Evaluating high-time airfames

My club is purchasing another 172. One of the choices we've found - and
otherwise nice airplane - has racked up 10,000 hours total time. Most of
the other aircraft at which we've looked have had TTs of something less
than half this.

Are there special considerations for an airframe with this much time? Is it
just a matter of looking for fatigue (which I'd expect any annual do to
anyway), or is there more?

I did some web searching. One phrase I found in:

http://www.avweb.com/news/reviews/182570-1.html

bugged me a bit:

some of these aircraft are still going strong well beyond 10,000 hours

So is that 10,000 a line beyond which one starts to expect an aircraft to
not be "going strong"?

In the same article, I found:

In short, Cessna has now gone from having the worst
corrosion-proofing in the industry to having the best.
The airframes of the 1997 Cessna singles will undoubtedly
last as long as anyone wants to fly them.

We're looking at late 1970/early 1980 aircraft. Are they in the "worst
corrosion-proofing" window?

I've been pointed at:

http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsite...5cracks-ac.pdf

but a cursory glance makes me think this is aimed more at someone getting an
aircraft certified than anything else. No?

Any other thoughts, recommendations, suggestions, etc. would be most
welcome.

Thanks...

Andrew

Andrew Gideon wrote:
We're looking at late 1970/early 1980 aircraft. Are they in the "worst
corrosion-proofing" window?

You have to look at the aircraft to see if it has been corrosion proofed.
Second question: was it done at the factory when the aircraft was built?

john smith wrote:

You have to look at the aircraft to see if it has been corrosion proofed.
Second question: was it done at the factory when the aircraft was built?

I'm new to this. Obviously, the better answer to the first question is
"yes, it has". But which answer is better to the second?

- Andrew

On 10-Jul-2005, Andrew Gideon wrote:

So is that 10,000 a line beyond which one starts to expect an aircraft to
not be "going strong"?


My (then) partners and I bought a 1974 C-172 that had more than 8000 hours
on the airframe, and we flew it for about 1700 more before we sold it. The
new owner refurbished the plane and put it into service as a primary and
instrument trainer, and it appears that it is still soldiering on today in
that role.

With good maintenance and conservative operation, there is no reason why an
airplane can't last far more than 10K hours. When we bought our 172 it had
spent its entire previous life as an instrument trainer (no primary), which
is pretty benign duty. We didn't have any serious maintenance issues, but
we did find out that just about every moving part will sooner or later wear
out. In some cases (like the trim tab hinge) replacement can be
labor-intensive.

Corrosion is an obvious worry, but we never had any to speaK of even though
our 172 spent its entire life tied down outdoors in the relatively damp
Pacific Northwest.

--
-Elliott Drucker

I don't know this for sure, but when I was talking with my IA one time
about different planes pros/cons -- he told me the Cessnas had a
lifetime on the wing.

I remembered he mentioned something like 10,000 hours. I remember
because I thought that was such a high number that it would hardly be
soemthing to worry about.

But you might want to look into it....


Chuck
PA28-180



On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 16:24:55 -0400, Andrew Gideon
wrote:


My club is purchasing another 172. One of the choices we've found - and
otherwise nice airplane - has racked up 10,000 hours total time. Most of
the other aircraft at which we've looked have had TTs of something less
than half this.

Are there special considerations for an airframe with this much time? Is it
just a matter of looking for fatigue (which I'd expect any annual do to
anyway), or is there more?

I did some web searching. One phrase I found in:

http://www.avweb.com/news/reviews/182570-1.html

bugged me a bit:

some of these aircraft are still going strong well beyond 10,000 hours

So is that 10,000 a line beyond which one starts to expect an aircraft to
not be "going strong"?

In the same article, I found:

In short, Cessna has now gone from having the worst
corrosion-proofing in the industry to having the best.
The airframes of the 1997 Cessna singles will undoubtedly
last as long as anyone wants to fly them.

We're looking at late 1970/early 1980 aircraft. Are they in the "worst
corrosion-proofing" window?

I've been pointed at:

http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsite...5cracks-ac.pdf

but a cursory glance makes me think this is aimed more at someone getting an
aircraft certified than anything else. No?

Any other thoughts, recommendations, suggestions, etc. would be most
welcome.

Thanks...

Andrew

Most Dehaviland Beavers have in the neighborhood of 20,000 hours on
them now. They get rebuilt, but keep on flying.