Common Wisdom: Don't buy a flight school plane

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Rlh0518

Filing Flight Plan
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Alwayslearning
Will hopefully pass my checkride next week. Rentals are hard to come by within a reasonable drive, so starting to look for a plane. I've heard over and over again to run away from a former flight school plane. Hard landings, rough maneuvers, etc. Well, I've been flying one of those for months and all of the maintenance I'm aware of has been routine. I've seen some advertised with high TTAF but no damage history reported or suspicious lookbook entries. Can a good pre-buy inspection uncover those things I'm supposed to run away from. Somebody seems to buy these planes. All thoughts that may help calibrate my brain will be tremendously appreciated.
 
I would not rule any airplane out based upon someone else's 'standard idea' or a preconceived ideas. Well, except for flood planes!
You have to take each individual airplane and study its merits, faults.
 
I'm not following the logic. The worst thing you can do to a machine is let it sit. Machines were designed to survive a life of use, not neglect. Most airplanes are a lot tougher than you may think and shrug off the majority of training mishaps with no issue. You have to take each airplane on its own merits and inspect it. I would certainly not rule out a flight school plane that was a good value from the 'inspect list' just because it was a flight school plane.
 
I've seen some privately owned aircraft that are landed and handled quite ruff.

I wouldn't judge one way or another approach them all like they have been ridden hard and put away wet and maintained by a retarded spider monkey.
 
I own an ex flight school plane. Embry Riddle put 1000 hours a year on my plane for the first 5 years of it's life. They rebuilt the engine twice and sold it with 1,000 hours on the last rebuild. They sold it in 1998. It has had two owners since then, including me. We've put 700 hours on it between the two of us. I would say that the maintenance issues we have experienced have mostly been related to low usage not abuse.
 
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Wow, you folks reply really quickly. Great group. Thanks. All of the comments so far reinforce my own thoughts. Anyone have thoughts on what to look for in the logs and the physical inspection?
 
Logs: Take what is in there with a grain of salt. Physically (where possible) verify that the things noted were actually done. Failing that, look for ancillary proof such as a work order, a parts invoice.
Often what is more useful is that which is not said. And a thorough prebuy inspection will often help turn up much of that.

Aircraft inspection: this is where the true evidence is.
 
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The University of Ohio was the first owner of my plane, but it am guessing it was not used as a primary trainer with its 235hp engine. Still, I dont have any issue with them having owned it for presumably IFR training... Or something else. They only put 200 hours a year on it for 4 or 5 years.
 
Just normal wear and tear, plus a bit of wing rash from those flustered landings :D

plane-crash2.jpg
 
This conversation came up while I was training with my CFI. He made an excellent point. He said that flight school planes are the most maintained airplanes in the entire field because of the 100 hour inspections, constant use and oversight. I've flown around in rented planes for 5 years now, all also used for flight training and I still trust my life to them. The issues that I've seen most often are things like broken arm rests, chipped paint and small cracks in the plastic covering of the elevator edge, mostly cosmetic kinds of things.

When my time comes to buy a plane I want one that's been maintained, not one that may have sat on the ramp for months at a time. I'll be more interested in engine time than what the plane was used for prior to me!
 
I had a plane that a flight school put 6000 hours on.
No issues.

Get a good pre buy inspection
 
The advice of a good pre-buy is the direction to go. Even damage if fixed properly may not be an issue with regard to safety. These items do all affect value, so as long as an airframe has a commensurate selling price than there is no reason to eliminate it on principle.
 
OK...let's ask the same question a different way...and bet we get different consensus:

Common Wisdom: Don't lease-back your plane to a flight school.

Discuss.
(Keep the financial aspects to a minimum)
 
The perception that flight school planes are bad comes from sellers who try to squeeze blood (money) from their turnip airplanes by advertising using such phrases as "never used as a trainer (or at a flight school)". You will see this language used in trainer type airplanes often up for sale.
 
wrbix said:
OK...let's ask the same question a different way...and bet we get different consensus:

Common Wisdom: Don't lease-back your plane to a flight school.

Discuss.
(Keep the financial aspects to a minimum)
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C'Mon "everybody" knows that leasebacks get dogged (/sarcasm)
 
I was talking to a club executive about a leaseback. He looked at the plane and told me not to. Something to the effect of, "this is too nice an archer and you will undoubtedly end up ****ed off what happens to it."
 
jspilot said:
This conversation came up while I was training with my CFI. He made an excellent point. He said that flight school planes are the most maintained airplanes in the entire field because of the 100 hour inspections, constant use and oversight. I've flown around in rented planes for 5 years now, all also used for flight training and I still trust my life to them. The issues that I've seen most often are things like broken arm rests, chipped paint and small cracks in the plastic covering of the elevator edge, mostly cosmetic kinds of things.

When my time comes to buy a plane I want one that's been maintained, not one that may have sat on the ramp for months at a time. I'll be more interested in engine time than what the plane was used for prior to me!
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Having been a mechanic and an AI who worked on a fleet of trainers, they get a lot of attention. And not just from the mechanics, the FAA likes to check up on flight schools as well, a lot more than they show up in somebody's private hanger nosing around. Then there are the students themselves. They tend to be pretty critical. After all, the instructor is pounding safety, safety, safety in their heads all the time. Students do a good job of preflighting planes and they sure don't have any interest in letting something slide for a while before it gets fixed. If you are running a flight school, you don't want your students checking your planes several times a week, and seeing stuff that doesn't get attention. Bad for business. There is a lot of oversight going on there.
 
wrbix said:
OK...let's ask the same question a different way...and bet we get different consensus:

Common Wisdom: Don't lease-back your plane to a flight school.

Discuss.
(Keep the financial aspects to a minimum)
Click to expand...

This goes both ways and requires you to do your due diligence.

First off, you have to give up the 'your plane' concept. If it's 'your plane, your baby, your pride and joy' no, do not lease it back. Now if you can consider it a business tool, a capital purchase to provide a return, that provides you a benefit of reduced cost use, then you can start doing your due diligence. Never lose sight of that, it's a depreciable asset that is serving a purpose.

I have seen a lot of these deals, more go bad than go good, however a sufficient number work out well for all parties. First thing you have to research is the principle to whom you will be leasing the plane. Do they have a fleet of long term leaseback planes? Get the list of the other owners and call them, see what their experience is. That will tell you pretty much what you need to know about the person you're about to do business with.

There are two typical models I see in the industry, one works well, the other not so much. The model I see that always has satisfied owners is the "dry lease". You get 20-30% of the hourly, they take care of everything on their dime, you pay full price and get the income back or discounted on rental (depends how the tax accounting is set up).

The other model is the "wet lease" model where you take 70-80% of the hourly, but are responsible for maintenance and insurance. If you are an A&P, preferably an IA, who is leasing out the fleet to the flight school, this can work out very well.

What you want to avoid at all costs is the situation where you are a non A&P responsible for maintenance and the FBO that you are leasing to has the maintenance shop as one of their profit centers. What happens all too often in these cases is when it gets slow and/or there are cash flow problems (mistress needs an abortion) suddenly your plane needs some expensive maintenance.
Everyone I've ever known or heard from who was in one of those deals bled money out their asses, but at least "they didn't have to pay to rent their own plane!" That's the sales hook that sells the wet lease model to suckers. That's why you have to give up the 'your plane' concept first, it makes you an emotional sucker.
 
Jaybird180 said:
C'Mon "everybody" knows that leasebacks get dogged (/sarcasm)
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They do, it doesn't matter, it's in the business model of a depreciable capital asset.

Besides, interiors are cheap to refurb.
 
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I agree with others. Rental planes get opened up a lot so reputable operations generally have pretty good maintenance. You can't get away pencil whipping inspections on a flight school plane like you can with a privately owned aircraft. Eventually someone's gonna come looking.

Flight school airplanes tend to get dinged up from hanging seat belts, torn interiors, spilled sodas, etc, using the glare shield as a handle, etc.

If your plane is in pristine condition--and that bothers you--put it on leaseback.

Renters are also good at fouling plugs (wet rentals) and burning cylinders (dry rentals). If it's a turbo, well...good luck.
 
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Brad Z said:
I agree with others. Rental planes get opened up a lot so reputable operations generally have pretty good maintenance. You can't get away pencil whipping inspections on a flight school plane like you can with a privately owned aircraft. Eventually someone's gonna come looking.

Flight school airplanes tend to get dinged up from hanging seat belts, torn interiors, spilled sodas, etc, using the glare shield as a handle, etc.

If your plane is in pristine condition--and that bothers you--put it on leaseback.

Renters are also good at fouling plugs (wet rentals) and burning cylinders (dry rentals). If it's a turbo, well...good luck.
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That would be extremely unwise to take for granted though, because unfortunately, exactly that does happen all too frequently.

"Flight school plane" in and of itself is completely meaningless either way. As was stated before, it's solely an emotional marketing term.
 
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Henning said:
That would be extremely unwise to take for granted though, because unfortunately, exactly that does happen all too frequently.
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I'm sure it does. I just think it happens in non-commercial private aircraft even more often.
 
Brad Z said:
I'm sure it does. I just think it happens in non-commercial private aircraft even more often.
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Nah, I'd say about the same. Most people take maintenance pretty seriously and want their planes to be right.
 
Sadly, we have no data that either of you are right.
 
Jaybird180 said:
Sadly, we have no data that either of you are right.
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Sure we do, the accident statistics show it's not a significant issue either way. If it was rampant we would see more maintenance related accidents. Unfortunately most are pilot screw ups.
 
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