Kirk Ellis wrote:
..


Are half century old airplanes still viable machines? It sounds scary
buying something that is almost as old as I am.


Never fly anything younger than you are, someone has to have experience :-)

More to the point a well maintained older airplane is just fine. Mines
a 1950 and until the engine swallowed a valve it was just fine. We had
an odd-ball engine (GO-435) and decided to reengine, then we just kept
going, but if the budget had been tighter we really didn't have to all
the stuff we did to the plane (new just about everything). I like Jim's
idea of buying a decent, but ragged out plane and fixing something every
year (if you have the time to work on it without negatively impacting
flying time too much). Ideally a nice long "vacation" period that goes
to the airplane is great.

Margy