I bought my 170B
Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2019 11:36 pm
After nearly a year and a half of looking for the right 170B, I found my new aircraft. There were times that I nearly gave up, but articles and pictures posted here and on FB kept my focus on looking. The advert was on the forum and I had not paid attention to it as the price was higher than I wanted to spend. After some time my wife said would it not be better to spend a bit more and not have any work to do, and get a better example. After a while I looked at the advert again and the aircraft had all the options that I found desirable such as Horton STOL kit, shoulder harnesses, tail pull, Selkirk interior, a 8.33 Garmin Nav/Com and the Avcon Lycoming 0-360 conversion with a CS Hartzell propeller.
An email to the owner to see if it was still available was answered promplty with a pleasent surprise of yes, and I will email pictures later. Pictures arrived along with good information and I was pleased and excited. An exchange of emails with further questions followed.
I arranged a good time to call and speak with the owner and covered all the questions I had. I believe that you are not just buying the aircraft but also buying from the previous custodian. Frank and Greg had owned the aircraft for five years, they had gone right through the aircraft sorting anything they were not happy with such as unplated holes, re-skinning the tail surfaces, interior strip out, new Selkirk interior and headliner. They re-wired the intrument panel, fitted new nav/com and intercom. Then complete panel was refirbished to a very high standard.
I made an offer on that call and followed it up with a email, it was accepted later that day.
The annual was due within two weeks and also the propeller AD. The aircraft was based in a nice heated corporate hangar in Montana, but this was a more difficult place to get to from the UK. I asked if their engineer would be interested in taking the aircraft apart and putting it into a shipping container. The engineer Reed and his crew did an excellent job, taking hundreds of pictures, making detailed notes and labelling everything. They designed and built a wing rack that also housed the fin, rudder and struts. A crate was built for the horizontal tail.
There was a delay in getting it collected, as it was mid December and a shortage of drivers and Christmas meant collection was booked for the 9th January. The container ship sailed from Seattle on the 18th and arrived in the UK on the 21st February. We had the container delivered to Dunsfold Airport where there was a container ramp, big open spaces and forklifts to help. Opening the container door was nerve racking, hoping that nothing had moved. Frank, Reed and the crew had done a great job making sure everything was protected and secure. This was also the first time I had seen the aircraft, a big day for me and I was not disappointed. Then loading onto trailers for the short journey home.
Now unloaded from the trailer, I just need to find time away from building the hangar to rig the aircraft and get flying.
An email to the owner to see if it was still available was answered promplty with a pleasent surprise of yes, and I will email pictures later. Pictures arrived along with good information and I was pleased and excited. An exchange of emails with further questions followed.
I made an offer on that call and followed it up with a email, it was accepted later that day.
