So how bad are no logs?

bflynn

bflynn

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Brian Flynn
Maybe not the best place for asking about a potential buy, but if I'm honest, I'm not going to buy an airplane anyway. This is an education question

But I figure the mechanics know the best - what really is the impact if there are no logbooks?

I get that it increases the inspection costs because you have to look at everything more closely. There's no way to know damage history but I think current damage should be detectable. You have to assure that all ADs are complied with and potentially repeat some if they can't be verified, so that's going to vary by model. It impacts the resale value when you don't have complete logs, although less if you have restarted a log which shows documentation of the inspections and ADs.

What else? Am I missing something major?
 
That is a disaster waiting for a buyer! No records of maintenance, no AD compliance, no history of components like pumps, props, etc. Logs going back for the last 10 years should be OK, but no logs - NO WAY! The airplane is worth salvage value at most.
 
I know some people get more uptight about it than others. Like you said, you want to see details about AD's, and any repairs, including engine and prop overhauls. Depending on what's missing, how much it affects the value varies.

Personally, I bought my current plane b/c it was in pretty good shape. It also helped that the guy kept everything. They had an AD come out a few years ago regarding a certain part in the cylinders in my plane. It saved me a lot of headache b/c I was able to dig through old receipts and see that they used a different part that wasn't included in the AD.
 
bflynn said:
What else? Am I missing something major?
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Alterations and repairs.

You can start by getting the aircraft's file of 337's from the FAA Civil Aircraft Registry for all major alterations and major repairs for which the 337's were filed as the were supposed to be, and then making sure you have the STC's for all major alterations not on a field approval documented on the applicable 337. If you're missing any STC's for any of those major alterations in the aircraft's records, you'll have to obtain a new copy of the STC from the STC holder, and they may charge as much as the original STC fee for that.

Whoever does the inspection will then have to examine the plane to see if there are any other major alterations or major repairs which do not show up in the 337's. In that case, the inspector will have to confirm they were done properly, and then document them on a 337 and send it in. Also, the inspector will have to see if there are any alterations or repairs (major or minor) which do not appear in the aircraft's maintenance records. Again, if those are found, the inspector will have to determine that they were done properly and document them in the logbooks and, if they're major, on a 337 (and obtain any necessary field approvals or STC's for major alterations).
 
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Computerjim said:
That is a disaster waiting for a buyer! No records of maintenance, no AD compliance, no history of components like pumps, props, etc. Logs going back for the last 10 years should be OK, but no logs - NO WAY! The airplane is worth salvage value at most.
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Whoa there big fella. Most spam cans are worth more salvage, but that is another thread for another day. Logs can be recreated and are done so all the time. Logs are lost, destroyed, stolen, what ever. Past owners, mechanics, FAA records, etc. can get you information close enough to make an educated decision.

To say; "NO WAY" is a bit over the top don't you think?
 
What he said

I also would NOT use a AP to judge price or buying selling tactics, that's not what they do.

Having the logs missing would be a large discount, I'd say up to +/- 25% off a comparable plane with logs
 
Here's a tip for folks.

Set up a free gmail account. Don't use that account for ANYTHING. Never send from it, never sign up for websites with it, nothing.

Then, whenever something changes in the logs, take a picture of the log page that has changed and e-mail it to this account. Because you never use it for anything, you'll get zero spam in it, but all the e-mails you send to it will be time/date stamped with when they are sent, and will be retrievable from any computer with web-access in the future.
 
Geico266 said:
Whoa there big fella. Most spam cans are worth more salvage, but that is another thread for another day. Logs can be recreated and are done so all the time. Logs are lost, destroyed, stolen, what ever. Past owners, mechanics, FAA records, etc. can get you information close enough to make an educated decision.

To say; "NO WAY" is a bit over the top don't you think?
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Assuming we have one of these props and there are no records whatsoever on the airplane, please show me how to comply with this AD:

 
http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_G...ED3F1B9AF861486E8625684A004EE501?OpenDocument

a) Within 10 hours time in service after the effective date of this AD, determine if this AD applies, as follows:

(1) Determine if any repair was conducted on the engine that required crankshaft removal during the February 1, 1995, to December 31, 1997, time frame; if the engine was not disassembled for crankshaft removal and repair in this time frame, no further action is required.

(2) If the engine and crankshaft was repaired during this time frame, determine from the maintenance records (engine log book), and Table 1 of this AD if the crankshaft was repaired by Nelson Balancing Service, Repair Station Certificate No. NB7R820J, Bedford, Massachusetts. The maintenance records should contain the Return to Service (Yellow) tag for the crankshaft that will identify the company performing the repair. Also the work order number contained in Table 1 of this AD was etched on the crankshaft propeller flange, adjacent to the closest connecting rod journal. Because some etched numbers will be difficult to see, if necessary, use a 10X magnifying glass with an appropriate light source to view the work order number. In addition, the propeller spinner, if installed, will have to be removed in order to see this number.

(3) A person with a private pilot or higher rated certificate may make the determination of applicability of this AD provided the propeller spinner does not have to be removed.

(4) If it cannot be determined who repaired the crankshaft, compliance with this AD is required.

(1) Perform a visual inspection as defined in paragraph (b)(2) of this AD, magnetic particle inspection, and a dimensional check of the crankshaft journals, or remove from service affected crankshafts and replace with serviceable parts.

(2) For the purpose of this AD, a visual inspection of the crankshaft is defined as the inspection of all surfaces of the crankshaft for cracks which include heat check cracking of the nitrided bearing surfaces, cracking in the main or aft fillet of the main bearing journal and crankpin journal, including checking the bearing surfaces for scoring, galling, corrosion, or pitting.
 
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bflynn said:
Maybe not the best place for asking about a potential buy, but if I'm honest, I'm not going to buy an airplane anyway. This is an education question

But I figure the mechanics know the best - what really is the impact if there are no logbooks?

I get that it increases the inspection costs because you have to look at everything more closely. There's no way to know damage history but I think current damage should be detectable. You have to assure that all ADs are complied with and potentially repeat some if they can't be verified, so that's going to vary by model. It impacts the resale value when you don't have complete logs, although less if you have restarted a log which shows documentation of the inspections and ADs.

What else? Am I missing something major?
Click to expand...

No log books? How do you know the aircraft's maint history? How do you know the plane hasn't crashed, been rebuilt, sat in a swamp for 10 years?

An old car is one thing, an old aircraft is pretty unforgiving in the air when it fails.
 
CTLSi said:
No log books? How do you know the aircraft's maint history? How do you know the plane hasn't crashed, been rebuilt, sat in a swamp for 10 years?

An old car is one thing, an old aircraft is pretty unforgiving in the air when it fails.
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An airplane could have complete logs books going back to the factory and still may have crashed, sat in a swamp and then been rebuilt and you still might not know it from the books.

Logs are important and have definite value but they are by no means protection from the unknown.
 
CTLSi said:
No log books? How do you know the aircraft's maint history? How do you know the plane hasn't crashed, been rebuilt, sat in a swamp for 10 years?

An old car is one thing, an old aircraft is pretty unforgiving in the air when it fails.
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Between ordering the FAA records CD and a NTSB search you can fuel a few of those out.

Much of the rest depends on the airframe and what possible ADs might come into play.

Still, I wouldn't even debate it unless it was one heck of a sweetheart deal.
 
An inspection is going to determine if there has been damage or repair history, these things are usually very evident even when well done. However, as pointed out, creating a new AD compliance list could be troublesome. Once the list is pared down to applicability it would have to be determined if the aircraft were in compliance. Some would be easy, others not so easy and some might pose a great deal of trouble or be completely impossible to resolve.

As I've said before, in this day and age there is no excuse for lost logbooks. It takes no more than five minutes with a $90 digital point and shoot camera to make a complete copy of all logs and maintenance paperwork. It doesn't have to look pretty or be neatly formatted, it just needs to be legible.
 
Fearless Tower said:
An airplane could have complete logs books going back to the factory and still may have crashed, sat in a swamp and then been rebuilt and you still might not know it from the books.

Logs are important and have definite value but they are by no means protection from the unknown.
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Log books are signed. Doubt they are correct? Contact one of the signers.

No log books? I got an acre of land at the bottom of the ocean to sell ya.
 
It's a significant PITA which can give you a $40,000 surprise if you haven't done ALL your homework.
 
CTLSi said:
No log books? How do you know the aircraft's maint history? How do you know the plane hasn't crashed, been rebuilt, sat in a swamp for 10 years?

An old car is one thing, an old aircraft is pretty unforgiving in the air when it fails.
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Some, if not all, of those records can be found with an FAA documents search. Maybe not online, but enough of a history can be found to get a pretty good idea what the airplane is like.
 
CTLSi said:
Log books are signed. Doubt they are correct? Contact one of the signers.

No log books? I got an acre of land at the bottom of the ocean to sell ya.
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Actually it is the other way around.

IF you didn't believe everything is correct in the logs just because someone signed them then you wouldn't be trying to offload a bridge in the first place.
 
With no logs, how do you know that your 5,000 hour Cessna 172 isn't actually a 15,000 hour Cessna 172 with a replacement tach and hobbs meter?
 
Brad Z said:
With no logs, how do you know that your 5,000 hour Cessna 172 isn't actually a 15,000 hour Cessna 172 with a replacement tach and hobbs meter?
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Serial number.

How do you know that for sure WITH the logbooks?
 
Paulie said:
Logs usually disappear for a reason.
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Potential buyer 1 asks for and takes the logs and disappears, then the next potential buyer can later purchase with a lower offer. They might be in cahoots behind the scenes.

It happened at our airport on an older C-150 - according to the seller.
 
You won't know the engine time so you have to figure it needs to be SMOHed. That's gonna cost a bundle.

Isn't there another plane like that somewhere that HAS logs? Why not buy it. Why get a bunch of extra headaches? Owning a plane is hard enough WITH logs.

Still, desperate men do desperate things. I suppose someone will buy it.
 
nrpetersen said:
Potential buyer 1 asks for and takes the logs and disappears, then the next potential buyer can later purchase with a lower offer. They might be in cahoots behind the scenes.

It happened at our airport on an older C-150 - according to the seller.
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You'd have to be a special kind of stupid to hand over the logs :yikes:

That's what scanners are for, scan and send, or scan and print.

If you don't have a scanner and printer
https://storelocator.staples.com
http://thekinkosstorelocator.com
 
James331 said:
You'd have to be a special kind of stupid to hand over the logs :yikes:

That's what scanners are for, scan and send, or scan and print.

If you don't have a scanner and printer
https://storelocator.staples.com
http://thekinkosstorelocator.com
Click to expand...

The airframe and engine logbooks, like your personal logbook are LEGAL documents to be protected like a title to a car or house. Would you hand over the title to your car to a 'prospective' buyer? Then who does that for an aircraft?
 
Geico266 said:
Why would not complying with this AD cause the value of the airplane to be zero? The person I quoted assumed the plane was not even worth salvage. Do you contend the same?
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Missing logs are 25% value after logs recreated and in annual once again at the most. If the plane was in excellent condition outside of a missing set of logs, it will probably be one of the best deals that you can buy, just understand you will pass on that deal to sell it. Just make sure you do all the homework on what cost of getting compliance will be before striking the deal, because a miss can eat your lunch and make it a 'bad bad deal'. Excellent example being the prop AD above.

As to value prior to getting signed back off and flying vs salvage, it depends on what it costs to get into compliance vs how much demand/value the salvage has. Every deal is unique.
 
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Geico266 said:
Why would not complying with this AD cause the value of the airplane to be zero? The person I quoted assumed the plane was not even worth salvage. Do you contend the same?
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Not at all what I was implying. The fact is you pretty much have to do a complete, exhaustive and tedious AD research before setting a price, looking for those ADs that read:

"any __________part repaired, overhauled or returned to service by __________. If it cannot be determined who did the part then it must be replaced, overhauled or ________.

These types of AD's could mean pulling a crankshaft for overhaul/inspection, prop, magneto, etc etc, which get awfully expensive in a hurry.
 
James331 said:
You'd have to be a special kind of stupid to hand over the logs :yikes:

That's what scanners are for, scan and send, or scan and print.

If you don't have a scanner and printer
https://storelocator.staples.com
http://thekinkosstorelocator.com
Click to expand...

Well, people hand me logs to review all the time, but I sit there with the plane and review them so I can look at things that piqué my interest. I agree it's a special kind of stupid to let them out of your supervision.
 
Silvaire said:
Like I said before, no need for a scanner. Just photograph the pages with your little digital point and shoot pocket camera, takes about five minutes to flip through the pages and snap them. I do this all the time and it works perfectly.
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Meh, I've done this with my logs and my planes logs, the folds in the page by the spine, and over all quality are kinda lacking with a camera.

Add to that, turning it into a multi page Pdf is easier with some of the software that's bundled with scanners (if you're not a photoshop or GIMP person).

But if you only have access to a camera, beats nothing.
 
Plenty of nice aircraft around without getting involved in a crap shoot. Then when you go to sell it you have big problems. Then there's the possibility that you know the rebuilder, that he tore it down completely , including the engine, and redid the whole bird and he's very skilled. That seems ok to me, but a rare occurrence. Then there's the fairy tale log book syndrome. Aircraft 40-60 years old have an excellent chance of non entries, false entries, serious in jury's unreported, on and on. A real crapshoot. You used to see ads like " Stearman for sale, never a duster" . Probably a bold faced lie as they sold for 500 bucks after WW2 and the only people who bought them , to a very large extent were dusters. Buyer beware!
 
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Greg Bockelman said:
Serial number.

How do you know that for sure WITH the logbooks?
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If you have logs, you see a steady progression of time over the life of the aircraft. Without logs, you're trusting whatever number shows up on the meter. By the way, what's a serial number going to tell you about the veracity of the total time?
 
From time to time dataplates with complete set of logs pops up on ebay. Lacking that, cruise the insurance salvage sites. A few minutes with a drill and a pop rivet gun can get you a complete set of logs.
 
Captain Obvious said:
From time to time dataplates with complete set of logs pops up on ebay. Lacking that, cruise the insurance salvage sites. A few minutes with a drill and a pop rivet gun can get you a complete set of logs.
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And maybe a trip to the Federal penitentiary. The FAA takes a hard line if someone is discovered "swapping dataplates" and logs.
 
depends on the airplane. Why do you want to buy a plane with missing logs ?

Is it a restored grumman widgeon with 20 years of missing logs ? Might be the only one of its type on the market.

Is it a C-172? There are another 3000 of them for sale.
 
Captain Obvious said:
From time to time dataplates with complete set of logs pops up on ebay. Lacking that, cruise the insurance salvage sites. A few minutes with a drill and a pop rivet gun can get you a complete set of logs.
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That's not really a wise idea.
 
James331 said:
Meh, I've done this with my logs and my planes logs, the folds in the page by the spine, and over all quality are kinda lacking with a camera.

Add to that, turning it into a multi page Pdf is easier with some of the software that's bundled with scanners (if you're not a photoshop or GIMP person).

But if you only have access to a camera, beats nothing.
Click to expand...

When I first started doing it years ago I went to great pains to use a tri-pod and align the book on a board and flatten it with a pane of glass like on a scanner but I soon realized that I'm not taking someone's portrait and it doesn't have to look "pretty" All that is required is you be able to read it. I also gave up on creating single pdf files because it is much easier to just create a folder with all of the jpg's and using the standard Windows photo viewer it is actually more convenient to page through and zoom.

I do this with every clients logbooks, some of the older aircraft have half a dozen or more and often prior owners and mechanics have stapled yellow tags or other receipts to the pages. Trying to run all these through a scanner would be an absolute nightmare. I'd suggest anyone interested to try your camera first, you'll be done before you have the time to lose interest in the task. :wink2:
 
Silvaire said:
When I first started doing it years ago I went to great pains to use a tri-pod and align the book on a board and flatten it with a pane of glass like on a scanner but I soon realized that I'm not taking someone's portrait and it doesn't have to look "pretty" All that is required is you be able to read it. I also gave up on creating single pdf files because it is much easier to just create a folder with all of the jpg's and using the standard Windows photo viewer it is actually more convenient to page through and zoom.

I do this with every clients logbooks, some of the older aircraft have half a dozen or more and often prior owners and mechanics have stapled yellow tags or other receipts to the pages. Trying to run all these through a scanner would be an absolute nightmare. I'd suggest anyone interested to try your camera first, you'll be done before you have the time to lose interest in the task. :wink2:
Click to expand...

That's what I do too. Much much faster.

If you have decent camera, you can lay two or more books in the camera view and get them in one photo.

Scanning to PDF is painfully slow
 
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