I have a story that shows the importance of inspection autonomy on a pre-purchase or annual before buying. As most know, I now own a 177B Cardinal.
Another local guy just bought a 68 Cardinal off of ebay and received the airplane "fresh out of annual", with no pre-buy or prior inspection. Interestingly, he paid a premium for the 150 HP version of the plane, but it does have nice avionics and recent paint (however paint is suspect).
It was at my AP/IA's shop yesterday when I stopped in so I got to take a close look. First thing I noticed was the main gear nuts and cotter keys had not been removed for sometime, and the cotter keys had been re-used more than once and were severly rusted. A general look at inspection panels and such revealed that it was unlikely that the airplane had recently been inspected to a very high degree due to dirt and crud that showed they had not been removed.
My AP (after going through some issue with my bird) was now quite Cardinal literate. I said...looks like she has shed a nose gear like mine had. He said..."worse than that, while adjusting the rudder cables, I found a whole row of fresh rivets down the centerline that had not been bucked" Basically they had been inserted and apparently bucked only enough to swell them, but not fully bucked.
He also noted that there was no indication in the logs that the spar Carry-through had been inspected, which is where the downfall of my annual was...very serious, very expensive.
I fear that this guy is going to get hammered at his first annual...
For those thinking of being a trusting sort...don't.
