Aircraft Ownership

[170C]

Just curious if others have checked out the history of their planes' previous owners. While I had done so yrs ago, I recently went back to see how many owners Ole Pokey had. Counting me, 22 That seems like a lot of owners for a '56 yr model plane. I have owned 6888A longer than anyone--20 yrs, but one owner in Napa, CA owned her 4 times. He must have been a dealer? Maybe some of the owners failed to make payments and he took her back With one short time in Carefree, AZ (1 yr), 6888A spent the first 27 yrs in vrs locations in California & then came to TX in 1983. Sure would be interesting if she could talk about all those owners.

[GAHorn]

Yes, that guy which kept re-possessing her is still looking for the present owner!

[W.J.Langholz]

54B spent the first several years in Florida but hen moved to of all places TEXAS!!!!!! Some work done at Trade Wind Airport Corp in Amarillo Tx. Made it's way to Grand Prairie where it stayed until the early 90's.

Get this.....log book entry...."Flushed inside of wings and spray with MMO nowonder why it goes so fast

W.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

49A has been all over the US. Never added up the owners but probably 20 or so. At one time it was used for pipeline patrol in Texas so every time George tells one of his pipeline stories I wonder what hell my plane went through. Of course it was then used for parachuting in Florida. And one of those owners morphed it from an A to a B model. Boy I'd like to talk to that guy.

My friends 170A, N7A was bought by a coal company in Pennsylvania. The registration number was changed to N7A about 3 months after it was bought new. N7A was the registration for a Goodyear Blimp. This 170 had already had a wing repair from hitting a hanger with the wing before it was even delivered. It was also delivered with a stretcher kit.

N7A was bought and sold about 20 times till it made it's way to a local airfield. The guy who owned it gave lessons in it and seemed to sell a share of the plane to about every student he ever had. There is a list of about 40 owners. BTW the sale price for most of those transactions was reported as "$1 and other valuable considerations". You could get away with that at the time I suppose and avoid sales tax. Anyway this airplane despite having so many owners has never been owned outside of Pennsylvania and Leroy the current owner has been a part owner or sole owner since 1968.

Yes airplane logs and ownership history sure are neat. And it is a real shame log books can't talk. I'll bet they could tell a story.

[voorheesh]

My plane, a 170-A, S/N 19225 started out on 1/19/1950 (Just turned 60 last month) as CF-GIM and spent about half of its life in British Columbia. It has about 4 or 500 hours on floats and skis (fresh water) and has no corrosion or ill effects other than a few dings or scratches here and there. The canadian logs are very interesting and include all the flights it made. It came to Dalles, OR in the 80s and the owner apparently tried to get an N number that meant something to him and got N167. He kept it until the late 90s when it went to Belt, MT. I bought it in 2003 and it is now at Fresno Chandler Airport. Its polished aluminum with red stripe and red wings which are orginal. I had the engine overhauled by Lycon just after I got it and it flies/runs fine. My son is going to buy it from me when I hang it up so I think it will stay in the family.

[DaveF]

For $10 you can get a CD with scanned images of all registration and airworthiness documents on file in OKC for any airplane. The CD includes all bills of sale, applications for airworthiness certificates (required with every annual until 1955), liens, N-number changes, and all 337s. I bought one for every airplane I looked at when I was shopping a few years ago. Some were worth the $10 just for the interesting reading. http://aircraft.faa.gov/e.gov/nd/

There was a time when you had to hire AOPA or an outfit called King's in OKC to do this, it cost a lot more, and even then you didn't get actual copies of the documents.

[GAHorn]

I'll never forget the first airplane I ever participated in a "pre-buy/annual" inspection. It was an Aeronca Chief which had once belonged to the county sheriff in Center, Texas. He had acquired it from the Madam of the local bordello for "One Dollar and other valuable considerations."