Bob Noel wrote:

In article ,
Thomas Borchert wrote:


Mine
is the first year of the big baggage area and engine and also the
fastest of all the normally aspirated models, 1964.

See? We're talking about a plane that's TWICE the age of the oldest
Trinidad you could possibly get. To suggest the two are in the same
league without mentioning this difference, well, makes little sense.


It wouldn't be that bad if the '64 model is essentially the same as
the '84 model, except for age. Kind of like a 1976 warrior vs a
1991 warrior, pretty much the same airplane.

Even if the airframes are identical, the value won't be given a 15 year
difference in age. There are always concerns about corrosion and metal
fatigue, for example.

I believe it was a member of the Piper family that a few years ago had
issues with wing failure due to fatigue. I don't recall the details
now, but it seems the airframes had upwards of 9,000 hours of low-level
flying in turbulence - pipeline patrol or something like that as I recall.

A friend and I were looking recently at an 83 Skyhawk that is in great
shape, but has more than 12,000 airframe hours. I believe it was
operated by American Flyers or a similar flight school. I was concerned
about the hours and what issues this might cause from a metal fatigue
perspective. My friend called Cessna and got through to someone in
their tech support group. He was told that Cessna 100 series airframes
have no life limit and that they know of airframes with well over 30,000
hours on them. I found this a little hard to swallow as I've never
seen one for sale with more than about the 12,000 that this 172 has,
however, I suppose the military or someone might have some with that
many hours. He told my friend that 12,000 hours wasn't anything at all
to be concerned about from a fatigue perspective.


Matt