents driveway for over a year. It honestly made me lose sleep at night seeing it just sit there and not be driven. It was a tough thing to let go of, but my relief seeing it driven by a close friend of mine outweighs the loss of the car by a long shot.

If you arent going to use the damn thing, dont be a hoarder. Let someone else appreciate something wonderful!
 
He told me the prop needed replaced and was over 5 grand. That is why its missing the prop. He will never fly this airplane or use the boat.
 
If they get value out of being an airplane owner who cares? People have no duty to release their possesions back into the market below some arbitrary level of use. Airplanes are chump change you know how many super nice beach front mansions there are only getting a weeks use per year...
 
1600vw said:
He talks about them and you can see he is living in the past.
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why is it any of your business how he lives or what he does? Who appointed you as caretaker of his posessions and his pocketbook ?
 
JHW said:
why is it any of your business how he lives or what he does? Who appointed you as caretaker of his posessions and his pocketbook ?
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I dont think it's anyone's business, you're right. But that doesnt mean that we cant feel sorry for the fact.

Being a big lover of automobiles as well as planes, it saddens me to see someone let an old classic car rot away when I know that somebody somewhere would love to own and bring it back to life. My own car that I wrote about is a perfect example. My friend knew I was letting the car sit and he constantly bugged me about it. Was it his business? Not really. But he loved the thing and knew that he had the means and time to enjoy it... seeing it sit in my driveway was tough for him to watch. Although I didnt want to part with it at first, I get where he is coming from... and I started to feel the same about it.

So no, we shouldn't judge these people... but that doesn't mean we cannot be upset about it. Im not saying they are bad people or anything...
 
JHW said:
why is it any of your business how he lives or what he does? Who appointed you as caretaker of his posessions and his pocketbook ?
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I lease the building now, its my hangar. For over 20 years this building has been nothing but storage. Today we have 4 airplanes trying to share this space. It would be nice to get this stuff out.
But you are right its not. I was just trying to get something that was going to rot to someone whom might use it.
 
Since you can't love an inanimate object, what a person really loves are the memories of people that are associated with the object. By that measure, the octegenarian who already has memories linked to the object could easily derive more pleasure from it in a dilapidated state than could a new owner who would pour money into it but who has not yet created any memories with it.
 
The owner told me he will never fly that airplane again. He said he will never float that boat either.
 
JHW said:
Since you can't love an inanimate object, what a person really loves are the memories of people that are associated with the object. By that measure, the octegenarian who already has memories linked to the object could easily derive more pleasure from it in a dilapidated state than could a new owner who would pour money into it but who has not yet created any memories with it.
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Jeff you hit it on the head..
 
Its the memories that are worth the 60 large. He knows what the bird is worth, he is a darn good A&P. Its the memories. When he speaks of either the airplane or the boat I see it in his eyes.
This is why I dropped the idea of trying to sell either. It almost broke my heart seeing this man speak of these things. I think maybe because before long that will be me.
 
as a follow on, let me relate a time where my neighbor walt wanted to buy a ramp queen ercoupe. He had located the owner and wanted to cold call him to make an offer. Instead i offered to go with him to pay them a visit in person. We called the local airport and found out when the gentleman was around, and we flew over there to see him on sunday morning. We met him and mentioned that i used to have an ercoupe and my friend was thinking about getting one. He offered to show us his plane and we went to his hangar. Walt was anxious to walk straight to the plane but i stopped him and we instead started with the pictures on the wall. Every picture produced a story about teaching children and grandchildren to fly in the coupe, and talk of sadness that none of his children has expressed an interest in the plane. We talked about how Walt also had 2 young children and one of his goals was to find a plane he could fly as sport pilot and also share with the boys. We spent hours talking and looking at pictures with our back to the airplane itself. By the end of the day Walt had an ercoupe free to a good home and more importantly he had found a new friend.
 
Here's Byron's (C83) ramp rot. None of these planes have moved other than from tie down to tie down in the 2 1/2 years I've been here.

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And our newest addition...



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Well, actually, this plane was on my list of planes to photograph for this little assignment, but just a couple of days ago, we had really strong winds, reported to be gusting to 75 mph and the story is the tie down ring on this one broke and it flipped over. It looked to me to be in the usual salvage value before this incident, so I think they better check the tie down ring for hacksaw marks!;)

The Aztec and the Mooney are parked next to my hangar and I got to meet the guy who owns both. He comes out every now and then to put the gust locks back on and to put air back in the tires. Old pilot, real nice guy, probably in his eighties and putting on the good appearances. Told me he was going to get a battery and get the Mooney ready for summer flying, as though that's all it needed after sitting for years. He also told me that he no longer needed the Aztec since he no longer has a wife, but it wouldn't get him much money to sell it so...

Anyhow, there are no shortages of tie downs at Byron, so if these folks want to support the local airport by paying to store their memories, I'm OK by that. I just feel bad for the heirs who'll have to clean up the mess and also I guess for the planes. I'm one of those sentimental fools that puts a soul to machines. The Mooney is parked right beside my hangar and it is also a '66. Sort of a tale of two Mooneys.
 
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Been 7 years since I've been to Byron. Remember the plane without the tail.
 
Tom-D said:
the reason most of the aircraft I see here are not worth the cost of bringing them back into service simply because the buyers will not pay the prices it costs to restore them.
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And they'll never sell them, because they have memories, and they're going to fix them up someday, they swear.
 
Light Sport Legal Just add elbow grease.:D
 

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Anyone interested in an organically grown Aztec? Comes with a topping of blackberries.

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I know I am reviving the dead here, but i love taking on projects like this. I did something similar with a sailboat. The owner got in bad with the marina, was about to have the boat seized by them, i got him to sign over title, and turned her into a great little first sailboat with about 5K out of my pocket for new rigging, halyards and spreaders
 
So at what point does an owner decide to call the scrapper? Are there even companies that do such a thing, like go out to an airport and pick up a neglected wreck?

How do these airplanes get to be in such a state, what causes it?

Someone buys an airplane, they fly it, love it, keep it in a hanger, have the required inspections and work done on a timely basis, they keep it all nice and clean and polished, then what happens?

They lose their job? They get sick? They get too old to give a crap anymore?

The plane never belonged to an individual but was part of a corporations assets that was not being used anymore? They cut costs to the bare bones since no one met their asking price. They take it out of the hanger to save money, they stop having the annual done to save money, they long ago canceled the cleaning service, and now, anyone in the corporation that was familiar with this asset has long since retired and the tie down is on auto pay?

I'll bet that there are a whole lot of interesting stories about the people who own these derelicts.

-John
 
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There are companies that do removal/recovery, however unless there is significant value left to salvage, it will cost money to have it removed.
 
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