Buying glider from an estate - maintenance logs not available

What do you do when the executor of an estate is willing but unable to provide the maintenance logs for a glider that you are trying to buy?

Any other tips on buying a glider from an estate?

Get the disk from the FAA that will give you everything that was ever filed with them. That will give you some info to estimate the airframe hours and any major repairs made. With that in hand your IA can start a new set of books for the bird.
Dan

I would have it inspected by someone who knows that type glider. Hopefully he can help you identify issues if there are any.

Whithout that, I would buy it very inexpensively because buying an airplane with or without logbooks can be like a box of chocolates.


Undocumented mx and low quality of mx is often prevalent in older aircraft.

On Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 6:00:56 PM UTC-7, son_of_flubber wrote:
What do you do when the executor of an estate is willing but unable to provide the maintenance logs for a glider that you are trying to buy?

Any other tips on buying a glider from an estate?

The worst case, is that you'll have to pay to repeat any mandatory inspections or work that you can't document have been done. This won't usually be much for a glider.

On Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 9:46:09 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 6:00:56 PM UTC-7, son_of_flubber wrote:
What do you do when the executor of an estate is willing but unable to provide the maintenance logs for a glider that you are trying to buy?

Any other tips on buying a glider from an estate?

The worst case, is that you'll have to pay to repeat any mandatory inspections or work that you can't document have been done. This won't usually be much for a glider.

To me it would make a lot of difference what ship we might be taking a chance on.

Is this a 60+ year old vintage ship of wood with possible hidden problems? Is this a 40 year old early glass glider that might have a boat load of ADs, limited lifespan, known issues, etc, etc? A mid-aged club trainer that is built practically indestructible? Or maybe something in the 5-15 year range of a well known model of glider with a good fleet track record from a reputable vendor that's still in business?

Vast difference between these examples when dealing with no log books.

John is right on the money here - as well as the suggestion to get the CD from the FAA, $10 and you can see all the MX and ownership records.

That being said, any aircraft being sold without logbooks and or other challenges normally found on an estate sale (condition, location, “where is that pin� and spending lots of money in due diligence/return to airworthiness) means that the price needs to reflect that. In some cases this can actually mean the aircraft is the equivalent of being totaled, meaning it would cost more than the aircraft is worth to deal with all the issues.

As always - caveat emptor!

Regards, Tom

"as well as the suggestion to get the CD from the FAA, $10 and you can see all the MX and ownership records."

This is not accurate.

Many repairs will not be documented on the CD.
Minor repairs are not required to be submitted to the FAA, and the reporting step is often missed or ignored for many major repairs.



Ive seen multiple glides with ugly illegal major repairs that were not documented in the logbooks and not documented on the FAA CD.
Those aircraft where flying in that condition and passing annuals for years.

I can see that you could do a full inspection and redo all the AD's, but
for a glider that has a limit life in hours, if you don't have the number of hours on the glider, how do you show it's not over the limit?

Airworthyness seems a strange blend of physically knowing you having something safe to fly but also having the paperwork that makes it legal to fly. In this case, the first seems relatively easy, but the second is more interesting.

Aviation seems a process of learning new stuff one has not seen before. I'd like to hear how one does the second. I'd be asking

Does the plane actually have an hour limit?
What clues are available as to what time it has?
What does a mechanic you trust suggest?

On Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 9:00:56 PM UTC-4, son_of_flubber wrote:
What do you do when the executor of an estate is willing but unable to provide the maintenance logs for a glider that you are trying to buy?

Any other tips on buying a glider from an estate?

Explain to the executor of the estate the difference in sales price of a glider with complete logs vs a glider w/o logs. That might motivate the family to have another look for the missing logs.

FAA CD - True that it will not provide a complete picture but will provide some good information. I get a CD for every ship I have owned plus those for the club. The owner always seems to have missing physical documentation (in your case none) that will show up in the CD. This usually takes ~1 week to arrive but heaven only knows how long it will take now. See https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certifi...craft_records/

Life Hour Limit - Simply do not buy this ship if it has a limit. Tthere is just no clear way to know if this is a 100h ship or a 5,000h ship. However, you might get a general idea from the records of the club it was flow at if the estate knows what club the fellow flew might take some digging. More problematic is knowing the other places the ship has flown (clubs, contests, regattas, etc). This will build up an admittedly incomplete picture but it will help point the way.

NTSB - I would also look through NTSB reports for the specific tail number and, more generally, for the make/model. If this tail number has had significant damage I would steer clear for fear of the unknown. If the model has a significant accident history then I would also steer clear.

Bottom line - You will have to start from scratch to recreate documentation and, as others have stated, a good (best?) IA will be critical to the success of this.

Best of luck, John OHM Ω