I always enjoy Chip's perspective and I'm no scientist, but I don't think you can arrive at a conclusion about demand purely by sales data. I believe you are not seeing very many MU2 sales because there are not that many truly for sale. Those that have them are hanging on to them. Ask me how I know.

Stewart, how do you know...

I think Stewart is right, the MU2 market is settled, they change hands occasionally but for the most part the owners that have them are content.

From a market perspective we call it "demand rating" and it is very hard to determine.

It's ok to acknowledge that certain airplanes just don't have the corresponding buyers they once had. The Merlin and Westwind suffered because many pilots didn't like flying them. The Lears and other great jets suffer because owners don't like the expense and hassle of two pilots.

Why can you buy a G-IV for $2.5M...

It's the market.

Maybe not fair... but it is what it is.

Man, you take a couple days off and all heck breaks loose.

James, there's a very nice RVSM equipped 1000 in Houston that I'm sure you would be welcome to fly if you're interested in checking out the larger cabin Commander. Or a -10 690B or -10 840, just let me know, I would be happy to get you in the left seat if you'd like.

I recently flew an 840, N840RB, to Ohio from Scottsdale with a buyer. 308 KTAS all the way at 97%. I had a little push but 1,362 nm direct in 4:30 is not too shabby. It's a fast bird. Great fun.

And Chip, thanks for being a fan.

Whether it's a Duke or a CJ or the Jetprops, there are great options in ALL of the owner flown markets.

Chip, to what extent do you suggest a buyer follow your list when searching for an aircraft? Would your advice regarding the list be different depending on how long the person intends to own the aircraft?

The main goal of the list as I see it is to put a person in an aircraft that can recover the highest percentage of purchase price when it is sold down the road. Some of the aircraft on your list have indeed gone out completely (some of the jets). I know we can get some data here as there are at least a handful of MU2 owners who have sold thier MU2's. Would be interesting to hear how much of a problem they had selling and how much of a loss they had to take to sell it. My WAG is they did as well as most any similar aircraft. There is a BT'r who has bought a great plane which would be on your favoured list. He has been trying to sell it for over 2 years and still is. I am sure that the advice he got when asking around on purchase would not have led him to believe that it would be so hard to move an upgraded B200 and that advertising a price reduction would be needed. At the same time, I was amazed at how fast a fellow BT's sold two of the oldest type of Merlin's.

While your list is something to consider, I think consulting the AFM as well as mechanics and pilots/trainers who know the airplane would be wiser when deciding on a type. Your list will change and be fluid over a longer ownership period. Case in point. If I had purchased a C441 instead of the Merlin I would be looking at a bigger loss on resale, at least if asking prices are any indicatioin.

The cycle is complete when the aircraft is sold. At that point it will be a combination of how economically and reliably did the aircraft fulfill its mission and how well were you able to recover your initial investment. The longer you keep the plane the less meaning the latter part will have as the ROI of these aircraft is measured more by experiences and memories and less by dollars and cents. As a monetary investment, by my standards, they all suck.

Lance, you were the one that alluded to having some information on the Merlin that caused them to sit for long time when for sale and that the prices had to drop continously before they sold.

Then you said I had to dig below the surface to get that info. So, here is me digging and asking you what you know?

I have found non pilot and salesman opnions are not helpful when plane shopping. Owner and pilot opinions (who have flown the type) are usually much better in my experience. Same with operating costs.

Those numbers *seem* high to me. Curious the source. You are deeper in the acquisition world so may have other data than just FAA records which would include aircraft changing hands due simply to an entity type change, or reauthorization of an expired A/W cert.

Also in aircraft that were "Sold" would include those scrapped due to damage or destruction (bought by insurance companies), exported to foreign countries, and in the case of Mitsubishi a fair amount that are being retired by MHIA as obsolete (AKA MORE PARTs!!! Yay).

Either way, hard to judge desirability by sales numbers. Probably a lot of TC, Mu, Falcon, Westwind, CE500 owners that will have their planes forever and never sell just because its the right plane for them.

Chip, to what extent do you suggest a buyer follow your list when searching for an aircraft? Would your advice regarding the list be different depending on how long the person intends to own the aircraft?

The main goal of the list as I see it is to put a person in an aircraft that can recover the highest percentage of purchase price when it is sold down the road. Some of the aircraft on your list have indeed gone out completely (some of the jets). I know we can get some data here as there are at least a handful of MU2 owners who have sold thier MU2's. Would be interesting to hear how much of a problem they had selling and how much of a loss they had to take to sell it. My WAG is they did as well as most any similar aircraft. There is a BT'r who has bought a great plane which would be on your favoured list. He has been trying to sell it for over 2 years and still is. I am sure that the advice he got when asking around on purchase would not have led him to believe that it would be so hard to move an upgraded B200 and that advertising a price reduction would be needed. At the same time, I was amazed at how fast a fellow BT's sold two of the oldest type of Merlin's.

While your list is something to consider, I think consulting the AFM as well as mechanics and pilots/trainers who know the airplane would be wiser when deciding on a type. Your list will change and be fluid over a longer ownership period. Case in point. If I had purchased a C441 instead of the Merlin I would be looking at a bigger loss on resale, at least if asking prices are any indicatioin.

The cycle is complete when the aircraft is sold. At that point it will be a combination of how economically and reliably did the aircraft fulfill its mission and how well were you able to recover your initial investment. The longer you keep the plane the less meaning the latter part will have as the ROI of these aircraft is measured more by experiences and memories and less by dollars and cents. As a monetary investment, by my standards, they all suck.

Those numbers *seem* high to me. Curious the source. You are deeper in the acquisition world so may have other data than just FAA records which would include aircraft changing hands due simply to an entity type change, or reauthorization of an expired A/W cert.

Also in aircraft that were "Sold" would include those scrapped due to damage or destruction (bought by insurance companies), exported to foreign countries, and in the case of Mitsubishi a fair amount that are being retired by MHIA as obsolete (AKA MORE PARTs!!! Yay).

Either way, hard to judge desirability by sales numbers. Probably a lot of TC, Mu, Falcon, Westwind, CE500 owners that will have their planes forever and never sell just because its the right plane for them.

James, my apologies for hijacking your thread!

Call Bruce and have him buy a Turbo Commander for you!

I agree, a salesman only wants you to buy what he has, so he is biased... and prone to dishonesty, especially about operating cost and performance numbers. Add to that a mountain of inaccurate information found on the internet and most people find the process of buying an airplane an unpleasant experience.

I second the non-pilot opinion as well, we bring in a pilot / operator to the acquisition team on each airplane acquisition, this gives someone for our client / or his pilot to talk to that has hands on experience with the particular aircraft we are buying. We have two guys for Premiers, two for Beechjets, several for King Airs (including Tom Clements), one for PC12's, plus several guys who specialize in the different models of Citations.

They are available to our clients for questions and they do our test and acceptance flights. I tell all of my King Air clients that if you have your choice between a pre-buy and having Tom Clements fly the airplane prior to purchase... go with Tom!

We also have mechanics who are available for the same purposes. I have a mechanic that can speed up pre-buys just because they want to get him out of their hair he also helps me with "difficult" maintenance facilities where we are hired to settle a dispute between the owner and the shop.

Sorry, not trying to turn this into an advertisement... but there have been several people on this thread who have pointed out that I am a non-certificated co-pilot, so I thought it might help to explain that I'm not anti-pilot, I just can't be a pilot / expert in the wide variety of aircraft that we buy for clients.

Westwinds are insanely under-appreciated by the market. Mainly because most think it's ugly, is my guess. Pilots are a shallow bunch. Where else can you get a jet with no calendar items, that goes 2500nm, RSVM and has TFE731's that you can literally buy parts for at Walmart? I don't think there's a single jet that delivers that amount of bang for the buck. If there is, I'd be curious to hear about it!

It's in no-man's-land between being sexy and new enough for a corporate bird and being single pilot capable in the owner flown world. Back in my corporate flying days we had an 1124 that was by far the most reliable and least expensive bird to operate in the fleet. I can't believe they are so cheap to buy. But few owner pilots want to hire an SIC and for the Westwind you'll probably have to train them too, because there are not that many Westwind pilots hanging around.

Same here.