The Illustrated Buyer's Guide to Used Airplanes

If your looking for one book to read before buying an airplane, then dont buy an airplane. You have to read EVERY book you can get your hands on plus lots of Trade a Planes, and spend a year or more looking before you buy a plane. When it comes to aircraft, you must know all you can about your purchase or it can break you. I know this because I am an Aircraft Mechanic. This book does give you a basic knowledge of whats involved in buying a plane and basic data about each model shown. Unfortunatly books are never accruate price guides because values change quickly. They do give a prospective buyer lots to think about. It is a great read for aviation buffs who want to compare different models of light singles and twins. I spent hours thumbing thru it. Would have liked color pictures but there is at least one picture and specifications for pretty much every production light aircraft.

This book would benefit from more photos and specifics on various models but is the best book of its kind. The information found in "the illustrated buyers guide" is a bargain even if you are not serious about buying.

I am new to general aviation and was looking for information about the different types of general aviation planes: what they look like, how they perform, and a ballpark estimate on how much they cost. (I'm not seriously planning to buy one (not yet anyway), but price is a useful piece of information). This book delivers all that.The book could be improved by providing a few more photographs and by including a few more pieces of data for each plane (e.g., cruising range, ceiling, fuel consumption, Vmc, etc.). Another improvement would be to increase the information in the narratives for each type of plane, better describing flying quirks and typical problems for the purchasers (e.g., expensive ADs, commonly found damage, etc.); detailed narratives like those contained in the dated "Buying and owning your own airplane" by J. E. Ellis would be a benefit. With these few improvements, the book would be perfect.

I highly reccomend this book for almost everything you need to know about buying that used aircraft! Along with the two volume Aviation Consumer Guide to used aircraft you have everything you need to know at your immediate disposal