"Jay Beckman" wrote:
Ask to see the maintenance logs for the aircraft in question.

While looking them over, check that the aircraft's last annual was within
the last 12 months and is otherwise legally airworthy. The FAA once
suspended a renter's certificate for 30 days because the renter flew a
plane that was 12 days past the expiration date of its last annual. The
following post from 2004 gives a few more details:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...cc34cd81b11723