Pre-Purchase. Doing the homework!

A broker in Skymasters pointed me to a 336 for sale in Florida. I asked and was told that the airplane has "no known damage history", but that the logs start about 1970.

I paid the FAA $5 for a CD-ROM history of the airplane. The airworthiness records show that the airplane was wrecked and rebuilt in the early 70s, with major repair/replacement of the fuselage, wings, horizontal stab, all control surfaces, pilot-side controls, landing gear, etc.

It looks like anything that wasn't rebuilt was replaced with used parts from another Skymaster. A friend jokingly commented that the serial number might be the only original part left.

Is this common in the industry? Has anyone else run into this situation when buying an airplane?

Thanks,
Bob



btw - That $5, order-on-line service from the FAA is great! That's the best five bucks I've spent in quite a while. I received the CD in about a week.