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The TBO is just the average number. When TBO is 1800, it doesn't mean the engine will fall apart on the 1801st hour. Some owners will keep flying until the compressions drop below acceptable numbers, or when other engine internal parts develop problem. But I've also read that by the time the internal parts are showing problems, those parts are often beyond re-workable and you have to buy new ones.

Uh huh....


And after 1983, there is no way I could pull for NC State.

Where's the fun in that?

Hey welcome to the club! My nephew lives in Greenville! That is a beautiful area!

Welcome to the club! As others have suggested, I would look at several before settling on one airplane. I would be concerned about having to do an overhaul in less than 300 hours. When I was looking for my 150, I was looking at aircraft that had about 800-1000 left until overhaul.

I don't want to scare you but my advice is that you should prepare for the worst and hope for the best. By that, I mean, be prepared to have to put some money into the airplane. These aircraft are 40-50 years old. I ended up finding one that just had a (field) overhaul (8 SMOH) and it now has 22 SMOH. I'm putting four new cylinders on it right now. Plus rebuilding the mufflers, two new mags, new gascolator, new brakes, new control cables/pulleys, and several other things I can't think of right now. And I HAD A PREBUY done on it. No biggee, I knew when I got into it that this could happen. I had just hoped it wouldn't be quite so soon! What you want in the end is a very safe plane that you can feel good about flying yourself and others. You never want to have a question in the back of your mind that something could be wrong or that you took a shortcut somewhere. You can't just pull over to the side of the road if something breaks. Good luck with your decision, owning an airplane is a great experience.

The dent/crinkle is probably "student rash" caused by flight training and hard landings. That area needs to be looked at by someone who can evaluate the landing gear structure... Probably okay, but a sign.

Ouch! Sorry to hear that. I wouldn't be taking it as well as you!

I appreciate the responses from everyone! He ended up selling it about a week and a half ago. Not a bad thing--from everything I've seen here I don't think I was ready to take the leap into ownership yet. Will need to do some more saving for the rainy day fund first.

LOL, well I'm not super happy about it but what can I do? Fix it and enjoy the plane once it's complete. At least I will know almost everything about the plane and its' maintenance status. I do love this little 150 even though it's costing a small fortune!

Amen Mark. I'd surely be personally involved in a prebuy if I did another plane and that doesn't guarantee anything but the obvious. My FBO just completed a repair on a Cessna 140 that was annualed the last three years by a not to distant shop. The owner heard about my FBO and wanted a good annual. He thought he had a good airplane. It ended up being a $10K annual.