![Cessna 150 [Credit: Shutterstock]](https://www.flyingmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/shutterstock_1755785417-scaled.jpg)
When someone offers you a ride in their privately owned airplane do you ask if it is “in annual?” I do. I have good reason to.
I was hired to train a 20-something son of an airline pilot in the family Cessna 150. When we got to the aircraft, the logbooks were in the front seat. I asked why, and the son replied that it was out of annual by a few days, and the mechanic had a key to the airplane and planned to come by and grab it later that day. But his father said it was OK for us to fly.
“No, it’s not,” I replied. I wasn’t sure what got twisted there—and by whom—so I backed off from that one, and instead we did a ground lesson focused on airworthiness and how to check if the airplane is airworthy “by the book.”
You can get so familiar with your own aircraft that you don’t notice an issue. It’s just like you stop seeing the building supplies in the living room during a remodel, but that’s the first thing your guests see.
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You may know someone with a story about “something off” with an aircraft that they flew in that belonged to someone else. A few days later they learned it was a serious maintenance issue that the pilot didn’t check out or ignored as a nonevent until the aircraft experienced an uncommanded loss of engine power, resulting in an off-airport landing.
As a flight instructor, it can be a challenge to determine how well cared for an airplane is. Granted, I know most aircraft owners treat their airplanes better than they do their spouses or children, but sometimes a lack of finances leads to putting off repairs.
The CFI can and should check the logbooks for the inspections and repairs before flying in the aircraft, but even if these books are up to date, there is always the chance something is missing.
If the airplane looks rough on the outside—peeling and fading paint, windows sun-crazed, seats torn up, greasy swath down the belly—it is reasonable to think the engine maintenance might be rough as well. You often find these aircraft are “ramp queens” that have not moved in years, then someone offers to buy them and tries to hire a CFI to ferry them (hopefully with the proper permit) to someplace where the annual can be done.
To that I reply, “Not it!”
If you approach a CFI to give you lessons in your own airplane, insist they review the maintenance logbooks with you. It shows responsibility and gets you both on the same page.
CFIs need to ask who does the maintenance on it. Get names and look up certificates on your smartphone, then perform a preflight inspection yourself. Not only will it give you peace of mind, it will model good behavior for the learner. Make sure your CFI insurance covers your teaching in an owner’s airplane and that you have experience and proficiency in that make and model.
If this sounds extra cautious to you, it is with good reason.
One of my colleagues returned from a flight in a Cessna 172 looking rather upset. The CFI had hundreds of hours in the make and model, so he recognized something wasn’t quite right with the engine—it just didn’t sound right. He mentioned it to the owner. The owner replied he had been tinkering with it for the better part of a week.
The CFI knew the learner was not an A&P mechanic, so he asked for clarification, and the owner replied that since he owned the airplane, he thought he could do the work—he was a car mechanic. That flight ended quickly and was followed by an intense debrief on the ground. It turned out the learner had heard about a friend who owned an aircraft and did his own maintenance. Pulling on that string revealed the friend owned a Van’s RV-6 that he had built himself and complied with FAA rules for the builders of aircraft to perform maintenance provided they meet the 51 percent rule on aircraft instruction and hold the proper certificate.
The airplane owner gets used to its quirks—the door that has a tendency to pop open, the push-to-talk switch on the right yoke that is intermittent, the need for a piece of duct tape to hold the oil door shut. True story: The fact that I had a roll of duct tape in my flight bag made an instrument candidate choose me for his CFI.
Sometimes the instructor notices something that is a potential safety issue, and this comes as a surprise to the aircraft owner.
I had this experience when flying with the owner of a Piper while administering a flight review. We’d been up for just about an hour when the mechanical voice that is part of the Lightspeed Delta Zulu headset warned of rising carbon monoxide levels in the cabin. I brought this to the attention of the owner, who promptly looked at the cardboard detector he had mounted on the panel and wondered out loud how much longer we could safely stay in the air.
I think my mother’s voice came out of me when I said we were terminating the flight and returning to the airport 5 miles away—while I opened an air vent.
