Xrayist wrote:
Please excuse what may be a very naive question, but what happens if you do not have any logbooks for an aircraft? Thanks in advance.
It complicates things a bit. Without the books, the first time it gets an annual inspection prior to returning to flight, the IA must go through and verify by part number and serial number, what traceable parts are installed and then he must run through the AD list for each item and see if it's covered. If it is, then the AD must be accomplished and logged. If it's not required, then the information is recorded as well in the new logs. This also has to be done for the airframe itself. Bear in mind that you are paying lots of bucks for this research, on top of maybe needing to send out the item to have the work accomplished. There will also be items that have time compliance requirements and with no documented times available, most IA's will require them to be sent out as well.
As for times, they can be estimated if there are recording tachs or Hobbs meters installed.
Depending on the aircraft and it's complexity, buying a project with no books can add 10's of thousands of dollars to getting it back into the air.