AMZ

Shawn and Dave - thank you for your detailed thoughts. Your feedback is consistent with what I’ve heard from a few mechanics that I have consulted with. The bottom line is even if this plane passes a rigorous inspection it would still have to be registered as an ELSA to continue flying. This is not something I personally have the bandwidth for nor the desire to undertake. So looks like a pass on this one and the search continues. Hoping to learn more from you and others in the forum about these great planes in general. Another data point I gathered during this process is that there is a serious lack of factory approved Rotax tech’s in the San Diego area. The one shop I was referred to seems to have a serious backlog of work and any maintenance would be a long process just to get on the schedule. Thanks once again! -AMZ

Hello everyone! New member here and looking forward to participating in the discussions. I am a student pilot in San Diego and have been training on an Aeroprakt Vixen (LSA). I've spent the better part of last year looking high and low for an airplane to purchase (both LSA and GA). I'm currently zeroing in on a 2009 SC which checks all the boxes for my mission (complete my training and then use it for local personal flying with occasional short trips with the missus). This particular plane is in my price range, has low hours on a recently OH'd engine, the avionics setup works for me. It is a bit rough around the edges but nothing a bit of TLC and $$'s can't fix. Another point to note is that this plane has been used for training so I would imagine it has had more than a few hard landings. I saw the plane in person and saw that the landing gear has been reinforced and is probably stronger now then when it rolled off the floor. The only sticking point right now is that the plane has 6000+ hours TT. Now compared to typical GA planes on the market this is not too high but I'm thinking that LSA's are different beasts? I also found some documentation that said that the "initial airframe life" is 5000 hours. As the experts here probably already know, this number was raised to 11,000 hours when PS was a thing but I don't believe this increase applies to the plane I am looking at. I contacted the AOPA to see if the 6000 hours makes it INOP or if it can continue to fly if an IA has deemed it to be airworthy. Unfortunately AOPA and a few other seasoned pilots I know were stumped by this. My understanding is that mfgs typically don't publish "initial airframe life" so there isn't a lot to compare it with. Any and all guidance from the experts here would be really appreciated.