Part of my rationale, when I plunked my entire financial nest egg down to buy my 1977 Grumman Cheetah, over 10 years ago, was that I was buying a durable good. An asset that would probably hold or increase its value over time, so that if I ever needed some extra cash, I could sell it for at least what I paid for it. Lately, however, I’ve lost a bit of that confidence. If worse turned to worst, could I even sell it? With the economy so shaky, is anyone buying airplanes? Especially one that’s 10 years older now, and whose only “glass” in the cockpit is on the front of its steam-gauge instruments? I’d heard numerous people say that nobody was interested in airplanes without glass cockpits anymore. And that was before the economy turned sour.
What IS the current state of the union in terms of used aircraft sales? To find out, I interviewed a number of people who work in the used aircraft sales industry and deal with everything from Piper Cub pistons to Bombardier Global Express jets. And while nobody had enormously sunny answers to give me, there were a few encouraging bits of information.
