Airframe time limit

[frfly172]

Just wondering if the CTs have a time limit on the airframe? And what does the group consider to be high time? 

[GrassStripFlyBoy]

Not familiar with ever hearing of limitations around airframe - and being around for 20+ years now with thousands flying, I'd say the odd's of a structural "gotcha" are very minimal.  The closest thing sort of on this subject is a certain range of production, of the full span trim tab - not the shorter span, required reinforcement due to flutter concern, and other than the logistics of where the service was preformed at - the work was minor add on.

The question around what is high time - I view that from two perspectives, how was the plane operated and then second entirely the engine.  For the former, a private owner flying cross country and babying the airplane is much different than a flight school of rookie pilots flying 8 rounds in the pattern every hour.  On the engine topic, for me personally - I considered anything over 1000 hours "high time", now - I fully expect to fly mine to 2k+ hours with simple maintenance.  I drew the line there as I wanted at least 1k hours ahead of me.  When shopping it appeared that regardless of airplane having 400, 800, or 1200 hours on it - the price was all in the same window and based more on condition and equipment.  The few airplanes one sees at 3000 hours don't even discount that much.  Airframe time is not nearly as much of an issue to me as the engine time is.  There is nothing wrong with buying a high time airplane if price reflects it.

 

[AGLyme]

I think he means a technical time out like a Robinson 

[frfly172]

I have a liberty and it has a 10,000 hr time frame on the airframe. It is a composite.

[Tom Baker]

I was told that there has not been a time limit established for the airframe, but that was back in 2007-2008 timeframe. I have not heard of anything since.