C-170B in AR

[Busdriver]

I may go kick the tires on this B model. Anybody familiar with this airplane?

http://www.southdeltaaviation.com/landi ... 4809&dlr=1

Also I would welcome any opinions re the airplane based strictly on the ad.

TIA

John

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

Speed Brake Fairings, I wonder what they are?

Otherwise it has typical equipment besides the G 430 which is a bit pricey for most 170 owners. O SMOH is nice. The asking price reflects the 0 smoh and the 430. I've always liked Blue airplanes.

[4583C]

Bruce
Our own John Pugliese manufactured a fairing which covered the brake and maybe the lower part of the gear leg which mounted on the wheel pants. Don't know if he still does them or not.

[blueldr]

A stock engined C-170 for $55,000 ----- Hmmmm?

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

Bruce
Our own John Pugliese manufactured a fairing which covered the brake and maybe the lower part of the gear leg which mounted on the wheel pants. Don't know if he still does them or not.

Oh. Speed ..Brake Fairings. I get it now. I was thinking about some kind of drag mechanism that deployed to slow airplanes. As in Speed Brake...Fairings. I thought it unusual because this isn't a green airplane in need of such a device.

[Busdriver]

I just got back from looking at the airplane.

Turns out it has some damage history. But overall it looks pretty good. The FBO owns the airplane and did the engine overhaul.

Still seems a little expensive as compared to other listings on Barnstormers or Trade-a-Plane though.

Anyhoo, thanks for the comments.

John

[jrenwick]

From the looks of the installation, the GNS40 is not a 430W, i.e. it does not have WAAS capability. (If it is actually a 430W, there should be a small annunciator panel mounted close to your gyro instruments.) For the purposes of IFR flight planning, that makes a difference. Without the "W", your alternate airport must have a non-GPS approach that you can use. I might not have that completely right; someone who knows more, please correct me.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

Actually John there may or may not be an annunciator regardless what 430 you have.

As for damage history. As we will all tell you, most of these airplanes have damage history and if the records don't show any you might consider the records to be incomplete. The damage isn't that critical what is is that the airplane was repaired correctly.

As for the overhaul. It is going to become more and more common for FBO's or more precisely an A&P doing these rather than a major overhaul shop. Few overhaul shops will overhaul a 0-300 any more. Again it doesn't really matter who did the overhaul but how it was done is what you want to know. A top rate overhaul can cost every bit of $20K today. As I said in my first post the price reflects the overhaul and the 430 installation.

[jrenwick]

Actually John there may or may not be an annunciator regardless what 430 you have.

You're right, Bruce. But with the 430W installation, Garmin requires an annunciator to be installed if the 430 is mounted more than some given distances away from the primary flight instruments, what would normally be the "six-pack." In a typical center-stack radio installation, an annunciator is not required, but with the 430 mounted where that one is, it's required. I went through this when my 430W was installed a few years ago -- in the same location. If this aircraft has a 430W without the annunciator, then I would want to check with a good avionics shop and make sure the installation was completely legal.

My installation looked like this. The annunciator is to the lower-right of the AI.

Panel_07.jpg

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

You are right about the annunciator John but it was not Garmin but the FAA who required the annunciator panel for an IFR installation. For the most part the annunciator panel, which is actually in many cases a relay switching panel, is a hold over from days of less sophisticated GPS that did not have built in switching.

When you were using a stand alone GPS and a stand alone VOR, you had to have a way to switch between them and know what device you were navigating with. The 430 and on had the switching built in and by this time the FAA could see it made little sense to have an annunciator panel next to a GPS telling the pilot what the GPS was already and all within eye scan of the pilot. In your install I can see the annunciator is probably required because of the location of the GPS. If it had been on the pilots side you may not have needed it.

As for buying ANY aircraft with a IFR capable GPS, DO NOT assume the installation was done to IFR standards and approved as such. A missing instrument placard limiting the install to VFR won't cut it. Each and every GPS IFR installation is individually approved for IFR. This requires besides meeting the equipment standards a test flight. There will be a 337 with the test flight results and an approval and a custom written approved AFM supplement for just that aircraft for the GPS.

This is done because even with a STC installation no two aircraft are alike and you need to be sure no other electronic devices interfere with the GPS capability to receive satellite info. VHF (our com radios) can and do interfere with GPS. One reason you don't mount the GPS antenna within 3 ft of a VHF antenna.