Rest of the story.. We agreed on a price (40), had a pre-buy inspection done. So I said I wanted to fly it. He said he only had ground coverage on it, so I got my hackles up a little and said I wasn’t going to buy something I hadn’t flown. He grudgingly put coverage on it and we met the next morning for a flight. He eyes me up and down and asks if I knew how to fly a tailwheel. I told him yes, but I’d ride in the back if he wanted me to. He waves me into the front seat, we taxi out and takeoff. Out of about 1,000 feet he smacks me in the back of the head! I turn around as much as I can and he says “wipe that grin off your face!” When I showed up a month later to fly it home, he had a headset and portable GPS in the plane which he originally said weren’t included. He even called me a couple of times to make sure the trip was going ok..
Selling an airplane
- Thread starter Beargrass
- Start date
It is hard to tell the tire kickers from the buyers sometimes. Ten years ago I sold a 185 I had had for a few years. One Friday evening a guy called me and asked if he and his son and grandson could look at it Saturday morning if they flew over. I said yes, he meant I and my dad at the airport and looked it over, asked if he could do a standard preflight and proceeded to do a preflight including checking the fuel in the tanks. He ask me if I would take 10 thousand less than my asking price and I said no. After he left my dad says to me we should have went flying, that guy just wasted an hour and a half of a nice Satuday. Then three weeks later the guy calls me on a Sunday night, tells me he has a prebuy scheduled for Friday and will I take 5 thousand less than my asking price, I said I would let him know on Wednesday when I said 3 thousand less than asking. I made the hour flight to meet on Friday morning, he bought me lunch while his bank did the wire transfer to my bank, and gave me a ride home. You have to consider every respond-er to your ad a buyer, you just never know.
Tim
Tim
Jeff Morrison’s dad started a flying service in Helena in 1931. In fact, he showed me his dad’s license signed by Orville Wright. When I met him, he was retired and after many decades in aviation he was, let’s say, a man of few words. I enjoyed the brief time I spent with him and as I get older I appreciate people who don’t suffer fools gladly...
Found this blurb online.
In 1931, Red Morrison arrived at the Helena Airport. Morrison had previously served as the personal pilot for William Randolph Hearst. He and his wife Bitty formed Morrison Flying Service and were a primary force in the early development of the Helena Airport. Red Morrison was listed as the Airport Manager in 1931 when Helena was proudly identified as the lowest crossing point of the Continental Divide.
Morrison Park
Red Morrison and Bill Fahner are credited with starting the School of Aeronautics in Helena, the first such accredited school in the country. Morrison was killed in an aircraft accident on Christmas Eve near Tampa, Florida, where he was serving as a flight instructor in the Air Force. Bitty Morrison continued operating the business until their son, Jeff Morrison, took it over. Morrison Flying Service remained on the Helena Airport until the air taxi and service portions of the business were sold to Exec Air Montana in 1995, completing over 60 years of service with the distinction of being the oldest family-owned aviation business in the northwest.
Found this blurb online.
In 1931, Red Morrison arrived at the Helena Airport. Morrison had previously served as the personal pilot for William Randolph Hearst. He and his wife Bitty formed Morrison Flying Service and were a primary force in the early development of the Helena Airport. Red Morrison was listed as the Airport Manager in 1931 when Helena was proudly identified as the lowest crossing point of the Continental Divide.
bob turner
Registered User
Mike - you are selling your 11? What kind of engine?
BC12D-4-85
SPONSOR
Fairbanks, AK.
Mike...fly it to the Alaska show for sale. If not I have two parking spots for later in Fairbanks.
Gary
Gary
Regarding the OP, you can keep tire kickers to a minimum by posting a good, complete ad. Include pictures of everything and a link to scanned logs. When I've been tire kicking, I've looked at ads like that and thought, "I'd like to call this guy but I'm not ready to make an offer and I don't have anything to ask him."
An old, departed friend used to say, "You should post an ad that's so complete that the only question a buyer has left to ask is 'When can I pick it up?'"
I'm selling my Bonanza with a broker, but they're too expensive for a $40k airplane.
"Why are you selling?" Is a perfectly good question that might tell you a lot. "I lost my medical 6 years ago" means the airplane might be a pile of rust. "I have three kids in college" could tell you to look out for deferred maintenance. "I'm selling it for a friend" could mean anything. "I buy and sell a handful of airplanes every year" means you've got an amateur airplane dealer -- run away as fast as you can!
An old, departed friend used to say, "You should post an ad that's so complete that the only question a buyer has left to ask is 'When can I pick it up?'"
I'm selling my Bonanza with a broker, but they're too expensive for a $40k airplane.
"Why are you selling?" Is a perfectly good question that might tell you a lot. "I lost my medical 6 years ago" means the airplane might be a pile of rust. "I have three kids in college" could tell you to look out for deferred maintenance. "I'm selling it for a friend" could mean anything. "I buy and sell a handful of airplanes every year" means you've got an amateur airplane dealer -- run away as fast as you can!
skywagon8a
MEMBER
SE Mass MA6
How do you do this?
Steve Pierce
BENEFACTOR
Graham, TX
Google Photos or Google Docs.
skywagon8a
MEMBER
SE Mass MA6
Can you recommend an instruction manual for this?
Richgj3
BENEFACTOR
LI,NY
I have sold seven airplanes over the years. The last four were done through brokers and their fees were well worth it based upon my experience with the first three. I set what I thought was a relistic bottom price I would accept net to me. If I don’t get it, I keep the plane. I guess I’ve been in the ballpark for the market because they all sold eventually and I didn’t have to deal with BS.
A partner and I just bought a V35B Bonanza. My partner is a DAR and formerly owned a V35. We did a lot of research on a few advertised airplanes including full FAA records on maintenance and owner history. We settled on one to look at. We traveled from LI to the mid west at our own expense. We paid the sellers mechanic to do the pre-buy with us. We paid the asking price because we believed it was worth it. This was a private sale, but that didn’t matter to us. We looked at several broker airplanes but they were not worth the trip for one reason or another. We got what we wanted and the seller got what he wanted. A win-win.
Rich
A partner and I just bought a V35B Bonanza. My partner is a DAR and formerly owned a V35. We did a lot of research on a few advertised airplanes including full FAA records on maintenance and owner history. We settled on one to look at. We traveled from LI to the mid west at our own expense. We paid the sellers mechanic to do the pre-buy with us. We paid the asking price because we believed it was worth it. This was a private sale, but that didn’t matter to us. We looked at several broker airplanes but they were not worth the trip for one reason or another. We got what we wanted and the seller got what he wanted. A win-win.
Rich
sj
Staff member
Northwest Arkansas
Connect your phone up to google photos (everybody should do this anyway in my opinion), take pictures of the logbook pages and other things, create a sharable link to the group of pictures in google photos and send it out. Can also do with a camera of course if your phone does not have a camera.
sj
hotrod180
FRIEND
Port Townsend, WA
I sold my first airplane, a stock C150, two years into it because I wanted to be a taildragger pilot (bought a C170).
One potential buyer explained to me that he was part of a club / shared ownership deal with about 7 other guys,
and that the son of one of the other guys had totaled their 150.
I flew over to his airport, he bought me lunch, and I took him up for a test flight.
When we got back, there was the other seven guys waiting for us.
He hopped out and said "OK boys, who's next?"
Nope, not gonna happen bubba.
Never heard another word from him or them.
JimParker256
Registered User
Farmersville, TX
No "instruction manual", but I have done two ways:
1) Using the phone to take pictures of each page of the logbook, and posting all those photos to a photo-sharing app. I found it tedious to get all the pictures legible enough, and uploading /organizing all those photos was a PITA. It's also much harder for the person reviewing the logs, because to make sense of the logs you really need to read them sequentially, making notes as you go.
2) I spent around $150 and bought a combo printer/scanner/fax machine. It came with software that allows me to scan the entire logbook to a PDF file. Took about 30 seconds per page, and I scanned the entire collection of logbooks (multiple airframe logs, plus the engine and prop logs). The whole thing took less than a 1/2 day. Every potential buyer commented about how great it was to be able to review the logs in complete detail as though you were sitting with the "real" logbooks.
Option 2 would be my preference every time... There is a learning curve, but it is quick and easy. If your time is worth anything to you, or if you need a printer/scanner/fax anyway, it's a no-brainer decision. And once you have the logs scanned in PDF form, you can usually just upload them as attachments to the ad listing itself.
PS - I now do this for every plane I own, even when I'm not even thinking about selling. It provides me a backup of the logbooks (no "lost or missing logbooks"). And it is fairly easy to append new log pages to the existing PDF file.
Hi folks, I thought I told everyone, the 7ECA is now at it's new home in Francesville, Indiana. A nice young man came and went over it very carefully, spent the night with us and flew it home the next day. Called and told me he was happy with the machine and will be teaching his son to fly in it. I taught a few folks to fly in the Champ and used is for several years on the place, checking crops and cattle and ferrying parts. airplane had been recovered and generally looked like new. I sold it because it was just too difficult for my old body to get in and out of. Only have the 285 Deb now and no need for the others. after 17000 in the log and most of it tail wheel time it is time to start getting rid of a few things. Yuall keep your heads out of the dirt, Ok?
I bought my 1978 Super Cub last week after a 2 1/5 month process of staring at Trade-A-Plane, Barnbusters and Controller for hours every day. I was originally open to any taildragger - Citabrias, Huskys, PA-11s, PA-18s, whatever. I was that guy who asked every stupid question you could imagine. I learned quick that if I wasn't really careful, I was going to get really, really burned. Real fraud is going on out there. I learned that brokers and sellers are good at concealing damage.
I also learned that there are a lot of crusty and overly assertive sellers and they come from a few groups - 1) Old guys who love their beautiful plane more than life itself and resent the fact that they have to sell it to some guy they don't know, 2) Liars who don't want to answer questions that would expose weaknesses in the plane and 3) Guys who genuinely have no social skills. I just gritted my teeth and dealt with all of them, because I didn't know what group they were from. But market price is determined by the number of sellers and the number of buyers. You will have more buyers if you don't chase off buyers. Simple as that. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Be nice. Go out of your way to answer questions. Not everybody is going to be an expert. Don't resent an ignorant buyer - his money is just as green. Think of those phone calls as an unpleasant aspect of a well paying job. In the long run, those phones calls are worth hundreds of dollars an hour or more.
You would not believe how bad and murky 80% of the photos on the web sites are. Bad pictures came to mean to me that either something is being hidden or the seller is lazy and does not pay attention to details. If you don't understand brightness and contrast or you can't take decent pictures have your wife or kid do it. Don't have 5 pictures of the outside of the plane from 30 feet away and no picture of the instrument panel or the interior condition.
If you have a listing that leaves out something important like engine time, you are going to get a lot of phone calls. Make the listing complete. For example - any halfway interested buyer will want to know WHEN the engine was overhauled. "250 SMOH in 2016" tells me something that "250 SMOH in 1993" doesn't.
Take your log books to the FED EX store and have them scan them and convert them to PDF files that you can email. If you have scanned logs, make sure that they are legible.
List a price!!! You will lose many buyers by not having a price listed. No price listings got ignored by me, because it means one and only one thing - the plane is way overpriced.
Take notes on any caller and record details about them. If they call back you will be at an advantage.
If you do use a broker, have an out of town relative check with their cell phone number to make sure he answers his phone calls. Some of these guys seem to screen all of their calls and check their answering machine every few days. Nothing irked me more than leaving a message then getting a phone call 3 days later that starts of with "Hello this is John Doe from Forgettable Name Aviation. You called about the Super Cub?"
The plane I eventually bought had a broker, but he had the owner do about 15 minutes of close up video of every nook and cranny and hinge and exterior detail of the plane. He posted the videos, stills and logs on dropbox so that anyone could look at them. This was the only seller that did this, and it instantly took away suspicion from my mind. The plane was way in upstate New York and because of those videos I felt like I did not have to travel to see the plane in person. After a good prebuy and annual, I jumped on it. I recommend that any seller do this.
I also learned that there are a lot of crusty and overly assertive sellers and they come from a few groups - 1) Old guys who love their beautiful plane more than life itself and resent the fact that they have to sell it to some guy they don't know, 2) Liars who don't want to answer questions that would expose weaknesses in the plane and 3) Guys who genuinely have no social skills. I just gritted my teeth and dealt with all of them, because I didn't know what group they were from. But market price is determined by the number of sellers and the number of buyers. You will have more buyers if you don't chase off buyers. Simple as that. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Be nice. Go out of your way to answer questions. Not everybody is going to be an expert. Don't resent an ignorant buyer - his money is just as green. Think of those phone calls as an unpleasant aspect of a well paying job. In the long run, those phones calls are worth hundreds of dollars an hour or more.
You would not believe how bad and murky 80% of the photos on the web sites are. Bad pictures came to mean to me that either something is being hidden or the seller is lazy and does not pay attention to details. If you don't understand brightness and contrast or you can't take decent pictures have your wife or kid do it. Don't have 5 pictures of the outside of the plane from 30 feet away and no picture of the instrument panel or the interior condition.
If you have a listing that leaves out something important like engine time, you are going to get a lot of phone calls. Make the listing complete. For example - any halfway interested buyer will want to know WHEN the engine was overhauled. "250 SMOH in 2016" tells me something that "250 SMOH in 1993" doesn't.
Take your log books to the FED EX store and have them scan them and convert them to PDF files that you can email. If you have scanned logs, make sure that they are legible.
List a price!!! You will lose many buyers by not having a price listed. No price listings got ignored by me, because it means one and only one thing - the plane is way overpriced.
Take notes on any caller and record details about them. If they call back you will be at an advantage.
If you do use a broker, have an out of town relative check with their cell phone number to make sure he answers his phone calls. Some of these guys seem to screen all of their calls and check their answering machine every few days. Nothing irked me more than leaving a message then getting a phone call 3 days later that starts of with "Hello this is John Doe from Forgettable Name Aviation. You called about the Super Cub?"
The plane I eventually bought had a broker, but he had the owner do about 15 minutes of close up video of every nook and cranny and hinge and exterior detail of the plane. He posted the videos, stills and logs on dropbox so that anyone could look at them. This was the only seller that did this, and it instantly took away suspicion from my mind. The plane was way in upstate New York and because of those videos I felt like I did not have to travel to see the plane in person. After a good prebuy and annual, I jumped on it. I recommend that any seller do this.
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Looks like it may work now, The 7ECA is with the new owner in Franesville, Ind. Nice your man carefully inspected the airplane, spent the night with us and flew it home the next day. Why I sold it, 80 yeas old and hard to get it the airplane and I have another much larger that is easier to get in and out of. ,
I bought several airplanes to use in my business over the years. Most were new and 4 or 5 used ones. I also sold them as I bought new aircraft to replace them. I never had any trouble selling. I used a "broker" one time. No I am not a seller or buyer expert but just have not had the problems the some seem to have.
bob turner
Registered User
I too would miss that one. I plan on keeping my J-3 another 14 years - I will be 91 then and my hangars will revert to the City. Still jumping in and out of the front seats of the Cub, Dec, and my buddies' Stearman. But not jumping off the couch as often . . .
Have not yet figured out a graceful way to get my right foot in the Chief, but I am getting there.
Here is a sales-related question: when you deliver an airplane to its new owner, do you give it to him empty, or full, and why? I have always assumed it was polite to deliver with full tanks.
Have not yet figured out a graceful way to get my right foot in the Chief, but I am getting there.
Here is a sales-related question: when you deliver an airplane to its new owner, do you give it to him empty, or full, and why? I have always assumed it was polite to deliver with full tanks.
It is considered very nice to have the tanks full but Was unable to do this since no fuel on the field. I have to go 50 miles for fuel. I owned the fuel at 17K, sold it when I sold the spray business. The guy that bought me out just threw the business away. He was not an ag pilot and sure not business man. He had plenty of money but no idea how to run the business. He now has two Thrushes sitting in a hanger, has sold the loading equipment and lost a bunch of money. Being a airline pilot does not necessarily make you a ag pilot or sharp business man.
I was beginning to think it was me getting all the time wasters and tirekickers! Took two years to sell my plane, if I listed it too low just to dump it then people wondered what’s wrong with the plane, if I listed it at an average price then there’s too many nicer ones to choose from with the same money, so it sits a long time. Also as soon as I listed the airplane all of a sudden there’s 10 more that pop up out of the blue for sale.
The Trick is to use a webpage specifically for your aircraft for sale, use Dropbox or use Airplane Mart dot com. Then send the tire kickers the link via text or email. Saves a ton of time emailing attachments.
The Trick is to use a webpage specifically for your aircraft for sale, use Dropbox or use Airplane Mart dot com. Then send the tire kickers the link via text or email. Saves a ton of time emailing attachments.
Eddie Foy
MEMBER
South Florida
skywagon8a
MEMBER
SE Mass MA6
Eddie, check the vintage of your gas tank bladders unless you happen to have integral tanks. When they get old they can fail without warning. You don't want this to happen. When stored with less than full fuel the rubber can dry out. This is more apt to happen in a hot environment.
