hey guys retired at 40 I have bought some crazy stuff in my life I've bought
rundown houses that no one else wanted I've bought buffalo heads
I've bought anesthesia machines so my wife was not real surprised when I said
I want to buy an airplane especially an airplane that's in pieces and I don't
have a pilot's license I'm not gonna let that stop me
I'm gonna go pick it up right now
I love to buy and sell things and even better
than that I love to trade things so I bought a airplane at an auction it's in
pieces it's a kit plane I don't know how much of its there but I know enough just
to be dangerous anything that's airplane related is
extremely expensive I only paid 350 dollars for this thing and if you don't
believe me I'll show you v6 stole airplane home build with motor parts and
manual $355 so we actually need to pick this up in two parts the plane is big
enough that I'm not quite sure that's gonna fit in my covered trailer so we're
gonna go pick up all the boxes with all the stuff in it with the engine and all
that stuff and then I'm gonna measure the plane and then we're gonna go back
and we're gonna pick up the fuselage there she is so quite fit so I think
what I'm have to do is take at least one of these tires off
to clear the spring-loaded Springs for the door and even when I get in
there that gate is actually as wide as that platform is so I think that the
wheels gonna have to come out anyway just to fit in the width of the trailer
well we're closer but I think we're going to take that other tire off also
next problem it's too long we're already all the way to the front here we're
still sticking out just a little bit so we're going to pull this rudder off
we made it we've just got to load up the other parts and we'll get out of here
well it's a good thing that my trailer wasn't even an inch shorter than it is
because I don't think it would have fit in there but we're gonna head home and
see what we've got
it's really hard to believe that an airplane can fit in this thing
well I got it in here it's got to come out coming in for a landing
so now that I've picked everything up is actually a lot more there than I thought
there was I think there's probably about 90% of a plane there so I'm gonna put
everything together kind of like a big jigsaw puzzle and see what I can come up
with
so I got it all together I did find out a lot of information along the way the
biggest negative on this right now is it does not have wings which is probably
gonna make it a pretty hard sell because the company is no longer around and is
definitely going to take the right person to be able to have the knowledge
to be able to build wings for it on the plus side I still have all of that motor
value and all of that other stuff that I found in there so I basically know
nothing about this airplane other than its a kit plane I know what type of
engine it has and I know what the engine is worth so this is all the parts and
pieces I'm gonna get these all out and then I kind of assess what I've got here
so this - most probably looks like a giant pile of junk but to me this looks
like lots and lots of money so the average experimental kit plane is
anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000 and I know for a fact that this engine
brand-new goes for about $10,000 I have no way of knowing if it's new or not but
even assuming that it's not and even assuming that it needs an overhaul I
would imagine it's worth at least three to four thousand dollars just in the
state and condition that it's in right now and that's a whole lot of trade
value so since I don't know much about this plane I don't even know what model
it is or who the maker is I'm gonna go through some of these boxes and see if I
can do some detective work possibly my first clue
this is Franklin on it have to Google that that's an intake manifold this also
says Franklin on it
so this has taken a very strange turn a lot of these parts are actually not for
the airplane they're mostly these Franklin parts and I did a quick Google
search and Franklin was an automobile company back in like the early 1900s I'm
not sure if it's that I've got a feeling this is somehow related to another
aircraft engine I did find lots of clues because there's tons of literature this
whole box is full of literature I also found the invoice for the motor in 2009
it says it was new with 35 hours on it I'm guessing that was just break-in so
that's good news and now I know what exactly the motor is it's a HKS 700
the oil tank for the engine random parts and pieces these are skins for the plane
lots of instrument panels and gauges and stuff and then some more parts for the
the plane itself and then these plans I don't think are for the plane either I'm
curious to see what those are - I'm gonna do some research on this Franklin
stuff because I've got a feeling it's worth quite a bit of money and if that's
so my luck is really up so Franklin was also an airplane manufacturer and
they've been owned by several different people but those particular Franklin
parts are pretty old and pretty desirable from what I can tell so that
should bring me in at least another thousand dollars so it's been about a
month and a half since I picked up this little gem and I've been selling off
bits and pieces here and there just stuff that doesn't actually belong to
this airplane but stuff that belongs to possibly other airplanes and I've pretty
quickly made my money back obviously it doesn't take much to make the $350 back
but I've actually got a lead from a guy he's put a deposit down on the plane for
$5,300 I spent three hundred fifty five dollars on the plane
I sold the plane for $5,300 and then over the course of the last about month
and a half I've sold off some other various gauges
and parts and things that were in the bunch that had nothing to do with this
plane and those were another six hundred and fifty dollars so if I did my math
correctly my return on investment should be for 1,400 to 1,500 percent I think
that's a little bit better than the banks so since I've had this plane for a
month and a half I've had plenty of extra time to find a couple more fun
projects to work on and those videos are coming up soon so
make sure you start to stay tuned for those in the meantime this is retired at
40 remember live life simple we'll catch you next week