Rotting Planes. Sad.

MetalCloud

MetalCloud

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MetalCloud
Question... why are there so many planes just slowing dying in their tie downs? It's sad for several reasons, but who just lets their planes rot away? Flat tires, rust, loose parts, worn "covers" and just so many indications that the plane hasn't been cared for in forever, let alone flown.

Yet the tie-down fees must be getting paid, right? WTF is going on?
 
Yeah, we have one or two sitting out in the grass with no cover or anything, have been there years just rotting away. Sad deal.
 
yep theres a row of derelict planes where I fly, all flat tires and rusting at the rivets, most are unlocked so got in them to check them out when no one was looking. Checked out the sectionals in them and they all expired 10 years ago. I asked around and apparently a old lady owns some of them and pays for the tie down so she can "Get them running someday."
 
Rebel Lord said:
... and pays for the tie down so she can "Get them running someday."
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Oh yeah. I didn't think about that. People know they're junk but have it in the back of their mind that one day when they get time they'll have a fun project.
 
Watch American Pickers on History Channel for insight into this mindset. Grown children or the spouse is pleading for the collector to let go, but the owner says he's going to get the old car or motorcycle restored. He can't let go, even though he is obviously too bad shape physically to do anything.
 
One of the saddest sights I've seen was seeing White Lightning N100WL rotting away on the ramp at RBW a long time ago. It was the first one made and had all these speed awards stenciled on the side of the aircraft. It was just sitting out in the rain with flat tires and corroding away. Believe it was later scrapped. Always liked the design.
 
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Here there is 4 C-414s, 1 C-310 and 1 C-425 rotting away. I asked the mechanic what the owner is going to do with them. He said the owner asked him to get them flyable so he could donate them to a mechanic school in Oklahoma, but they are too far gone for him to "just get them flyable". They might go out of here on trucks.
 
Let's make something useful of this thread. Post pictures of the sadness and atrocities. Make this a rotting planes pic thread. No fair to include boneyard pics.
 
We have a Grumman that is sitting in the weeds at the airport, has been for the past five years. I remember the owner being very active and proud on our local email list for several years prior, especially for the new paint job he put on it. That one makes me sad. I believe the airport is pursuing a lien for unpaid tie down fees.
 
These are the ones I was talking about. It's a sad sight, someday they will be hauled off and scrapped, their days of glorious flight long over.
:sad:

Hopefully though we can make sure the tradition of American aviation continues for generations even if the planes of the GA hay days are long gone.

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It is a shame. There is a decent Sundowner rotting on the ramp at my home drome. I think it's still in flyable condition right now, but it won't be long before it gets into "wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole" territory. No a great plane by any means, but it could be a good first plane for somebody.

Over in the next town, there is an early C-210 ('60 or '61), a C-310 (A model I think), and a freakin' C-185 for cryin' out loud, just sitting. They were all covered in dust with flat tires when I started hanging out over there around 5-6 years ago. Terrible.

I've tried to find out who owns the C-185, and the airport manager says the old guy doesn't want anyone calling about it. I'm pretty sure he's really old and will never touch it. What a waste of an in-demand airplane.
 
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455 Bravo Uniform said:
Let's make something useful of this thread. Post pictures of the sadness and atrocities. Make this a rotting planes pic thread. No fair to include boneyard pics.
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Agreed! Was going to include pics but didn't make it to the field today. I'll take some tomorrow and post.
 
Estates get bad advice; sometimes the family is holding out for a price that's way out of line - not clued in on TBO, or avionics, effect on market price. Saw a beautiful Swift disolving some years ago, at our sister squadron's home drome, in Ohio. A couple of our pilots checked it out, but the asking price was way, way out of line. Don't know what became of it eventually, but as I recall, it sat outside for 5 or six years, just going to hell. . .
 
There are more than one derelict/left to rot planes at my field. I tracked down the owner of a C-182 on floats, offered $3000 for the plane. He declined and said "the floats are worth more than that". I said "it has not flown in 10 years and is probably worth nothing now because it has not been maintained". He politely declined my offer and said his son was in charge of his finances now... I just wanted to take a look at the airframe and floats to see if by any chance I could get it in the air again. My wife was happy he declined my offer....:)
 
Here's a couple of Lake Amphibians rotting away in Palo Alto. Sad to see. One of them seems to be owned by a bank. I took these pictures shortly after getting my Commercial ASES thinking maybe I'd see if one of the owners wanted to sell, but I came to my senses (with my wife's help, ha)

Palo Alto has quite a large number of derelicts. There's a Citabria parked near the tower with rotted fabric and extremely faded paint, bleached white on one side due to the sun exposure.

San Jose has a few. I believe the city went in several years ago and hauled most of the derelicts away before I moved in, but there are still a couple of 172s sitting outside on rotted, flat tires. There used to be a P-51 parked on the ramp for years; never saw it move...

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It's less effort to think they will do something with the plane someday than to do something about the plane today.
From what I've seen at many marinas the same applies to boats.
 
It's the same mentality of people who have cars on jacks in your HOA-less neighborhood. There's a van and a car down the street that haven't moved in 10 years.
 
I don't understand why this happens, but have a few theories. Some people may just like to say "I have an airplane", and just pay the tiedown or hangar costs thinking someday they may fly it again. They kick the can down the road for so many years, eventually the plane becomes un-flyable, and not economically viable to get to a flying condition. Then it just sits, and rots. Very sad.

Others are from estates where the pilot has died, and the heirs just don't know what to do with it, or get bad advice on the value, so it sits. I wonder what percentage of the GA fleet is in this condition? 10%, 15%? More?
 
I will bet 90% of derelict airplanes had some major repair needed that the owner couldn't afford. They probably figured they would save up for the repair but by the time they got the cash they either lost interest or the plane became so bad off that it was no longer feasible. At some point the airplane pretty much becomes worthless so why bother selling it. They are better off parting it out but few people have the space, time, or knowledge to do so.
 
Something in between two - it's grandpa's plane and he hasn't been able to fly it for years, but nobody wants to take it away from him...so it sits and rots until grandpa passes and then the family doesn't know what to do.

My plan is to pass an airplane on to someone - my son, grandchild, even an airport bum...anyone who would appreciate the airplane, take care of it and pass it on to someone else.

Not saying that just anyone should be able to fix these airplanes up, but the regulations around working on airplanes is a significant factor in so many being in bad condition.
 
As it stands now, I am not going to give my 45 Willys MB to any of my children. That may change if they show some interest in keeping it going and not turning it into some stupid rock crawler. I am planning on being buried in it, well having my ashes thrown in and then tossing some dirt on top.
There just might be a niche market for having your airplane fuselage turned into a coffin. Hell, it is cheaper than buying a coffin and cheaper than trying to sell a useless airplane.
 
Some people won't let go because they like saying they own a plane. Worse part is when the owner might want to sell it, they have a number in thier head so much higher than the real value. So like many planes on my field, falling apart, flat tires, birds nests, body rot. These owners still pay the tie down fee. And because they still pay the monthly fee, owners that actively use thier planes have to go elsewhere because there is a wait list for all the areas on the field.
 
This is both sad, and ****es me off. There are so many students, young folk, not uber wealthy people that could benefit from these planes (before they are complete junk). This is where we need the rules to change - allow someone to get these flyable again without the insane certified A&P repair bill. The whole "gut it past 51% and rebuild it yourself and it's an "experimental" (or some new category) thing. ****, I like restoring "junk" of all kinds. Junk cars, someone threw away a 46" samsung LCD last week, I fixed it for $0.50 in capacitors and it works fine. I would DEFINITELY buy some older derelict plane if I could treat it as an experimental (or whatever) and do the work myself.

@azblackbird - I thought you were a bit nuts talking about making a business out of restoring these types of birds. But honestly I hope you can make it a go...
 
jbrinker said:
@azblackbird - I thought you were a bit nuts talking about making a business out of restoring these types of birds. But honestly I hope you can make it a go...
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Medium range biz plan. We'll just have to see how it all works out. There are plenty of diamonds out there to mine, they just need to be cut and polished. ;)
 
bflynn said:
Something in between two - it's grandpa's plane and he hasn't been able to fly it for years, but nobody wants to take it away from him...so it sits and rots until grandpa passes and then the family doesn't know what to do.
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Or they hang onto it as a shrine to that person.
 
It would be REALLY nice if the FAA would do something to make it easier on the private owner to rebuild some of these wrecks. Make it easier to get parts, etc. People do it all the time with boats and cars, and guess what, they will both kill you just as dead as an airplane if you mess it up.
 
I too keep seeing a dying V-tail Bo at our airport. AFAIR, is' been there for at least a decade, decaying steadily. :(

I wonder if one of the reasons for all these derelict airplanes is the huge jump in part and mx cost over the last decade or two. If the estimated cost to bring an airplane back into compliance and airworthiness keeps rising every year, it does not seem economical for the owners to do it now but rather wait for the costs to go down "one day".
 
Wow, sad pics. It's just a machine after all, but there seems to be some human connection to old cars, boats, and planes (and other "stuff").

While I really wish we could work freely on planes, an old car is a good example where regardless of the low cost of making it roadworthy, some still would sit and rot.

The other interesting thing is that unlike a steel car rotting (rust, holes) an aluminum plane rotting just does not look that bad at all to the uninformed. I bet a lot of lay-people would just say new tires, buff job, battery, and fresh oil & gas and a quick systems check are all that's needed (and maybe that's true to some extent were it not for our risk-averse selves and regulations and lawyers).
 
We say we'd all like to work on planes, but in reality it's probably better this way. I've seen some things done to old cars that would curl your toes, and in planes that can be deadly.
 
I'll add a gripe that it sucks to see these castaways taking up good real estate! At least the airport ops could move them to the boneyard section of the field
 
I bet a lot are owned by old people who just cannot let go of their things. At our old home airport we rented a hangar from such a guy. Flew into his 80s and lived into his 90s. Was kind of a hoarder, owned a lot of hangars in which his plane, an old pickup truck and God knows what all other junk he just kept there. They have a hard time facing the fact they're never going to get back to it. My mother hung on to her old Singer sewing machine 20 years after she stopped using it. She was going to will it to me when she died but it was just rotting there in her house while she wouldn't let go and it still doesn't look like she is going to die anytime soon. So I finally convinced her to let me go ahead and take it so I can refurbish it and actually sew with it before I too get too old! Same with Dad when he got his right leg amputated, he refused to sell his car because he was "going to drive it again some day". Never did of course, he never even managed to get up out of the wheelchair on a prosthetic.
 
The airport where I did my flight training at just pulled all the abandoned and non flying airplanes and put them on an old ramp left over from the war. There were a number of B-18s in various states of disassembly sitting there as well, plus an abandoned Constellation.

One day I saw a ladder leading up to a door on the old Connie, so I invited myself to take a look. It had been in its earlier life a Lufthansa plane, with sleeper berths and a navigators station. Nothing like sitting in the left seat and grabbing a handful of throttles.

And stupid me without a camera....:(
 
George Mohr said:
Here's my "favorite"

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No need for a tie down on this one...o_O

BigBadLou said:
I too keep seeing a dying V-tail Bo at our airport. AFAIR, is' been there for at least a decade, decaying steadily. :(

I wonder if one of the reasons for all these derelict airplanes is the huge jump in part and mx cost over the last decade or two. If the estimated cost to bring an airplane back into compliance and airworthiness keeps rising every year, it does not seem economical for the owners to do it now but rather wait for the costs to go down "one day".
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They should steadily raise the rent if an airplane is not being flown in years.....lets say 5 years. Eventually it will get the owners attention and force them to action.
 
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