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Pre-buy inspection: what to check on a Pitts S1S

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jdm

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Good people of the biplane forum:

I'm hopefully getting close on an S1S purchase: N722DC in Sonora, CA. Flying down Friday, meeting an A&P to poke, prod, and check for cooties.

Aaron sent me some pics and a word doc summary history of the plane, https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2535936/N722DC.zip and I must say that the bird looks *much* more attractive in these photos than the one on Barnstormers. Tho I had my heart set on the classic red/white burst, I do like his scheme, too. Much more importantly, it looks well-built and in great shape. But we have to verify this.

I'm hoping folks here will have ideas, perhaps even a ready-made pre-buy checklist, with special consideration for acro planes, and ideally Pitts and S1S, specifically.

One somewhat unusual aspect of this one is that it has raced at Reno, as well as acro. It has an engine monitor, so hopefully that helped him manage engine temps over such prolonged WOT operation. Aaron has been flying it ~80hrs/yr and is selling it because he has another ship to fly (a Giles), which IMHO sounds infinitely preferable to one that's been sitting for years after someone lost their medical. On the other hand, if he's been doing a lot of gyros in an S1S with a metal prop, that's a whole different kind of abuse. (any telltale signs for this, testable without major disassembly?)

Any thoughts, tips, suggestions, etc. welcome.

thanks in advance,

-- jdm
 

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