How much airframe time is too much?

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Blueangel

Line Up and Wait
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Jan 5, 2015
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Scott
So I am looking at some older planes from Cessna and Beechcraft from 1962-1975 time period. What would be the highest airframe to consider if you plan to fly 100 hours a year for next 10 years?
 
Personally, I use other discriminators to narrow down the playing field before worrying too much about AFTT.

That said, with the average GA spam can, anything around 10,000 or higher was likely a rental/flight training airplane. Might be in fine shape at a good price, but certainly worked a little harder than a non-rental.
 
A 10k hr. skydive plane is a bad buy. A 10k hr. plane used in part 135 or flight training was probably well cared for and worth some money still.
 
I owned a Cherokee arrow with over 8kwhen purchased,traded it for a twin with over 10 k hours. High time ,is a matter of how the aircraft was used and maintained. Just look at the hours some of the warbirds have. Also an aircraft used as a trainer is not always a bad choice,something to be said about an aircraft that had an inspection every 100 hrs.
 
We have over 12,000 on the Piper Pawnee. But the frame has been rebuilt a couple of times. Wing attach STC etc.
 
You might get a nice high time plane, just remember when it comes time for you to move up or sell it you are going to have a harder time than someone with lower hours on their plane no matter how nice it looks.
 
Thanks guys! Well there is a nice Piper Archer for sale in San Diego that is good and can be great for time building and IFR rating. Archers hold value well like Cessna 172 so I can always use it for weekend burger hops or trade up to a faster complex bird later.
 
Blueangel said:
Thanks guys! Well there is a nice Piper Archer for sale in San Diego that is good and can be great for time building and IFR rating. Archers hold value well like Cessna 172 so I can always use it for weekend burger hops or trade up to a faster complex bird later.
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My Archer has just under 10K hours on the airframe and about 850 on a 6 year old engine. We did a very thorough prebuy inspection and immediately into an annual after the purchase. We did the wing spar corrosion inspection SB (1006) and all looked well. I would recommend that SB which involves removing the fuel tanks. My meticulous A&P has commented that it's a nice plane. I think it's all about how it was maintained, where it gets stored, etc.


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I figure if I get a fun plane to finish up my IFR rating and make burger runs that if I want a faster complex bird later, I can at least have a puddle jumper to fly to look at these in the future on a budget and see it later or trade up. The hard part is finding one with a Garmin GPS.
 
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