Pre-buy Inspection

That's about the furthest thing from the truth I've ever seen in these
newsgroups. A prebuy is a DOZEN times harder than an annual inspection. All an
annual inspection tells you is that nothing on the airplane is worn past service
limits at the time of the inspection.

An annual doesn't tell you that the oil hasn't been changed for two hundred
hours. It doesn't tell you that the tires are down to within a hundredth of an
inch of wear limits. It doesn't tell you that the brakes have less than 10%
service life. It doesn't tell you that the battery has about two tugs left in
it before pooping out completely. Shall I go on?

I don't do prebuys for two reasons. One is that a good prebuy takes me the
better part of 25 hours to do, and I can't charge that kind of money to somebody
who may or may not be the owner of that airplane someday. Two is that I can
actually miss something, by simple oversight or by opinion, that the new owner
will rip me a new one when they have to have that item repaired or replaced.

It just ain't worth it. And I sure as HELL wouldn't consider doing one for
somebody with Kraus' attitude.

Jim



(Lynne Miller)
shared these priceless pearls of wisdom:

-Truthfully, a good pre-buy is actually an annual inspection.


Jim Weir (A&P/IA, CFI, & other good alphabet soup)
VP Eng RST Pres. Cyberchapter EAA Tech. Counselor
http://www.rst-engr.com