VREF | The Truth About the Aviation Market

A listener went shopping for a mid-’90s Piper Archer.

Low time. No damage history. Original paint. Original panel. Engine close to TBO.

The seller was asking $189,000. VREF put the airplane at roughly $165,000.

The buyer was prepared to offer $175,000 cash—and says he would have gone to $180,000.

He never got the chance.

According to the listener, the broker dismissed the VREF number and said the Archer would be the next one to sell.

That was June.

By the end of September, the airplane was still sitting.

New asking price:

$165,000.

The seller turned away the possibility of $175,000, carried the airplane for another three months, and wound up asking $10,000 less than the buyer was prepared to pay.

That story is the perfect introduction to today’s piston market.

Because the market isn’t crashing.

It’s splitting in two.

In this episode:

• Why the current piston data does not support the “market crash” narrative
• How inventory can be down while individual airplanes sit for 200+ days
• Why listing pages can become a museum of overpriced airplanes
• How 2021–2022 values created a psychological anchor sellers still haven’t released
• Why free listing-site valuation widgets can become a self-reinforcing hall of mirrors
• The difference between values built from asking prices and values built from actual transactions
• Real asking-price spreads among Piper Archers, Cessna 172s, Cirruses, Mooneys, and Bonanzas
• Why two nearly identical airplanes can be priced $50,000, $80,000, even $200,000 apart
• How new-aircraft replacement cost supports parts of the used market—but does not validate every asking price
• Why flight-school fleet aircraft returning to market could become an important source of supply
• What 10,000–16,000-hour trainers really mean for private buyers
• Why school-aircraft pre-buys should focus on cycles, wear, landing history, and physical condition—not just total time
• How higher interest rates, down payments, insurance, and lender appraisals are shrinking the effective buyer pool
• Why an appraisal below the seller’s ask can suddenly require the buyer to bring tens of thousands more cash to closing
• Why a $60,000 avionics installation does not necessarily add $60,000 to resale value years later
• Whether appraisers are actually “too low”—or sellers are simply pricing above what the closing market supports
• A second Archer negotiation involving a large gap between ask and VREF—and a proposed direct wire to the seller’s operating account
• Why Jason says aircraft buyers should use escrow rather than eliminate the protections built into a transaction
• How that same listener ultimately found a privately listed SR20 priced near VREF and closed on it within weeks
• What happened when unexpected engine problems appeared after closing
• Why buyers should consider holdbacks or reserve escrow when meaningful engine uncertainty exists
• How to make a serious aircraft offer harder for a broker to dismiss
• And what sellers should ask their broker before letting an airplane sit for another 90 days

If your airplane has been listed since spring, the question isn’t whether “the piston market” is good or bad.

It’s:

Which market are you actually in?

Watch or listen to Episode 61 of The Truth About the Aviation Market.

VREF.com

Price to the market—not the memory of it.

Fly safe. Stay smart. Pasted text

For more than four decades, one story helped define the legacy Citation market:

This is the jet you can fly yourself.

Your first jet. Your hands on the throttles. Your family in the back. Nobody required in the right seat.

At the end of September 2026, that story changed.

The FAA ended the single-pilot exemptions that allowed qualifying pilots to operate a group of Part 25-certified legacy Citations without the second pilot their type certificates otherwise required.

VREF’s analysis puts the affected U.S. civil fleet at 1,212 aircraft.

• Which Citation models are affected—and which are not
• Why affected aircraft are not grounded, but now require a qualified second in command
• Why former exemption-based single-pilot endorsements no longer authorize solo operation
• How the exemption system was supposed to work—and what the FAA says it found when it began reviewing it in 2024
• Why 13 of 14 Part 61 exemption holders ultimately losing or being denied continued authority matters
• Allegations involving incomplete records, improper checks, unauthorized simulator training, and falsified records
• Why Jason says the FAA review began before the two high-profile 2025 crashes
• The difference between what Jason calls the “paper system failing” and a broader culture in which flying these aircraft alone had become normalized
• Why the Citation 501/551 SP models, Mustang, and CitationJet/CJ family through the CJ4 are outside this action
• Why the rule may shrink the buyer pool for older legacy Citations
• How adding a second pilot can materially change annual operating costs
• Why a representative 60-hour-per-year Citation II owner could see effective operating cost rise from roughly $1,800 per hour to more than $3,000 per hour once realistic crew costs are included
• What VREF found inside the affected fleet: 1,212 aircraft, existing inventory, aging airframes, dealer holdings, and parts-company acquisitions
• Why the older legacy Citation market was already weakening before this rule
• Why Jason says the FAA action didn’t create the whole problem—it “takes away the floor”
• The 57 affected aircraft VREF identified in dealer inventory, including 42 not publicly listed
• At least 22 affected aircraft purchased by parts companies since 2021
• Why the Citation II versus Citation II SP may become one of the cleanest real-world valuation experiments in aviation
• What owners should do now: confirm crew requirements, call the insurance broker, price a qualified SIC, recalculate annual economics, and decide whether to crew up, sell, or move into an aircraft certified for single-pilot operation

VREF.com

Fly safe. Stay smart.

A parent takes out a home-equity line.

A student wires tens of thousands of dollars to a flight school.

The school has experienced instructors, airline partnerships, manufacturer affiliations, national press coverage, and every outward sign of credibility.

Then the school closes.

And the money is gone.

In this episode we look at the financial structure behind prepaid flight training—and why students and families may be taking on far more counterparty risk than they realize.

If you prepay $50,000, $80,000, or $100,000 for training that will be delivered over months or years, you are not just buying lessons.

Economically, you may be making an unsecured, interest-free loan to a private company.

And unlike the aircraft, instructors, maintenance, certificates, and checkrides, the money itself may not be protected by the FAA.

• The FLYT Aviation case in Georgia, where authorities allege that more than 70 students lost over $500,000 from prepaid accounts, scholarships, and financing programs
• Why Jason says the defendants are entitled to their defense
• Four flight-school failures or closures discussed across roughly 12 months, across Georgia, Texas, Missouri, and Florida
• Why students can become unsecured creditors when a school fails
• How a change in ownership can expose a gap between student account balances and the cash actually backing them
• Why airline partnerships, manufacturer designations, experienced instructors, and national media coverage can create a “prestige halo” without telling you where your money sits
• Jason’s criticism of the pattern he describes as: “Promote on the way up. Report on the way down.”
• Why the FAA regulates the training but not necessarily the prepaid balance
• The economics of America’s aging trainer fleet—and why a school may be operating 40-, 50-, or nearly 60-year-old aircraft with extremely high airframe times
• A nine-aircraft trainer fleet Jason is currently appraising, including aircraft with roughly 11,700 to 18,000 hours and multiple engines at or around TBO
• Why the cost of a new trainer makes replacement difficult for many schools
• How prepaid student balances can become part of a school’s working capital—funding airplanes, overhauls, payroll, and expansion
• Why that same structure can become dangerous when enrollment slows, ownership changes, lenders tighten, or the school fails

Jason also gives families a practical checklist before sending money:

Don’t prepay if you don’t have to.

If you do, cap your exposure.

Pay by credit card when possible.

Ask where the money sits—and get the answer in writing.

Read the refund clause before anything else.

Check the legal entity, ownership, lawsuits, BBB history, FAA status, and current student experience.

And understand what protections actually apply if the training is financed.

If you—or your child—are considering flight training, this is one to hear before the wire goes out.

Because the market doesn’t care what the brochure promised.

It only cares where the money is.

Fly safe. Stay smart.

Last episode, Jason explained why nobody should wire eight figures directly to an aircraft seller without escrow.

This episode asks the uncomfortable follow-up:

Why will some of those same sophisticated buyers wire $250,000, $500,000, even $1 million directly to a jet-card company with no escrow, no collateral, no public financial statements, and no guarantee the money is still sitting there when they need it?

Because the industry calls it a deposit.

Jason calls it what it really is:

An unsecured, interest-free loan to a private company.

That doesn’t mean jet cards are scams. For the right traveler, they solve a real problem, and reputable providers deliver exactly what they promise.

But the structure deserves far more scrutiny than it gets.

In Episode 58 of The Truth About the Aviation Market, Jason strips away the marketing and follows the money.

In this episode:

• Why a prepaid jet-card balance behaves more like a loan than a bank deposit
• How Marquis Jet helped create the modern jet-card model by selling access to the NetJets fleet
• Why NetJets repeatedly restricting or stopping card sales during periods of high demand matters
• What it means when a provider with aircraft, pilots, and deep capitalization decides it cannot responsibly sell more promises
• How brokers can sell a fixed hourly rate while buying aircraft in a floating charter market
• Why a profitable spread on an ordinary day can become a loss during Christmas, spring break, the Super Bowl, or another peak period
• How customer deposits can become working capital inside the business
• The difference between true escrow, a segregated account, and an operating account
• Why “segregated” does not necessarily mean the company cannot touch your money
• What the JetSuite bankruptcy revealed about trusting a name versus trusting the structure
• Why the flight can be heavily regulated while the customer’s prepaid balance is not protected like a bank deposit
• Why “our fleet” deserves a closer look when the company is legally a broker
• The risks behind prepaid empty-leg memberships and flight-credit programs
• The nine red flags Jason says should make a buyer slow down before wiring money
• The six due-diligence steps he would take before sending a provider even $1
• Why you should verify the legal entity, UCC filings, actual Part 135 operator, account structure, principals, contract terms, peak-day rules, and expiration provisions
• Why Jason recommends starting with the smallest block, shortest term, and—when available—a credit card instead of a wire
• Why his preferred alternative may be simpler: go directly to the Part 135 operator at your home airport

Jason’s conclusion is not that jet cards are inherently bad.

It’s that they can be a good product wrapped around a financial structure most people would never accept anywhere else in their financial lives.

If you handed a private company half a million dollars as an unsecured, interest-free loan, you would want to know where the money sits, who controls it, what protects you, and what happens if the company fails.

Changing the word from loan to deposit shouldn’t change the questions.

Before you wire, ask:

Where does my money sit?
Who can move it?
Who actually operates my flights?
What happens to my balance if the company disappears?

Because the market doesn’t care what the brochure called it.

It only cares where the money is.

VREF.com

Fly safe. Stay smart.

Somewhere today, someone may wire $40 million to an aircraft escrow company they’ve never visited, run by people they’ve never met—and barely think twice about it.

Why?

Because aviation runs on trust.

More specifically, it runs on a small group of title and escrow firms, many clustered around the FAA Aircraft Registry in Oklahoma City, that move enormous sums of money and coordinate the paperwork behind aircraft transactions every day.

Most of the time, the system works extraordinarily well.

But Episode 57 asks a more uncomfortable question:

What actually protects your money when trust isn’t enough?

Jason Zilberbrand breaks down how aircraft escrow really works, why Oklahoma City became the center of the title industry, how a multimillion-dollar closing can pivot in roughly 90 seconds, and what the Wright Brothers Aircraft Title case teaches buyers about the difference between trusting a name and verifying the structure behind it.

• Why an aircraft sale is fundamentally a standoff between buyer and seller

• How escrow allows two strangers to transact without either side moving first

• Why the money is only half the job—and title paperwork may be the more important half

• How the FAA’s race-notice system makes filing order critical

• Why an unreleased lien from decades ago can stop a transaction cold

• How Oklahoma City became the center of aircraft title and escrow

• Why so many title firms, lawyers, and filing specialists still cluster around one federal registry

• How a modern business-jet closing can involve both Oklahoma City and the International Registry in Dublin

• What actually happens during the final 90 seconds of a major aircraft closing

• How back-to-back transactions work—and why your wire may effectively fund both legs

• The warning signs that an intermediary may be in your deal without appearing clearly in the paperwork

• Why lenders, OEMs, dealers, and escrow firms view back-to-backs differently

• Why escrow fees are surprisingly small relative to the amounts being transferred

• Why the buyer of a $110,000 piston aircraft may face more title risk than the buyer of a nearly new Gulfstream

• How an $85 title search can uncover orphaned liens, missing releases, probate problems, and broken ownership chains

• Why Jason says cash buyers should stop handing over checks at the FBO without title work

• What the federal Wright Brothers Aircraft Title case revealed about the danger of relying on reputation alone

• How aircraft-related investment transactions used the credibility of the word “escrow” to create a false sense of security

• Why the correct lesson is not “escrow can’t be trusted”

• Why the real protection is the structure behind the account

• Alternatives to traditional aircraft escrow, including aviation law firms and bank trust departments

• And the five questions every buyer should ask before wiring a deposit or closing funds

For current aircraft values, historical trends, operating costs, fleet data, and independent accredited appraisal services, visit VREF.com.

The market doesn’t care what you wired. It only cares what got filed.

Fly safe. Stay smart.

An owner has been paying into an engine program for 11 years.

More than $1 million contributed.

The airplane is worth roughly $3 million.

And the overhaul those payments are supposed to protect him from is still four to five years away.

So he asks:

“At this point, am I buying protection—or am I funding somebody else’s overhaul?”

• Why engine-program enrollment should be analyzed as a financial decision—not treated as a universal virtue

• The four contract details owners often overlook: funding structure, exclusions, transfer fees, and escalation

• How a seemingly manageable hourly rate can become dramatically more expensive after years of compounding

• Why the phrase “full coverage” may not mean what owners assume it means

• Why transfer fees can act as retention mechanisms at the exact moment an owner wants to sell

• What VREF data reveals about how common engine-program enrollment actually is

• Why only about 26% of the broader business jet and turboprop fleet is enrolled

• Why enrollment can rise to 75–90% in financeable midlife jet fleets

• How lender requirements may explain part of the value premium associated with “on-program” aircraft

• Why program concentration tends to follow the engine—not the airframe

• How one provider can effectively control the enrolled population of an entire aircraft type

• Why that creates market-structure risk when one renewal change can affect most of a fleet at once

• What decades of transaction history show about enrollment gradually eroding as aircraft age

• Why roughly one in five buyers walks away from a program at closing

• How that behavior changed during the 2020–2022 cash-buying boom and shifted again as financing returned

• Why some owners walk away astonishingly close to the engine event they spent years funding

• The threshold test Jason uses to decide when continuing to pay may no longer make financial sense

• How that decision changes depending on whether you’re a seller, keeper, or buyer

• Why lapsing should be treated as effectively permanent

• And the six questions every owner should ask their program provider in writing

An engine program has:

A term.
A counterparty.
An escalating payment stream.
A transfer value.
A risk exposure.
And a break-even.

You run the math on every other major aircraft expense.

Run it on your engines too.

For current aircraft values, enrolled-versus-unenrolled value adjustments, operating costs, historical trends, fleet data, and independent appraisal services, visit VREF.com.

Get Your Free Special Report on The Engine Program Market here: https://vref.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/VREF-Special-Report-The-Engine-Program-Market-Aug-2026.pdf

The market doesn’t care what you paid in. It only cares what the promise is worth.

Fly safe. Stay smart.

The September 1 VREF value revision is live—and the numbers tell a very different story than the broad “strong market” or “weak market” headlines.

Business jet transaction volume is down nearly 19% year to date, essentially returning to 2020 COVID-era levels.

But prices didn’t simply fall with volume.

They split.

Across 658 business jet model years revised by VREF:

421 moved down.
230 moved up.
7 stayed flat.

And the dividing line isn’t simply light, midsize, or heavy.

It’s increasingly about which generation of aircraft you own.

• Why business jet transaction volume has round-tripped to roughly COVID-era levels
• Light jet volume down approximately 18%, midsize down 25.5%, and heavy down 13%
• Why Jason’s 2026 sequence—volume first, days on market second, price last—has now played out
• How legacy midsize values fell roughly 5.1%, with 122 out of 122 model years moving lower
• Why current-production super mids moved the opposite direction, rising about 4.1%
• How current-production large-cabin flagships gained nearly 7% while prior-generation large-cabin aircraft declined
• Why the market is effectively repricing obsolescence
• How the “age penalty” is shrinking for some large-cabin aircraft while growing for older light and legacy midsize jets
• Why a 15-year-old Global can appreciate while a similarly aged Citation or Hawker loses value
• How two aircraft both labeled “midsize” can be moving almost nine percentage points apart
• Why broad weight-class averages can describe an airplane that doesn’t actually exist
• What rising days on market and weaker transaction volume reveal about the buyer-seller standoff
• Why midsize is becoming the canary in business aviation’s coal mine
• How fractional ownership, charter growth, financing sensitivity, and corporate caution may be permanently removing some buyers from whole-aircraft ownership
• What the September revision means for sellers, buyers, lenders, insurers, and fleet planners

For sellers of legacy aircraft, the conversation has changed. Buyers are no longer negotiating only against opinion—the published values are beginning to move to their side of the table.

At the top of the market, the opposite is happening. OEM backlogs and limited availability are pushing buyers toward current-production and late-model aircraft—and they’re paying for the privilege.

That means the old question— “How’s the market?”—is becoming almost useless.

The better question is:

“What is happening to my model, my generation, and my model year?”

Because as of September 1, there is no single aircraft market.

There are winners.

There are losers.

And the gap between them is getting wider.

For the latest aircraft values, historical trends, operating costs, fleet data, and transaction-based market intelligence, visit VREF.com.

The market doesn’t care what you paid. It only cares what it’s worth.

And as of September 1, it changed its mind about a lot of airplanes.

Fly safe. Stay smart.

Jason Zilberbrand found something unusual on an ordinary corporate website:

Luscombe Mooney Aircraft Company.

Two historic general aviation brands. One masthead. Mooney’s address. Mooney’s phone number. Mooney’s domain.

But no major announcement explaining how the two names came together.

So Jason went looking for the paper trail.

In Episode 54 of The Truth About the Aviation Market, he reconstructs the timeline using public records, trade reporting, an auction listing, court filings, and company websites—separating what the record clearly shows from what remains unconfirmed.

There are no allegations in this episode. The story is about transparency, ownership, parts support, and what happens to aircraft values when material information becomes difficult for owners to see.

• Why a dormant aircraft manufacturer can still represent a valuable business even when new airplanes are no longer rolling off the line
• Why Jason argues “the factory isn’t the asset—the fleet is”
• How roughly 11,000 existing Mooneys create ongoing demand for parts, maintenance, tooling, and technical support
• What was publicly announced in January 2026 about rebuilding Mooney’s parts operation—and why the language of “stewardship” rather than ownership matters
• How Luscombe and Mooney later appeared together under one company identity at Mooney’s Texas address
• What happened when the Luscombe factory, type certificate, STCs, tooling, fixtures, and inventory were offered at auction in December 2024
• Why combining legacy aircraft brands may make more sense as an industrial and aftermarket strategy than as an attempt to restart high-volume aircraft production
• The potential four-part business model Jason sees: aftermarket parts, MRO, prime subcontracting, and type certificates as assets
• Why parts availability may be one of the most important drivers of residual value in an out-of-production fleet
• How a 30% parts-price increase could be supportive if availability improves—or damaging if owners simply pay more while lead times remain long
• The four indicators VREF will be watching: parts lead times, days on market, ask-to-close spreads, and transaction volume
• The six major questions the public record still does not answer, including who acquired the Luscombe assets, who controls the relevant corporate entities, who currently holds the Mooney type certificates, and what operations are actually active today

Every unanswered question could have a completely ordinary, legitimate explanation.

That is precisely the point.

Private companies are not obligated to issue press releases every time assets or ownership structures change. But when thousands of aircraft depend on a parts pipeline, type certificate, factory, or support network, a lack of information can still have real economic consequences.

Because aircraft owners ultimately pay for uncertainty—in maintenance decisions, resale negotiations, financing, insurance, and valuation.

Sunlight isn’t a courtesy in an asset market. It’s infrastructure.

For current Mooney values, historical trends, fleet data, operating costs, and independent aircraft appraisal services, visit VREF.com.

The market doesn’t care what the website says. It only cares what the record shows.

Fly safe. Stay smart.

How does an entire market start pricing assets at numbers buyers have never actually paid?

That’s the question behind Episode 53 of The Truth About the Market.

And although Jason starts with Ferrari, this episode is really about airplanes.

Because aviation has all the ingredients required to create the same phenomenon: thin transaction data, private closings, patient sellers, emotional ownership, and asking prices that remain visible while actual sale prices disappear behind confidentiality agreements.

The result can be a market that looks expensive without ever proving buyers will transact at those prices.

• Why asking price and market value are not the same thing
• How a Ferrari benchmark around $657,000 can coexist with seven-figure listings
• Why the most visible numbers in an illiquid market may have the least evidentiary weight
• How one optimistic seller can influence the next seller—and eventually an entire market
• Why Jason calls this process the listing cascade
• How “ask referencing ask” creates a consensus price without creating a clearing price
• Why active listings can eventually get laundered into appraisals, collateral values, and market narratives
• Why pricing an aircraft from unsold listings can produce a number with very little connection to an actual transaction
• Why aviation’s public marketplace is structurally biased toward unsold inventory and aspirational prices
• The difference between a normal aviation ask-to-close spread and a market beginning to detach from reality
• Why broad “the aircraft market is strong” narratives can hide major differences between individual segments
• How new-aircraft backlogs differ from used-aircraft asking prices
• Why delivery-slot premiums may be one of the least price-discovered corners of aviation

Jason also introduces a practical framework for identifying when ordinary seller optimism becomes something more serious.

A wide spread by itself is not enough.

Aircraft asking prices have always been optimistic.

The warning comes when multiple market signals begin moving in the wrong direction together.

And current VREF data gives that framework real context.

Year-to-date business jet transaction volume is down nearly 19%.

Light jets are down roughly 18%.

Midsize jets are down approximately 25.5%.

Heavy jets are down around 13%.

Meanwhile, inventory has been climbing in parts of the market and aircraft are taking longer to sell.

That doesn’t automatically mean prices collapse tomorrow.

It may mean something subtler:

Sellers are anchored to one market.

Buyers are operating in another.

An asking price is an opinion.

A closing is evidence.

If everyone is pricing their aircraft from airplanes that haven’t sold, the market can manufacture the appearance of value for a surprisingly long time.

So before you buy, sell, finance, insure, or appraise an aircraft, ask a better question:

What is actually clearing?

Because quotes are free.

Closings are facts.

For current aircraft values, historical trends, operating costs, fleet data, and transaction-based market intelligence, visit VREF.com.

The market doesn’t care what you’re asking.

It only cares what sells.

Fly safe. Stay smart.

An $8 million Citation CJ4 is sitting on a ramp. The owner isn’t flying it. He isn’t even in the country. A line guy hooks up a tug, gets distracted, and tows it into a hangar improperly.

Forty seconds later, the damage is done.

The aircraft is repaired correctly, returned to service, and made completely airworthy. But when it comes out the other side, it’s worth nearly $2 million less than it was that morning.

That loss isn’t the repair bill. It sits on top of it.

It’s called diminution of value—and it may be one of the most expensive risks in aircraft ownership that almost nobody explains until it’s too late.

• Why a legally minor event can create a six- or seven-figure market loss
• Why the FAA’s definition of “substantial damage” and the market’s definition are very different
• How tugs, cars, buses, hail, hangar doors, prop strikes, and ground equipment can destroy aircraft value without ever becoming headline accidents
• Why paying cash for a repair doesn’t make damage invisible—it makes it undocumented
• How insurers actually decide between repair and total loss
• Why “repairable” means the repair makes economic sense for the carrier—not necessarily that it makes the owner whole
• The critical difference between first-party and third-party claims
• Why diminished value may not be covered by your own hull policy but may be recoverable when somebody else caused the damage
• Why you should get an independent valuation before responding to the other side’s number
• Why a clean damage-history report is useful—but not proof that an aircraft has never been damaged
• How buyers should scope a pre-buy specifically to look for prior repairs and unexplained gaps in the aircraft’s history
• How diminution of value is quantified using actual comparable closings rather than asking prices
• Why repair quality, documentation, structural severity, financing availability, and buyer-pool size all affect the discount
• Why newer, low-time aircraft can suffer a larger percentage hit than older airplanes with longer operating histories
• When an aircraft owner should consider calling an aviation-specific attorney

For independent aircraft valuations, diminution-of-value assessments, and defensible market data based on real transactions, visit VREF.com.

Know what you own. Fly safe. Stay smart.