How To Buy Your First Airplane Part 5

well hello guys I'm LaRossa and welcome to fat tar cowboys dot TV and the final episode of how to buy your own airplane always use an escrow agent like the ones that AOPA has on available on their website too for the transfer of money okay so you understand that the escrow the escrow agent protects your money until the transfer is made everybody's transferred logbooks and paperwork and things like that of all and then the money's transferred but a lot of people forget that the escrow agent is not there they're not helping you on the purchase decision of the airplane if you bought a bad airplane they're gonna they're gonna send the money if you say send the money and then you're hung out if you get there and it's not at all what its represented to be because you clipped out some of these golden rules so don't put yourself in that position always use their escrow agent but also understand that they have nothing to do with the condition of the aircraft they're just they're keeping your money safe while you make those decisions due diligence you're gonna do your due diligence one way or another what do I mean by that you can either do your due diligence upfront before you buy the airplane or you can do it afterwards when it's in an annual and an ad note that got looked over is due on this airplane and so now you're gonna go find out what the ad note is how you comply with it how much money is it gonna cost me what's it mean for the airplane how long is airplane gonna be down it just mushrooms so one way or another you're going to learn these things so the best thing to do is decide what kind of airplane you want and they go learn everything you can about those airplanes including problematic areas ad notes that are on those airplanes service letters you know you can learn a lot about an airplane just by googling the tail number you wouldn't believe go google the tail number if there's an accident and the news coverage covered it a lot of times they have the end number of the airplane on the news coverage and guess what it shows up on a Google search so and obviously also go look at the FAA accident database search it there to find out if the if it's been in an accident and you may say well the guy told me there's been Rick well go look at the accident reports you can learn a lot you know yeah I know that in the log books that said the aircraft was geared up but they didn't tell you that it went through a stand of trees and ripped the gear out from under it to make it get her up so go look at those things learn all that you can about the airplane another really really good place to find out information about the airplane you're buying is particularly the ones with strong owner's groups you know the piper groups and things like that go on the owner search going are going the owner's group and search the topics for the tail number of the airplane or just start looking through all the twin Comanches or you know that's not an entry-level airplane but as an exam a owners group and you can look through there and you can find out what they you know for that airplane you may find out that they had an electrical problem you know that of a voltage problem with the airplane in it they were asking other members how do I fix this maybe they fixed it maybe they didn't but you're at least aware that they went through that problem and now you know to go look and see if the problem was ever resolved because sometimes they're never resolves it alright so you guys you know what you want you know what your operating costs are you know what your annual is gonna be insurance you know where you're gonna hangar this thing at so the very first thing to remember be patient hey the hunt is the fun part you meet a lot of different people and things and that makes it a lot of fun so remember that the hunt is the fun part your main sources are going to be because you're trying to stay close to your home Airport or go to the airports meet people there visit with them ask them what's around for sale and you can find out a lot from there look at that boards a lot of times they have a board up on the wall with airplanes for sale so and of course your other ones are trader plane comm Barnstormers comm and controller comm and I'm sure there's a few others you can also go to the make and model groups and a lot of times they have things for sale there alright so now you've gone through the ads and you've you've found one that you think that you might be interest so you're going to make a call to the owner or broker depending on you know what the situation is and just get them talking about the airplane and how long they've had it and what kind of condition is it in and things like that you know one of the things that I'll ask them always is what are the negatives on the aircraft and if they say there are none that's usually a red flag it can mean they're dishonest or it means that they where we spoke about earlier they don't know or don't want to know I've never purchased an airplane and that didn't have issues so particularly in this fleet now that is getting just really old and but they called them legacy aircraft and that just means they're older than crap so there's always issues with these airplanes I haven't seen one yet that didn't have some sort of issue with it okay on this next part guys you know if you if you've moved past and you like what you see you like speaking to the guy you're gonna ask for the logs most people have them copied and they can fax them to you now now the next thing is very important because you're a novice at this you need to pay a mechanic to sit down and look through the logs with you you want to sit with that person and look through those logs so they can point things out to you shouldn't take more than about an hour hour and a half to do something like that and you want to pay the guy for it he's going to make sure that they're complete logs and it's got a current annual that the ADEs are current what kind of damage history the airplane has that the logs make sense and have continuity for instance you know this is the airplane low time it's a really low time airplane did it it would make sense that it did some sitting at some point so you know you look and maybe between 1980 and 1990 it virtually sat without an annual that would make sense and that those are the kind of things that they're looking for that then it's that's got some continuity in the logbooks you know and make sure that the prop logs are there and you also a lot of times people forget to make sure that the prop log actually matches the a prop that's on the aircraft it's a serial numbers match and that that propeller actually is certified for use on that aircraft okay so you've had your mechanic look through the logs and you're you're still impressed and think the aircraft's worth looking at so you're going to call the owner seller back and ask them for a time that you can come take a look at the airplane so you know the things you're looking for are almost like a pre-flight you're walking around the airplane you're looking at the control surfaces and things like that for bubbled paint hail damage you know the bubbled paint can indicate corrosion underneath the paint so you're looking for bubble paint leaks is it leaking oil is it leaking which leaking all is not that uncommon I can't get this sky wagon of mine to stop leaking but you know is it leaking fuel that's always a very expensive fix you're looking you know feeling the controls are they free or correct are they binding do you hear any weird noises as you move the controls one of the things that I always do is Center the ailerons and then look in the cockpit at the yoke or the stick is it off to the side is it turned because that's an indicator that something's not rigged quite right or it doesn't fly correctly and they're compensating for that and it's not the correct way to compensate for it okay so all of those things check out now you want to fly the airplane and always offer to pay for the fuel in the aircraft when you do this it's just polite it shouldn't take you more than 30 minutes to to take the test flight you know you're gonna go out you get up just do some basic turns slow fly put the flaps down things like that just to confirm that the rigging is all good on the airplane that it doesn't try to roll off hard left or right ever or it doesn't have any weird slow flight characteristics or anything like that then you'll want to take it up to a cruise altitude and go cruise settings you know full power so get the mixture set and leaned out and there's some things that you want to note you want to note your outside air temperature your indicated airspeed rpm the manifold pressure if it has one cylinder temps exhaust gas temps all temp all pressure and what's my other one down here can I looked at I'm gonna cheat on the oil pressure change the RPM of the engine and see if the oil pressure there should be some fluctuation but not a lot I had a twin Comanche one time that the engine destroyed itself and that was the big deals you could when you slow the engine down boy the old pressure dropped off really quick particularly after it had been flying a little bit so you're you're looking for that ol pressure to stay up sustained even on power changes you want to if you can get if it's got a GPS in it like a five thirty or something like that get it to figure the true airspeed for you and then you'll have a real good understanding of how fast the airplane is is it rigged correctly and things like that and another thing that you want to do is turn on all the avionics and make sure they worked you know does does the vor go to the vor does yeah let's go to the ILS and things like that so just use a avionics make sure they all work all right so now you're on the ground and at this point you probably have a really good idea how much the guy wants for the airplane whether he's going to come off of it or not but you need to formalize that with an offer in the negotiate all that's sane airplane he wants $38,000 for the airplane and you know a good offer on that considering its a good airplane and doesn't have a lot of issues you know might be say come at it at you know 33 5 or something like that and he comes back and you know I can't take that but I'll take you know 37 and you know maybe you'll say look meet me in the middle you know look $36,000 and let's get a pre buy done and you know if he agrees to that great but that's kind of how those things play out so you've got you know $36,000 you're purchasing this airplane $1500 is probably a pretty good deposit on an airplane like that that is refundable all right so the next thing you want to do is draw up a simple agreement that you type yourself it's not anything fancy it's just both signing an agreement with details listed on how and the cell is the pre bio cell and is going to go and so that everyone knows what to expect that's that your your best thing and you're going to send this to the escrow agent so that they know what you the two of you have agreed upon so and one of the things that that is going to say is that it's a $1,500 deposit or whatever you determine between the two of you is acceptable he's got a $1,500 or let's say you have a $1,500 refundable deposit and that you are both agreeing to a pre by inspection at the buyers expense that there will be no air worthiness issues that all the logs are present and that there are no encumbrances on the title of the aircraft at closing if he has it financed obviously it's going to it's going to have an encumbrance on it for now so with the air worthiness issue let's say that you're inspected your mechanics inspecting the airplane and finds an air worthiness issue there's a couple of ways to go with this so and this is this is you need to put this in your agreement so if you find an air worthiness issue one of two things can happen either the owner pays to fix it pays that mechanic right then to fix the issue or the mechanic can fix the issue and the seller owner will deduct it from the price of the airplane all right another thing that can happen is and you want this in the agreement is the owner can decline to fix it if he declines to fix it it cancels the sale and the deposit is refunded to you all right so another way that you can do this is and this is particularly a good tactic if the aircraft has been sitting a long time in the inn and the owner is convinced there's nothing wrong with it and a lot of times this is a good way to ferret out whether the guys kind of being straight up with you or not I will suggest an annual shop of my choosing and that the seller the owner pays for that annual so if they're really convinced there's not a lot of things wrong with that aircraft and you know they may agree to do that some people won't because you can get it they can get into some problems with a different mechanic looking at the airplane but we just bought a wagon this way a year or so ago and it really worked in our favor is tomato that it was going to cost ten thousand dollars to annual the wagon because it had been sitting for seven years and I was wrong it took $13,000 to annual the airplane and get it back up to speed so that's just an example doesn't take long for those that kind of money to rack up so if it's been sitting a long time this is a particularly good way to get one purchased so you know on that one that again the owner pays for any air worthiness issues but you also want to state in there that he has the right to decline to fix anything on the airplane but it cancels the sale and the money is refunded back to you from the escrow agent here's something that a lot of people forget about and it gets people in trouble when you do these pre buys of course you're doing them you're paying for the pre buy but if the if the owner chooses to pay for the annual or chooses to fix something on the aircraft and pay the mechanic before you close on that airplane you need to make danger or that that mechanic got paid because he can put a lien on your airplane so make sure that the mechanic was paid before you close on the airplane all right guys you've got the mechanic paid the airplane sailed through the inspection process with not a lot of problems and everything's good and you're ready to close on the airplane so as the buyer you have facts a signed agreement about how this process is going to go to the escrow agent as the seller has done the exact same thing you have also made your deposit security deposit of 1500 or whatever you know termined was the correct amount and so from there you are now going to wire the balance of the funds to the escrow agent and the seller is going to FedEx the logbooks and a signed bill of sale over to the escrow agent and the escrow agent is going to get those and they're gonna say okay this is what I have and they're gonna call you and say this is what I have do you want me to release the funds and you're going to say if you have everything yes they're gonna call the seller and say this is the funds do you want me to have all the your things do you want me to release the funds he says yes and release the funds so then the funds are released and you now own an airplane one of the things that you could be real careful of is the signed bill of sales study up on those FAA form and I'll list it on here I can't remember the name of it but it's the bill of sale study up on how those should be signed and get a copy of it have them fax you a copy of it from the escrow agent before you release the funds to make sure that it is signed correctly well hey guys that's going to wrap up how to buy your own airplane maybe hopefully that's going to help you on this initial purchase and maybe it'll be a little less painful for you to get through that that part and as always thanks guys for going out to fight our Cowboys calm and purchasing our merchandise so so long until we see you next time viva la Rosa

Channel: Fat Tire Cowboys, LLC

Views: 5,193

Rating: 4.968504 out of 5

Keywords: Fat tire Cowboys, cessna, how to buy a plane, how to buy an airplane, piper, beechcraft, aviation, how do I buy a plane, how do I buy an airplane, aircraft finance, plane finance, aircraft prebuy inspection, aircraft title search, aircraft lien release, maule

Id: s-3bAsE162I

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 03 2018