The International Cessna^® 170 Association

This is the part that got my goat;

"It does not take 5 hours to see if logbooks are accurate and credible. It takes 30 minutes. BUT..it can take 5 hours and MORE if they are not clear, concise, complete with STC papers/ICA's and recently updated with current AD list etc etc."

Not that I don't agree with the theory, but in practice is does not work this way. It only takes 30 minutes if you trust that the last guy really did what he wrote in the logs. I've been around long enough to know that a sheet of paper will hold still long enough to write what you want. As previously stated, an IA is signing off the past, not the future. When an IA signs that log book, he/she SHOULD NOT be saying "I have inspected the previous logbook entries, and they are written very well".

You and I are saying the same thing, Del...we're just saying it differently.
I'll bet ...if you think about it...that you can look at an airplane's logbooks and tell within MOMENTS whether or not the logs are representative of the airplane or not. (I'm not talking about a few moments being sufficient for annual insp. completion...I'm talking about simply judging the credibility of the logs.)
Further, I'll bet it wouldn't take you more than 5 minutes of looking at logs to decide if you wanted to even continue with an annual inspection on some airplanes...or shove it back out the door. Am I right?

If an owner shows up with disorganized, tattered piles of paper and logbooks that have ten years of annuals that show little or no actual repairs except for owner-oil-changes, but have annuals signed off year after year with almost no corrective work performed despite several hundred hours flown.... what does that tell us?

Versus an owner who has organized records, chronologically ordered and completed Form 337s which correspond to logbook entries of repairs and alterations (hopefully performed by recognized shops), and appropriate "yellow tag/8130-3"s and Invoices for the purchased parts associated with those items.... The latter is indicative of an airplane which has likely been maintained sufficiently to warrant our continued interest as a potential customer for annual inspection.

I wasn't suggesting that 30 mins in the logs is all that is req'd to perform a complete annual investigation of the records.

I agree with that asessment. I don't even need to see the ship just the logs to know whether I am getting into heavy weather or not...got the whether and weather correct it hope.

Wow..marathonrunner...what are YOU doing up this early? I'm just getting OFF work!
Back to the topic:
I was just thinking further about what Del said about Bonanza annuals.... I didn't realize that character was advertising that ridiculously low amt for that airplane too.
Typical Bonanza annuals from shops down here that I respect run $1200-$1600 just for the inspection. My Baron never cost less than $6400 with me doing much of the grunt-work (and if I didn't, typically ran $8K-$11K.)
Typical single-Cessnas (fixed gear) are $1000 (again, inspection only.) Getting a clean 170/172 out the door for less than $2K after a year's flying is a lucky event in most cases, and can easily double/triple that for one that has some real time or age on it. I know an assoc'n Member who almost never flys his well-loved 170 (but he does none of his own work/and pays full-fare at a small but reputable shop) and I doubt he ever gets his annual completed for less than $2000 each year. Add $1K for insurance and $60/hr for fuel and over a 100 hrs per year it's still cheaper per hour than renting a 172* and a lot more fun!

*Cessna estimates a new 172 operates at more than $120/hr NOT including insurance (and costs over $300K !)
AND...It only carries 833 lbs of useful load. My 59 year old 170 does better than that and ties up a LOT less money!

Well you don't go to bed before the sun goes down and get up when it comes up...summer in Alaska. I won't be up this early in a few months...land of the rising and never setting sun this time of year