"Carl Orton" writes:

And then, you just wrote letters to those selected owners in desired zip
codes? Like a cold call? Anyone get upset that you're mining data on them?
;-)

Nobody seemed to mind. I worded it so it was clear I was a private
party looking for a personal aircraft, not a hired broker. I spent a
lot of time to make it seem friendly and personal, not mass-produced.
For instance, I formatted the names and addresses in the FAA DB so the
case wasn't ALL CAPS but rather All Caps. For Coupes, this ended up
being about 100 letters in N. California. From that, I got 15-20
replies I think.

The guy who eventually sold me his plane said my letter did the trick
for him...he wasn't planning on selling it until 6 months later but my
letter showed up and he thought his plane would have a good home with
me (it does!).

Even though I also said I didn't want any projects, I still got calls
from desperate owners trying to unload junk. Careful questioning over
the phone eliminated maybe half of those, nevertheless, I still ended
up looking at some "amazing" airplanes. I didn't mind too much. All
part of the fun. Looking back, it was a great experience, something
I'd never done before at all. I almost wouldn't mind doing it
again...hey...there's an idea for an alternate to the $100
hamburger. Pretend you want to buy an airplane and go chasing off to
nearby airports looking...maybe not.