Finding, moving
and selling aircraft

Scope

What we handle

• Sourcing. Finding the right airframe, in Australia or overseas.
• Pre-purchase inspection. Arranged with a Part 145 organisation, with the findings read properly.
• Modification and refurbishment. Avionics, interior, paint.
• Import and export. Documentation, certificates of export, registration.
• Ferry and delivery. Ferry tanks, clearances, and crews experienced over water. More on ferry and delivery flights.

Due diligence

Buying an aircraft is
an inspection process

The aeroplane in the photographs is not the thing you are buying. What you are buying is its condition, its history, and what those two will cost you over the next twelve months. That is an engineering question before it is a commercial one, and it is where we spend our time.

What a pre-purchase inspection should find

A proper pre-purchase is days on the aircraft with panels off, not an afternoon walking around it. We borescope the hot sections, take compressions, and read trend data against where the engines should be for their hours. Not simply whether they sit inside limits, but how they are tracking toward the next hot section or overhaul. An engine running well at high time is often the better proposition, and only one of those two aircraft has that priced in.

We look at the structure where it matters: wing attach, belly skins, and the places that collect water and do not drain. Damage history gets checked against the repair approvals, and the repairs get checked against what the approval actually says. Some of what we find is a bargaining chip and some of it is a reason to walk. We will tell you which one you are looking at.

The records are the asset

An aircraft is worth what its records can prove. A gap in the maintenance history is not paperwork you tidy up later. It is a permanent discount, and every buyer after you will find it too.

Some gaps close. Where the work was done by an organisation that still exists and still holds its records, entries can often be reconstructed. Component histories on life-limited parts usually cannot, and where time in service cannot be established the part comes off at your cost, whatever life it had on paper. AD and service bulletin status has to be evidenced rather than asserted, and a compliance list handed over by a vendor is where our check starts, not where it finishes.

How long an import really takes

Longer than you will be told, because the steps are sequential and each one has a queue in front of it. Finance has to be cleared and the security discharged before the aircraft can come off the foreign register. De-registration has to be complete before the export certificate of airworthiness issues. Australian registration and the certificate of airworthiness follow from there.

Anything fitted under a foreign approval needs an Australian approval path before it flies, and avionics are the usual surprise. We run the sequence, hold the dates, and give you a realistic in-service date at the start. If ours sits further out than a figure you have been quoted elsewhere, that is the difference between a schedule and a sales pitch.

Bringing it home

A long-range ferry is its own operation. Ferry tanks and the approval to carry them, an HF fit that works, life raft and survival equipment, overflight and landing permits for every country on the route, handling at each stop, and a weather window that holds long enough to be worth using.

We plan the route, arrange the permits and equipment approvals, and crew it. The aircraft arrives ready for its Australian paperwork rather than with a list of things to fix first.

Enquiries

Buying or selling?

Tell us the type and the timeframe. We’ll tell you what the market looks like and what it would take.