We indeed lucked out on our Cherokee. I happened to be of the opinion
that you "look everywhere" when shopping for a job or an airplane. Good
ones are tough to find and you have to sift through a lot of crap to get
the right one. It also may take some time... perhaps a year plus.

Anyway, we were looking in all the usual places at the time and not
seeing anything decent. We went out to the local airports and put up
"wanted" posters describing exactly what we were looking for. One
Sunday, I looked (of all places) in the local newspaper to see a plain
old text ad for a local Cherokee 140. We were really looking for a 180
AND this paper would usually be the last place you would find an
aircraft. They had maybe 1 or 2 ads a week. Called and left a message
and went out to mow the lawn. Halfway through, the wife appears and says
the airplane owner is on the phone.

We hit it off right away when he asked "his" question: "I suppose you
want to come out and get a ride?". I said: "No, please let me know where
it is. If it is O.K. with you, I want to go out and take a quick
walk-around and if it looks like what we want, I will call back to
arrange the next steps". He was floored. He later told me that he had
the plane off the market for 4 months during the winter because he was
tired of tire kickers looking for a free airplane ride. He already had
the replacement plane and was in no hurry to sell. Since he trained in
this plane, he was somewhat attached and wanted the "right" buyer. He
had many brokers and FBOs try to low ball him and said they would run it
out as a line trainer and sell it. He passed on all their offers.

I looked it over and arranged for our instructor to take the thing up.
He met us, threw us the keys and said "have fun" and left the airport!
He asked for no ID. Nothing. We flew it for 10 minutes and checked
everything out. I arranged for a prebuy on the same field with the
pickiest mechanics they had. Even though it was the owners FBO, I had no
problem because of their squeaky clean reputation. Prebuy turned up no
surprises. He had, in fact, done MANY upgrades and modifications to
correct some past shoddy maintenance and to bring the stack up to snuff.
I called around to local banks to get an approximate value. Everyone
said the plane was worth about 15% more than asking.

When we were meeting to close the deal, he said that we were under no
obligation and he would not be annoyed if we backed out. After we
concluded the transaction, he told me he had someone who offered 20%
more than we just paid if we decided to back out. I met the guy who gave
him the offer some time later and found out the story was true.

The owner told us that he INSISTED he take care of the (then recent)
carburetor venturi AD before he delivered the plane to us (at his
expense). He also INSISTED he personally fly it after the work was done
because he had read about some of these "fixes" actually making the
plane run poorly. He also signed a contract I had written that said, if
there were any outstanding ADs that we find at our first annual, he
would pay for them. We never had to exercise this part of the contract.

After the venturi swap, he said he did NOT want us to fly the plane
unless he was confident it was safe. He flew it and was not satisfied.
He said it was running about 150 RPM low at full throttle and returned
it to the shop for correction. After the fix, he flew it again and said
it was running fine. He DELIVERED it to our airport and had it topped
off before he would give us the keys.

First annual was a nonevent with absolutely no surprises. It has been
that way ever since.

I am really glad we ran into this fellow. Money was not his primary
concern and there was no middle man involved. He wanted the plane to get
a good home and wanted us to be safe in it. I shudder to think what
would happen if I had to go back out into the marketplace in its current
condition. Let's see, 1974 paid off Cherokee, 700SMOH, recent paint, new
interior... Nope! I'll keep this one, thank you. And, Thanks Al.

Good Luck,
Mike