A word about western skymasters llc

[Ed Coffman]

You get what you pay for.

[Jhogan0101]

No Ed, i DID NOT get what i paid for.

[JimC]

"i should have walked but i had a considerable amount of time and money into the prebuy [...] so i accepted his deal"

If you can't back out of a deal after a prebuy inspection, then it's not a prebuy inspection.


Here's another look at Western Skymasters: I just landed a new-to-me T337 from Ron Lillie at my home airport.

Is it the nicest plane ever? No, there is no $65,000 retractable twin that is the nicest plane ever. $65,000 retractable twins need work. Period.
Is it airworthy? Yes.
Am I satisfied? Yes.
Did something minor break on the flight home? Yes. It's a fifty year old bargain-basement airplane. S*** happens.
Will I be doing business with Ron again? Yes.


For those of you getting ready to buy your first Skymaster, here's a suggested order of items. I highly recommend not moving to the next step until the previous step is complete.

1) Go over all the paperwork you want to examine.
2) Agree on a resolution for any discrepancies found.
3) Get a mechanic to look the plane over.
4) Agree on a resolution for any discrepancies found.
5) Perform (or have a qualified pilot perform) a test flight.
6) Agree on a resolution for any discrepancies found.
7) Fix the seller-resolved discrepancies.
8) Confirm that the seller-resolved discrepancies have been fixed.
9) Close the sale.
10) Fly it home.

Don't try to do all the steps in one day. It won't end well. Buying a plane is like buying a house - it takes time.

For this Skymaster, it took me about 8 weeks from my first call to Ron to today. I found him easy to work with and I expect to do business with him again.

[flyag1]

As a new member here on this forum, let me first say I’m from the old school. My first airplane purchase goes back to 1981. Since that time I’ve bought and sold several Airplanes with one being a 337 (back in 96). In that time I’ve crossed paths with a lot of brokers /dealers. Some great and some not so much. So when it’s time to buy, my trusted broker / dealer list is very short. Will I buy from one not on the trusted list? Yes, but the terms and pre buy will be different for non trusted.

Trust is gained over time and lost in a moment. If at all, regained with great difficulty

[Jhogan0101]

Jim,
Glad you had a great experience with Western Skymasters

My skymaster is still in the shop, annual at $40k w parts so far

When i got to salt lake city, an older transponder was in the plane. Not the one in the ad. What kind of person does that? I had to argue with ron to put the one in the ad back in.

The skybolt adsb was uninstalled. He wouldnt reinstall it

The ifly gps was gone and he wouldnt put that back in.

I received the logs in a empty plastic swiffer bag, later on when i had a real mechanic look at them, he informed me many of the logs were missing or incomplete.

He sold me a plane with an unapproved jerry rigged cowl flap system (Consisted of one c172 motor) that his employed by him a&p signed off on (previous owner installed it) had to remove that system and install a entirely new

Also, he lied about damage history. The leading edge of the right wing was poorly repaired in the past. There was a one line description of it in the logs. It cost me $20K, the outside was pop riveted and inside some of the ribs were completely missing rivets. Here is the text from ron before i bought it.

“Absolutely the cleanest 67 out there. 2500 ttsn
Three owners since new hungered all its life.
1000 hr motors 350 hr props. No damage history at all plus perfect logs. My personal plane the last year
Great panel everything works.”

He talks a good game but he is full of it.

Also i later found that my prebuy mechanic that missed 99% of the problems had a prior working relationship with Ron that i did not know about going into the prebuy.

Im 39, have had my ppl for about a year now, bought My first plane 2 years ago (C150).
Ive had a lot of experiences in aviation so far and i can tell you it is one of the most corrupt industries ive ever seen.
The only good experiences ive had is talking to and befriending other owners.

[JimC]

I'm sorry you got stuck with a $20k repair because of crappy work. How long ago was the repair? It sounds like a lot of people didn't catch it. I passed on a Skymaster a few years ago that had a version of the IO-360 engine installed that was not on the TC, and there had been 17 annuals from 4 different IAs since that installation.

BTW, what is a C172 cowl flap motor? I thought the only 172s with any cowl flaps were actually the last of the 1963 C175 Skylarks renamed as P172Ds. IIRC, they had manual cowl flaps because of the larger 175hp engine.

[flyag1]

Originally Posted by Jhogan0101

Jim,
Glad you had a great experience with Western Skymasters

My skymaster is still in the shop, annual at $40k w parts so far

When i got to salt lake city, an older transponder was in the plane. Not the one in the ad. What kind of person does that? I had to argue with ron to put the one in the ad back in.

The skybolt adsb was uninstalled. He wouldnt reinstall it

The ifly gps was gone and he wouldnt put that back in.

I received the logs in a empty plastic swiffer bag, later on when i had a real mechanic look at them, he informed me many of the logs were missing or incomplete.

He sold me a plane with an unapproved jerry rigged cowl flap system (Consisted of one c172 motor) that his employed by him a&p signed off on (previous owner installed it) had to remove that system and install a entirely new

Also, he lied about damage history. The leading edge of the right wing was poorly repaired in the past. There was a one line description of it in the logs. It cost me $20K, the outside was pop riveted and inside some of the ribs were completely missing rivets. Here is the text from ron before i bought it.

“Absolutely the cleanest 67 out there. 2500 ttsn
Three owners since new hungered all its life.
1000 hr motors 350 hr props. No damage history at all plus perfect logs. My personal plane the last year
Great panel everything works.”

He talks a good game but he is full of it.

Also i later found that my prebuy mechanic that missed 99% of the problems had a prior working relationship with Ron that i did not know about going into the prebuy.

Im 39, have had my ppl for about a year now, bought My first plane 2 years ago (C150).
Ive had a lot of experiences in aviation so far and i can tell you it is one of the most corrupt industries ive ever seen.
The only good experiences ive had is talking to and befriending other owners.

I totally agree, aviation has become a breeding ground for corrupt sellers.

Based on current Trade-a-Plane adds, there are at least 2 out there with damage even though the "Brokers that's on this Forum" listed the airplanes with NDH.


Maybe most don't open the logs and look and the dealer get away with lies stating "No Damage History". It's a lie plane and simple.

I called one of this airplanes out to the dealer in an email: reply was something like this....

I don't get it when people are concerned with damage history from 20 years ago.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by Jhogan0101

Jim,
Im 39, have had my ppl for about a year now, bought My first plane 2 years ago (C150).
Ive had a lot of experiences in aviation so far and i can tell you it is one of the most corrupt industries ive ever seen.
The only good experiences ive had is talking to and befriending other owners.

I am sorry to hear of your bad experiences so far - for those of us that aviation is our passion, livelihood and bad habit, we never like hearing of these types of situations.

If it is any consolation, I am 43 years old, a pilot since 18 and a mechanic since 19 - and I grew up in an aviation family - flying and fixing planes from our backyard. I think this gives me some experience in aviation - but everyday I learn how much I don't know. My most recent annual cost me more than I paid for the aircraft, even after doing an extensive pre-buy. That is not surprising knowing we are buying 40+ year old aircraft, and want to fix them properly.

That being said, it is not the most corrupt industry I have seen. It is however, not kind to those who do not take extreme care and responsibility in conducting due diligence. Even after doing extreme research, pre-buys, flights, inspections and everything you think to mitigate the risk of buying an aircraft in poor condition, there will inevitably be issues that come up.

Aircraft sales is no different than car or home sales - except for the fact that airplanes, for the most part, are a luxury item. With that - there comes opportunity. Continue to befriend aviation types and surround yourself with people that have "made their mistakes", and learn from them. Continue to pass on your knowledge as well.

I hope the rest of your annual goes well and hope you get years of enjoyment out of your Skymaster.

Be safe,
Jeff

[hharney]

Originally Posted by JAG

I am sorry to hear of your bad experiences so far - for those of us that aviation is our passion, livelihood and bad habit, we never like hearing of these types of situations.

If it is any consolation, I am 43 years old, a pilot since 18 and a mechanic since 19 - and I grew up in an aviation family - flying and fixing planes from our backyard. I think this gives me some experience in aviation - but everyday I learn how much I don't know. My most recent annual cost me more than I paid for the aircraft, even after doing an extensive pre-buy. That is not surprising knowing we are buying 40+ year old aircraft, and want to fix them properly.

That being said, it is not the most corrupt industry I have seen. It is however, not kind to those who do not take extreme care and responsibility in conducting due diligence. Even after doing extreme research, pre-buys, flights, inspections and everything you think to mitigate the risk of buying an aircraft in poor condition, there will inevitably be issues that come up.

Aircraft sales is no different than car or home sales - except for the fact that airplanes, for the most part, are a luxury item. With that - there comes opportunity. Continue to befriend aviation types and surround yourself with people that have "made their mistakes", and learn from them. Continue to pass on your knowledge as well.

I hope the rest of your annual goes well and hope you get years of enjoyment out of your Skymaster.

Be safe,
Jeff

Thanks for your words Jeff, I hope you misunderstood Julian when he said "most corrupt...." and that he really meant just the broker company he purchased from. The aviation industry is a pretty small niche group and has always been a very special, trusting family in my book. Yes there are scams out there and there are different approaches to avoiding those but in the this aviation family this is rare because the rest of the us (the family) will weed those bad situations out of the industry