Close, register, and fly it home

The closing is the least dramatic part of the process, which is exactly how it should be. Use an aircraft escrow agent — a few hundred dollars buys you someone who holds the funds, runs the title search, and files the paperwork with the FAA Aircraft Registry. Wiring money directly to a stranger for an airplane is a category of mistake with no fix.

What changes hands

Plan the ferry flight like a stranger owns the airplane

You have never flown this airplane. You may not have flown the type. The fuel gauges are a suggestion, the autopilot has a personality, and you do not yet know which radio is the good one. Treat the flight home as a new-to-type checkout, not a victory lap.

• ·Get a proper checkout with an instructor who knows the type, at the seller’s field if you can
• ·Fly it in good weather and good light, with fuel stops closer together than you would normally plan
• ·Confirm insurance is in force before you start the engine, and that any required dual is complete
• ·Build in a spare day — get-home-itis in an unfamiliar airplane is how good days end badly

Then land at your home field, put it in the hangar, and go stand next to it for a while. You earned it.

Buying new changes very little here. The dealer prepares the paperwork rather than an escrow agent, but the bill of sale and the registration application are the same forms, the registration still takes weeks rather than days, and your insurance still has to be in force before the engine starts. The one real difference is training: most manufacturers include transition training with a new airplane and it is generally better than what you would arrange for yourself. Take all of it, and take it before the ferry flight rather than after.