Guides

Buyer's guides

Two kinds. One walks the whole purchase from first idea to first annual. The others go deep on a single model family, year by year, so you can tell a good buy from a tired one before you fly anywhere to look at it.

Buying an airplane

How to buy an airplane

9 steps, from working out what you actually need through the prebuy, escrow and your first year of ownership.

Which year to buy

Which Cessna 172 / Skyhawk should you buy?
Which year of Cessna 172 should you buy? A year-by-year guide to every Skyhawk from the 1956 straight-tail to the glass-panel 172S — engines, the changes that matter, the years to avoid, and the best values.

More families are being written. Each one follows a full re-sourcing of that family's specifications, so the buying advice is formed from verified numbers rather than written ahead of them.