When is a low time Aircraft a problem.

My background is almost exclusively military and commercial, but after a flight with a friend for confirmation, I'm on the hunt for an 8 or 8A to purchase.
I've held off on making an offer on 2 different planes on Bstormers because the logbooks showed what I thought was an excessive amount of time in the hangar with no flying. I've watched all of the Savvy Aviation EAA webinars and am concerned about 15+ year old planes with only a couple hundred hours having issues including corrosion or rust in the engine.
After I see these planes sell, I need to ask...Am I being too conservative?
Should I go ahead and contract up and have it borescoped and have an oil analysis done on the prebuy before I discount the aircraft...or just make sure I have a reserve set aside for a rebuild?
I'm hoping to find the right plane soon and going to Oshkosh for the first time next month. I hope to see some great planes for sale there.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
-Steve

I think your concern is justified. One consideration is where has the plane been sitting? On the coast? Florida? Not all of California is dry either. Sometimes it is hard to figure out the history. It may be an Arizona plane now, but where was it 5 years ago? That said engine oil becomes corrosive regardless of location, but a humid environment will make it worse.

Just me

I would look at it differently. A good RV doesn’t come on the market very often. If you find a plane you like, but it has been a hangar queen, how many months will it take to get the engine and prop overhauled? It might be less time than just waiting for a qood quality flyer to come on the market. Also, the good quality flyers that come on the market get top dollar, whereas a hangar queen can usually be had at a substantial discount.

If it was me, I would not let the low hours dismay me, rather just use that to get a better price.

If you have any concerns about the engine, then you should plan on at the very least an engine teardown inspection ($8,000 or so). Additionally, was this a new engine or well documented overhaul? If not then there may be more surprises in store once the engine is inspected. If you build this into the purchase price then you will somewhat protect yourself from any surprises. A questionable engine is a gamble that could go either way.
Good Luck

Steve, I was in almost the same situation 3 years ago.

Bought my 15 year old ship with just north of 200h, and it hadn't flown for the last 2 years (Owner lost his medical, and was still hoping to recover). He also told me that during those 2 years, he had been doing a thorough run-up every month... Now we all know that this ain't the best method of conservation...
Still, I made an offer on the selling price and got the RV for a discount price, having in mind the possibility of the engine needing replacement or overhaul.
I was lucky, now having added more than 600 trouble free hours.

Another lucky case is my friend's Tony RV-8. He bought the 8 year old aircraft with a grand total of 180h. But those were flown, 30' flight each, every 2nd week, extremely regularly. Just received his first oil analysis, it is perfect.

To analyze the state of health of a Lycoming on the field is quite difficult. Using a borescope will only permit an examination of the cylinder walls, valves, piston crowns, and such. Unfortunately, cam lobes and the cam can only be inspected by removing 1 or 2 cylinders, a difficult prospect in a pre-buy. Oil analysis is a good method, but not always easy to interpret. An engine with irregular use will show elevated amounts of iron for sure. As already stated, the location of said RV/engine is important, damp and salty can play havoc with the innards of that expensive engine in a short time.

Good luck in your quest

For me it would also depend on how regularly (calendar time) it was flown in a 15 year period, not how many total hrs it was flown.

An airplane that is flown for at least an hr every couple weeks but not much more than that, could have only 300 hrs after a dozen years or so but have a very healthy engine.

rvbuilder2002 said:

For me it would also depend on how regularly (calendar time) it was flown in a 15 year period, not how many total hrs it was flown.

An airplane that is flown for at least an hr every couple weeks but not much more than that, could have only 300 hrs after a dozen years or so but have a very healthy engine.

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Unfortunately reality dictates you’re more likely to find a plane that had 300 hours put on it in the first few years and then little if any activity. One thing that I’ve have personally seen at the airport but would be difficult if not impossible to see on the logs is a plane that gets pulled out of the hangar and ground run every few weeks, but not flown. It’s possibly the worst thing you could do to an engine but some owners (probably out of ignorance rather than malice) think it’s better than letting the plane sit.

00Dan said:

a plane that gets pulled out of the hangar and ground run every few weeks, but not flown. It’s possibly the worst thing you could do to an engine but some owners (probably out of ignorance rather than malice) think it’s better than letting the plane sit.

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Can you expand what you said to having an engine sit inactive for a long time?

PhatRV said:

Can you expand what you said to having an engine sit inactive for a long time?

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The oil may not get up to temperature, so any water content still remains, meaning corrosive byproducts just get splashed up on the internals again. In addition to that, you have a plane running on the ramp letting the cylinders get nice and toasty; it wouldn’t surprise me to find CHTs well above 400 dF, although the people that do this almost never have CHT gauges so they don’t know it.

If you flew BUFFs, you went through the 38 track. Go grab a ride in a Harmon or F1 Rocket first. This 8 won't be a concern for you anymore.

00Dan said:

Unfortunately reality dictates you’re more likely to find a plane that had 300 hours put on it in the first few years and then little if any activity. One thing that I’ve have personally seen at the airport but would be difficult if not impossible to see on the logs is a plane that gets pulled out of the hangar and ground run every few weeks, but not flown. It’s possibly the worst thing you could do to an engine but some owners (probably out of ignorance rather than malice) think it’s better than letting the plane sit.

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I agree that ground runs are the worst thing you can do. I have seen first hand the problems that it can cause.

I wasn't trying to imply that as long as the engine is run occasionally it is ok. That is why I said flown.
I agree that it can be difficult to ascertain the specifics of how operation time was put on an engine but that is part of the evaluation process. You can often learn a lot from just a casual conversation with a seller.

Slice said:

If you flew BUFFs, you went through the 38 track. Go grab a ride in a Harmon or F1 Rocket first. This 8 won't be a concern for you anymore.

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I think a rocket would be amazing...I haven’t seen many for sale though. I did fly 38s back at Vance AFB and came back to teach in the mighty Tweet...most fun flying I’ve ever had, until I got my Blackhawk qual!

I really appreciate all the advice so far...there are a lot of bulletin boards where posters can catch a little verbal abuse if they admit ignorance and ask for a little advice...not a problem here!
-Steve

As has been said, ground running an engine is about the worst thing you can do.

Lycoming says, "If you can't fly it, don't touch it." That means don't even turn it over. If I have an engine that hasn't been run in a while, I like to remove the bottom plugs, spray a little fogging oil into the cylinders and start it.

The cam lobes get oiled only by splash when the engine is running. Turning the engine over just rubs the dry lifters on the dry cam.

Rockets are cool but you won't regret an 8. Fantastic all around plane with plenty of fighteresque fun to be had!

Spur03 said:

I think a rocket would be amazing...I haven’t seen many for sale though. I did fly 38s back at Vance AFB and came back to teach in the mighty Tweet...most fun flying I’ve ever had, until I got my Blackhawk qual!

I really appreciate all the advice so far...there are a lot of bulletin boards where posters can catch a little verbal abuse if they admit ignorance and ask for a little advice...not a problem here!
-Steve

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