nooner827
Member
One of my wife's acquaintances has a two Lancair 235s for sale. Actually, it's about a plane and a half right now. One airframe was supposedly a complete plane at one point in time, but the wings have been removed (which he has) along with other bits and pieces. The other one is a partial kit. I'm not sure how much of the kit he's got exactly, but I've seen the fuselage. He bought these in an estate sale thinking he'd get them flying but due to health reasons, he just wants to try and get the cash out that he put into them. He's also got two engines for sale with the package. They're Lycoming 290's (vs 235s the frame was designed for), one of which came off an airboat. I'm going to see if the A&P at the local airport can check out the engines, but it's the airframes that I've got the most questions about.
The "complete" kit supposedly used to actually fly, but there's no N-number painted on it or anywhere in the cockpit. The owner hasn't been able to dig up any paperwork showing previous registration or airworthiness certificates, but the Hobbs meter has over 1400 hours on it and I doubt that that time got racked up at one Gee/zero knots. I'm hoping to contact Lancair to see if they can help me discover what kit number this is and maybe track down more info.
If I do buy these, my plan would be to take it apart absolutely as much as can be disassembled and then reassembling it from original Lancair plans while inspecting/replacing any non-spec parts. If I did this with proper documentation, would this put me into the magical "51%" category where I could claim to be the builder? Of course I'd be totally up front with the FAA about what I did and did not do in the construction, but I imagine there's got to me some subjectivity to determining 51%.
Anyway, I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment. This is either an opportunity that I should snap up immediately or one that I should run away screaming from.
The "complete" kit supposedly used to actually fly, but there's no N-number painted on it or anywhere in the cockpit. The owner hasn't been able to dig up any paperwork showing previous registration or airworthiness certificates, but the Hobbs meter has over 1400 hours on it and I doubt that that time got racked up at one Gee/zero knots. I'm hoping to contact Lancair to see if they can help me discover what kit number this is and maybe track down more info.
If I do buy these, my plan would be to take it apart absolutely as much as can be disassembled and then reassembling it from original Lancair plans while inspecting/replacing any non-spec parts. If I did this with proper documentation, would this put me into the magical "51%" category where I could claim to be the builder? Of course I'd be totally up front with the FAA about what I did and did not do in the construction, but I imagine there's got to me some subjectivity to determining 51%.
Anyway, I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment. This is either an opportunity that I should snap up immediately or one that I should run away screaming from.
