Here's where I'll join this discussion about the whole "knowing your aircraft" thing goes. As many of you know, I bought a 415C from an owner in WI, N415CB. From the day it was delivered I was in love with the plane. I loved everything about it; how it handled, it's ease of operation, etc. It always started for me with the exception of once when I left the master switch on and ran the battery down. Filled with oil, it would use the first quart rather quickly and then stay right around three quarts. I bought it the last of November, 2008, less than four weeks after its "annual." According to the "annual," there was no corrosion noted and engine was at 72, 72, 78, 79 during a leak down test.
I will admit here that I screwed up when I trusted this report and bought the plane without a pre-buy inspection. Having said that, however, I will also say that I did not think any IA would sign his or her name to any FAA required report that wouldn't stand up to close scrutiny. It has also been my life-long trust in my fellow man that most of us are both honorable and truthful for the most part in our dealings with other. But I digress... When it became evident to me that my disability was not going to permit me to enjoy the plane and get my money's worth out of it, I decided very reluctantly to let it go. The first person who looked at it brought his mechanic and as soon as he started pulling the inspection ports on the wings, the corrosison was evident even to me, a novice and in no way a mechanic. It was, according to him, light stage II corrosion that needed to be treated. He also said that this was not the type of corrosion that would just show up in the six months that I owned the aircraft and would have been visible to anyone who had allegedly inspected it. Once I learned that little tidbit, when I prepared the ad that ran on Barnstormers, I encouraged prospective buyers to do a thorough pre-buy on the plane and that I would be happy to provide test flights. Further, everyone, including the person who bought the plane, was informed of the discovery of the corrosion and the need for it to be treated. Like I said earlier, the engine never gave me any problems but then the farthest cross-country flight I had was 94 nautical miles one way, and I put less than 15 hours total on the aircraft while I owned it. The ferry pilot, a person well known on this Board, delivered 5CB to its new owner in Florida who decided to buy the plane like I did, sight unseen. On the trip down, the right sliding window blew out in flight. I was never able to find out if it was the entire window or just the plastic insert; but it was scary to think that if the entire window had blown out that had it struck any of the rear control surfaces there could have been catastrophic damage that may have brought the aircraft down. More importantly, though, was that the engine was going through a quart of oil and hour and the ferry pilot had to land every two hours to refill the oil before continuing on. And the C150 seats installed in the plane were not, according to the new owner, bolted down on the passenger side although I never noticed that and had flown passengers, including my instructor, without a glitch. Obviously, the window failure was not something that an Inspector could have been expected to discover. But the engine had to have something major wrong with it to be blowing through oil that way. I never had it in cruise speed and altitude long enough to have experienced that type of problem, but obviously there was one. According to the engine log, the plane had been topped less than 250 hours prior to this trip and had been majored less than eight hundred and fifty hours prior. Long story short, the new owner evidently has a case of the red ass at me because I can get no responses from him and now MY name is Mudd because I passed along a plane that evidently had some major problems with its powerplant. I CAN ONLY SAY THAT I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT ANY MAJOR ENGINE PROBLEMS BEFORE I SOLD IT, PERIOD. I bought the plane trusting a recent annual and the previous owner who had the annual done. Mea culpa... So what should be done with the IA who signed off on this plane? Is there anything that can be done? I don't know. I can only say that if I EVER even think of buying another plane, I will hire someone who knows the make and model to tear it apart before I buy no matter if Jesus Himself signed off on it as airworthy. Further, if I ever sell another aircraft, I will require the potential buyer to have someone of their choosing inspect it before completing the sale. I doubt if either of these will ever happen again, but that's the lesson I learned. I have worked too hard over the years to build a good reputation with those I do business with or just even interact with on a daily basis and now I feel that it has been damaged somehow because I was asleep at the switch. NEVER AGAIN. Carl LaVon --- In [email protected], si...@... wrote: > > I agree with a lot that has been said by people who I am sure have more > knowledge then me about Ercoupes. BUT I also strongly state that as an owner > or prospective owner you need to make yourself very familiar with the > aircraft you fly. I bought mine shortly after it had been signed off by a > reportedly reputable AI and several months and thousands of dollars later I > had > an airworthy aircraft. Some issues were so apparent and serious that I had > to just suck it up and repair them without reporting the person signing the > annual or I could not get another AI locally to sign it off because they did > not want to get in a disagreement (to put it politely) with another AI. > > Mike Sigman > N3041H > **************An Excellent Credit Score is 750. See Yours in Just 2 Easy > Steps! > (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222585099x1201462822/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072&hmpgID=62&bcd=Jul > yExcfooterNO62) >
