Previous owner relationship

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Mtns2Skies

Final Approach
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Mtns2Skies
What kind of relationship do you have with the previous owner of your aircraft? Was it strictly a business transaction?

I still regularly talk to the owner and the mechanic (they're close friends) that I bought my Skywagon from. They're excited to see the progress I make on restoring it and are always happy to see me flying and enjoying the plane. I just painted my panel, so I no longer need the crappy plastic Cessna overlay. The previous owner mentioned when I bought the plane how much it would mean to him to have the "Don't do anything stupid" placard that was put on there by the owner before him. Since I no longer am using the overlay I'm sending that off to him and he's just overjoyed to see it and to have a connection to the airplane.

The mechanic recently sent me a photo from a local airport that was full of pictures of my plane and the owner before last, overall it's a fantastic relationship and it lets me know how much my plane meant to so many people.

What's yours like?
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Talked to him twice. Once to fly the plane/coordinate the pre-purchase. The next time was when we met to wire money/me fly away. It was all business. Don’t think he’d recognize her anymore. :)
 
Nice enough guy, but it was a business transaction. Haven't seen or talked to him since (not a surprise, since he's 600+ miles away and no longer flies).
 
The last contact I had with the couple I purchased my aircraft from was exchanging waves as I took off into the sunset...
 
I talk to my previous owner frequently, even 5 years later. Matter of fact this past summer when I flew to Texas I made a side trip to go reunite him with his old plane. We had lunch, talked airplanes, and he sat in it reminiscing. Too hot to fly for him otherwise we would have flown but it was about 100 degrees out.
 
I still talk to the guy I bought my first plane from, but it is only about once every few years. I haven't spoken to the guy I bought plane #2 from since the transaction was completed. Plane #3 was bought at auction however I spoke to the previous owner twice to get his side of the story on how it came to be on its belly and cause the damage it had. I am very good friends with the previous owner of plane #4, in fact that plane is residing in pieces in one of his hangars and the floats are in another.

Of the planes I've sold I have never spoken to the purchasers again. That's not a total surprise considering they all went halfway across the country.
 
Never talked to the guy. He was mil and sold it through a broker.
 
I never met him. I heard he was a dentist. I heard he flew 10 hours a year, about 1 hour every 6 weeks for 10 years, starting on a brand new engine he installed. He also repainted the plane, put in a new leather interior and carpet, only flew CAVU, kept it in a hangar, and only wore socks while flying (to keep the inside pristine). The care shows. I bought the plane several years ago from his broker at a discount and it’s been great. Love that dentist money.
 
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Just business. Might have been different if he'd been local, but he was in Long Beach and I'm in Tucson, so pretty much nothing after I took possession of the plane.
 
The prior owner only owned it for about 5 years. I reached out a couple times to ask him questions.

The owner before owned it for 25 years. I looked him up on the internet. I found his son. Figured the old man was no longer around. His son replied back and cc’ed the father who gave me some great stories, which I printed off to keep with the plane’s records.

The plane was a big part of his family’s life. Tail number was about his kids. Landed in a field dead-stick once; Great stories about slow short landings (Peterson mod). He is alive and well and had moved up to a jet, still runs a successful business. He is working on a book and said some of the plane stories will be in there.

Never realized it, but the last frame of this video are my (his old) plane, his jet, and his quote.

 
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I don't anymore. I did for a while and I'm pretty sure that I was bugging him with the questions I had. I think he was more irritated that he lost his medical and didn't want to be reminded of the plane.
 
Don’t have any contact with the prior owner. My understanding is his new wife wanted something bigger and faster than the 91 Tiger that I bought. Word has it she was buying him a Cirrus SR22. Wished I could’ve met that woman
 
My Champ has a long history of owners. I've met one who owned it in the 60's, and got to fly with him in it, e-mailed or talked with a couple more.
The guy I bought it from is now a woman, full bore all the way.
 
Mine's a nice enough guy, and if I was any closer to him we'd probably be more in touch.

Met him to transact the sale. I'll remember the handshake forever. A few phone calls afterwards for a couple of reasons.

But he's a (nearly) 4-hour flight away, and I don't get up there that often.
 
Previous sole owner was (and is) a good friend and when I bought in he became my partner, then ex-partner when I bought him out because we couldn't see eye-to-eye on pretty much anything re/ the plane (I wanted to maintain and insure it... he didn't). Still my friend, but we don't talk about the plane much... it's a little awkward.
 
The gentleman I bought my Bonanza from upgraded to an A36 and died due to an in flight fire a couple months after my purchase, leaving a wife and young daughters behind. He was a wonderful person to work with and the whole thing really punched me in the gut; on some level I felt like I was to blame.
 
It varies.

My first airplane (170) I did not keep in touch with previous owners. I loosely follow the guy I sold it to on Facebook.

My Baron was purchased through a broker. Never met or communicated with the previous owner. I sold it to a friend two hangars down from me and we are still friends. He even lets me fly it from time to time.

Still keep in touch with the previous owner of the Waco. Really nice guy.

Follow previous owner of Beech 18 on Facebook, but that’s about it.

Bought the T6 from a friend in Texas. Still communicate a few times a year.
 
If I'm nearby and I've got nothing better to do, maybe I'll lay a flower on his grave.
 
Only met the previous owners of two planes that I purchased. Even with those two, once the transaction was completed, never spoke to them again. The other planes were brokers, never met the people who actually owned them, except one by fluke years later. I was at a fly in lunch, when a woman came over to me and said that she and her husband used to own my 182. We chatted for a bit, and never saw her again. When I buy or sell something, it doesn't make me feel a bond with the seller or purchaser.
 
I emailed the seller after I got home from picking it up. I told him the 182 flew great & all the avionics seemed to work as promised. I also told him my GPH flying home was 10.2 & he told me I had it way too lean. Oh well, my airplane now. That was 3.5 years ago & I've never heard from him since. I still get about 10 GPH & the compression has been great. I'm never in that big of a hurry.
 
saddletramp said:
I emailed the seller after I got home from picking it up. I told him the 182 flew great & all the avionics seemed to work as promised. I also told him my GPH flying home was 10.2 & he told me I had it way too lean. Oh well, my airplane now. That was 3.5 years ago & I've never heard from him since. I still get about 10 GPH & the compression has been great. I'm never in that big of a hurry.
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I have no idea what this obsession is with running an engine far too rich.. if you have a good way to monitor individual cylinder head temps and keep an eye on EGT then why not run it as lean as (reasonably) possible

I used to have an instructor say to me, if it ain't sputtering it's too rich!

jk on the last part
 
Two planes: I bought the Cessna from a friend and he is on the insurance and flies it on occasion, so we see each other all the time. I bough the Champ from two guys in Florida and haven't talked to them since and won't. Although I love the plane, after getting it home and doing a extensive annual, it turns out they were "less than honest" with me. I have no use for people like that. Since it's such a old plane It might be fun to meet some of the owners before them.
 
Business transaction, the only time we saw him was to sign the papers.
 
Pete7AC said:
Although I love the plane, after getting it home and doing a extensive annual, it turns out they were "less than honest" with me. I have no use for people like that. Since it's such a old plane It might be fun to meet some of the owners before them.
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Are you sure they knew about the problem? On my plane I found a lot of problems, but I wasn't expecting it to be perfect either. Many of the problems I found were simply because they never dug deep enough, rather than it actually being malicious.

What's the old saying? Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
 
The previous owner and I still text and email each other. We both belong to the Commander Owners Group and he flies his 114. Great guy, easy transaction and a new pilot friend.
 
Friendly business transaction. We went out to lunch, haggled, and struck a deal. Haven't called him since, no need. He still owns my Cherokee. I actually communicated with the owner before him on the internet.
 
Previous owner was a Part 135 operation in Homer. (My husband did the purchasing.)
A few months ago, I was passing through Homer and needed a quart of oil. Bought one from them. Mentioned that "this is for a plane that used to be yours! How 'bout that!" They seemed unimpressed.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Are you sure they knew about the problem? On my plane I found a lot of problems, but I wasn't expecting it to be perfect either. Many of the problems I found were simply because they never dug deep enough, rather than it actually being malicious.

What's the old saying? Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
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Oh yeah,

No question. The plane was restored two years previously by one of them and signed off by his father in law. One may have been blissfully ignorant, but not the dude that restored it. Currently it flies great and while it wasn't cheap to get things right, it wasn't a huge amount of money either.
 
Not the previous owner, but the owner before them...
 
The guy I bought my airplane from was great during the sale and he helped by meeting with me to take care of the paperwork and coordinate with the FBO for tiedown fees.

We texted each other during the long flight home and afterward. I'll send him an update once the annual inspection is done to let him know how the plane survived and to explain all the updates and repairs that were done. He didn't have the plane very long and was probably not aware of some of the discrepancies I had to repair, like the horribly welded exhaust system...

I couldn't have asked for an easier transaction and If I ever have the unfortunate circumstances to visit Portland again, I'll look him up and say howdy!
 
I've exchanged a couple emails with the previous owner, as well as the owner before him. Both ended up buying another Swift, so maybe I'll run into one or both of them at a fly-in in the future if they keep 'em this time! Got some neat restoration pics from the owner before.
 
The previous owner of my TA III taught me the importance of two words: Pre buy.
 
Nope, never met or spoke with the guy. I only communicated with his broker... All I know is I got a great deal because he had already seen and fell in love with a Duke...:yikes:
 
My '58 182 has been in the family since 1970. Previous owner was my father-in-law, and before that my grandfather-in-law. It had been out of annual for about 10 years when my father-in-law came to me in 2011 and told me that he was either getting rid of it or I could start flying it. My dad's an A&P/IA, he woke it up for me and took out all of the prehistoric Narco Mk. 2 Omnigators. This past summer I worked out a deal and became the owner of it when my wife and I relocated from Montana to Reno. So, yeah, I do have a relationship with the previous owner...
 
I have talked to the guy that bought my 414A a few times, great guy. A few emails maybe once or twice a year, he sold it to a local to me broker a couple years after he bought it. He bought a Phenom 100! :D
 
I bought from a partnership of 3 guys. One of them has emailed me once since about passing on an AD email he got. Told him I was flying the pants off of the plane. He was glad to hear that and passed on the news that one of the partners had died (ALS). That partner’s condition had been why they were selling. I told him if he needed to get back in the air I would fly the hour north and pick him up.
 
I talk to him regularly via email like:
"Was the NAV2 always inop or did I break that?"
"Did it make this funny sound when you owned it?"

And the email from him:
"A friend found this funny grumman video with my old plane in it"

Typical prior owner conversations.
 
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