For those are are curious, mostly you, Jim, one of our customers is in the market for a Duke right now and I brought him up to Indy Air Sales just this morning (Shout out to Pat Robinson, who was overly accommodating and made sure we had everything we needed for the day). We flew the airplane for a little over an hour. Teaching in Dukes never gets old for me
However.....the airplane needs work.
This is the list I came up with just being there for a couple hours, let alone what I probably could have found if i had the airplane in our shop up on jacks.
Wrong placard on fuel filler caps (116 instead of 101, and I can't believe how many annuals have overlooked THIS)
Right strobe light inop
Pilots turn coordinator inop
Nav 2 indicator GS inop
HSI slaving inop
Autopilot won’t follow course or heading bug (barely maintains altitude hold)
Flap in transit and approach light inop
Avidyne software and database out of date
GTX 345 software out of date
Air conditioning inoperative (evaporator fan)
Pressurized air cool cables very stiff
Pressurization max differential 0.5psid
BOTH Turbine inlet temp gauges inop
KDI-572 display flickers
KN-63 DME won’t channel to NAV 1. Suspect R/T unit needs repair
Weather Radar Display Inoperative...
We are now re-negotiating either to have seller fix all, or adjust sale price...
My advice to anyone in the market for a any pressurized piston twin, pre-buys aren't just considered done in the hangar on jacks. Go fly them and check every single light bulb, every single heating element etc. That's exactly what we do for every one of our customers. It begins in the logbooks, followed by the test flight and lastly, the physical inspection. You'd be amazed at what you can uncover.
Seems like a pretty minor list considering and seems priced accordingly. While I would encourage every buyer to prebuy and know what you're taking on in any financial deal, posting publicly "look at what's wrong with it!" seems out of place.
