General Aviation Editing and Proofreading Services

The pre-purchase inspection report on a twenty-year-old single-engine aircraft runs to one page: "airframe in good condition, engine runs well, avionics functional, logbooks reviewed." The buyer pays for an independent inspection specifically because they cannot judge these things themselves, and the report has given them back exactly the kind of vague reassurance a seller would have offered for free. Six weeks after the purchase, a cylinder fails a compression test that this report apparently never actually performed.

We edit what aircraft owners, buyers and inspectors produce in general aviation — pre-purchase inspection reports, annual and condition inspection write-ups, aircraft logbook entries and squawk lists, maintenance discrepancy tracking for owner-operators, aircraft partnership and co-ownership agreements, and the correspondence between a buyer, seller and inspecting mechanic during a purchase. Our editors work on the report a buyer relies on to spend money they cannot get back.

The specific finding with a number attached is what makes a pre-purchase inspection worth paying for, and its failure is a summary judgement standing in for the actual test results. Good condition is an opinion; a compression test result is a fact the buyer can act on. We work through these so every test actually performed is listed with its result — compression readings by cylinder, oil analysis figures, control surface play measured rather than described as within limits — since "engine runs well" could describe an engine with one weak cylinder that happened not to matter on a five-minute run-up; so anything not inspected is stated as not inspected, given that a buyer reading a clean report assumes everything was checked and a silent gap is indistinguishable from a pass; so logbook discrepancies are described specifically — a missing annual, an unexplained gap, an airworthiness directive with no compliance record — rather than summarised as "logbooks reviewed," because that phrase covers both a meticulous history and one with a two-year hole in it; so corrosion, damage history and repairs are described by location and extent rather than by a general condition rating, as a rating conceals exactly the kind of detail a buyer needs to get a second opinion on; so the cost implication of each finding is estimated where possible, since a buyer negotiating a price needs a number rather than a description; and so the report distinguishes airworthiness issues from cosmetic ones, given that treating both with the same tone either alarms a buyer over nothing or reassures them about something serious. Reports written this way are worth the fee charged for them.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including inspection findings, aircraft records and transaction details. We are editors rather than aircraft mechanics, inspectors or appraisers, and we offer no view on airworthiness, condition or value. What we can do is make sure the findings are specific enough for a buyer to actually act on.