A Valuable Hint For Aircraft Buyers - By: Allan Michael Taylor

Recently I went about the task of finding a Piper Cherokee 235 airplane that will serve me well in my business and family flying, But there is one thing that buyers need to look for when shopping for airplanes built before the Summer of Love: damage history.

As I browsed the daily listings on sites like Trade-a-Plane and Controller, the one thing that always generates a second look is those magical three letters...NDH. No Damage History. It is one of the two most desirable attributes on an older model plane , right up there with "complete logs".

But when does "no damage history" really mean NO damage history? I have had a couple of recent surprises when a listing said NDH, but a search on the search engines brought up an NTSB report showing a crash with "substantial" damage. On one of these occasions, I let the owner off the hook after he told me NDH and I found a 1967 crash because nothing about the accident was listed in the logs.

Now I'm using a secret weapon that all airplane buyers should know about...the FAA database. For $10 and a few clicks of your mouse, you can order a CD that contains all FAA paperwork ever generated on a particular aircraft. Just type in the N #, wait about 10 days, and your disk arrives with more information then you ever thought was out there about any flying machine ever registered with FAA.

On the disk will be two PDF documents, made from the microfilm archived at FAA. One PDF will show every shred of registration info, including all change of ownership forms as well as some mortgage and loan paperwork. This is a great tool to follow the lineage of the plane right back to day one. One disk I recently ordered showed close to 20 owners for a 1964 model 235, far too many for my blood. Several owners had resold the plane just a few months after buying it... an indicator of a possible lemon. But the other half of the CD is where the really good stuff can be found.

The second PDF shows all 337 repair forms that have been submitted on the plane. You'll quickly scroll through every major repair or alteration, and get a glimpse into the past life of the plane. Want to know what year the ADF was junked...it's in there. That hangar rash suffered back on '72 when Bubba bounced his pick-up truck off the wingtip...it's in there.

I used the FAA database after finding a plane in Los Angeles that suits my mission profile perfectly. I have ordered the FAA CD, and if there are skeletons in the closet of this bird, I'll find them , since the NTSB search on Google came up empty. I then set up a meeting with the owner to look the plane over and fly it. This was the one I wanted, and it has passed every test. With the FAA disk as ammunition, I went into the negotiations armed and loaded ready for a little back and forth, and worked towards the right price as an educated buyer.

About the Author

Author and private pilot Dan Pimentel owns a advertising agency that specializes in aviation advertising campaign development. He has been a professional photographer since 1980 and displays his work online. He also blogs about aviation on his blog, World of Flying.

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