Thoughts on “Fresh”

November 24, 2012

When I bought the airplane in L.A., it was sold with a “fresh” annual.  It was implied that all was in tip top shape and everything was good to go.  Over the past 30 days, we have been taking a good look and soaking it all in trying to get a good punch list going, and it is simply amazing at all the half-assed, corner cutting slacker AP nonsense that’s in this airplane.

It seems to me that there are two kinds of aircraft owners.  The first (I like to think I am in this category) is the kind of guy that just wants it done right.  They may not be wealthy, but overall, near perfect is the goal, and nothing “cheap” is installed nor corners cut.

The second is the the damn cheap skate.  They hack their way around making home-made Rube Goldberg contraptions and cut corners with “good enough” efforts.

To give you an idea of where my airplane came from, there are more documents in my aircraft logs that were made with recycled paper than I can count.  When I mean recycled paper, I mean that the guy printed 337’s out on scrap paper…. meaning the backsides have google map directions on them…. Really?  Couldn’t afford new sheets of paper for the logs?

Now to be fair, my C180 is generally solid and is definitely be a great platform to build it back up.  During the intense pre-buy I understood what I was dealing with and made the offer based on exactly what was being sold.  Its a rocking 180, and I am pumped… There will be just a ton of extra nickles needed to redo a lot of hacks and neglects.

Which brings me to the post.  With a “fresh” annual done just before sale, I would not expect surprises like the one that was found when the TW was pulled apart.  A good annul would have found a cracked washer like the one we found.

At any rate… A proper rebuild kit was ordered from Alaskan Bushwheel, and it was rebuilt as new.  (BTW… One of the great things about ABW [besides their gear] is the peanuts)