David,
Are you still looking? I have a cousin with a T-Craft project that he's trying to unload. If you're interested, PM me and I will get you the details.

Rob

A few thoughts. We are on airplane seven. Never go look at a plane you aren't willing to walk away from. Consider the trip to look as just for fun and don't let yourself get psyched about buying. And, assume a minimum of $1.00 per mile to get it home. It might be more, not
Likely to be less. Everything everybody else said and, have fun!

Well. All good and interesting advice. I just bought a Luscombe in need of paint off a Craig's list ad. The logs are perfect. I had to insist on a engine teardown due to a prop strike. The crank was cracked and the seller paid for a freshly magnifluxed yellow tag crank. The seller paid all labor. I had offered to pay for a fresh set of bearings to regain crush after the teardown. I didn't want the old bearings going back in. Anyway I paid for a new set of bearings even though the old ones couldn't have been re-used. That came to $675 or so.

Total price for my airplane with under 200 hours on the engine, new propeller, new crank, thrust, and rod bearings, and perfect paperwork (I'm still working on a messed up registration but it's within sight) came to;

Luscombe 8C $13675
Pre-purchase inspection $1285
Two commercial flights $500
to check it out
Total $15460 or there abouts pretty close

I think that's pretty cheap really. It won't win any beauty contests but flies good. The interesting thing about the pre-purchase inspection is that the I/A that did the work for me missed the wording about the crank inspection post prop strike. I caught it and it raised the hairs on the back of HIS neck. What the entry said was "Prop Strike, removed engine, magnifluxed drive gears crank checked runout, ok" signed joe blow 1234567.

Most cheap airplanes won't come with an inch thick stack of 337s. Mine did. It's all in order and checks out. The registration problem was a missing signature from the owner previous to my previous owner. He's still alive and I knew that going in. Long and short, keep your eyes open and READ (not scan) the airframe and engine logs. Ask questions. Cosmetics are cheaper than cracked spars, corrosion or undocumented modifications.

EB

Emory Bored wrote:Long and short, keep your eyes open and READ (not scan) the airframe and engine logs. Ask questions. Cosmetics are cheaper than cracked spars, corrosion or undocumented modifications.

EB

Great advice.

David B wrote:...It seems to me that a "perfect" plane doesn't really exist. Do I need to start looking for planes priced much higher or be more flexible?...

I don't think that a perfect $25K airplane exists. A guy I know is in the same position as you, he's looking for a real nice turn-key 2 seater in the 25K range. Every time he looks at something, he finds fault-- engine time too high, fabric too old, radio's too funky, etc. In talking to him, it's obvious that what he's looking for is a $35K airplane he can pick up for 25. Probably not gonna happen, even in this economic climate.
He's owned three airplanes in the past, a C150/150, a C172, & a C182. He's currently looking at a Citabria 7ECA in the mid-to-high twenties, but I suspect that he won't be happy with the performance.