Aircraft Appraisals for Lenders: Make sure you have the RIGHT deal on the table
Plane Data, Inc. provides certified aircraft appraisals for lenders that help your bank make high-quality aircraft loans, manage collateral risk, and move deals to closing with confidence. As a member of the National Aircraft Finance Association (NAFA), we align our valuations with the standards trusted across aviation lending.
The Problem With Financing on Assumptions
Your bank’s lending policy is built around loan-to-value — so the value itself has to be right. Every aircraft deal looks clean from a distance and shows blemishes on closer inspection: unreported damage history, liens that weren’t caught before closing, or a residual value that doesn’t match reality once the aircraft is actually inspected. We’ve helped dozens of lenders and banks nationwide make solid, profitable aircraft loans while keeping that risk in check.
Needing help with the Ins and Outs of Aircraft Financing?
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We've helped dozens of lenders and banks across the nation make solid, profitable aircraft loans while minimizing their risk.
- How to Identify Aircraft Financing and Evaluation Risks
- Common Areas Where Fraud can Exist
- A General Overview of the Aircraft Appraisal Industry
- How to Vet Your Aircraft Financing Resources
- Which Aircraft Valuation Methedology is Right for You
- How to Identify & Address Questionable or "High Risk" Assets & Projects
- And More!
How Our Aircraft Appraisals for Lenders Reduce Risk and Protect Your Loans
A certified, in-person field inspection confirms the aircraft matches what’s represented before you fund the loan. Our aircraft appraisals for lenders give your credit team a clear, verified basis for every decision.
We help make sure liens are identified and addressed before closing, not discovered after.
Periodic reappraisals help you confirm the aircraft is being properly maintained and that residual value expectations still hold.
Every appraisal states its Scope of Work clearly, so your underwriting file holds up to audit or examiner review. Every report is prepared in adherence to PAAO and USPAP standards, giving your file added credibility with auditors and examiners.
What a Value Guide Can and Cannot Tell You
A value guide printout is a worksheet, not an appraisal. I do not use value guides in my own appraisal work, and it is worth understanding why before one carries weight in a credit decision. Guide figures are quarterly averages built on an assumed configuration for the model and year, then adjusted by whoever happens to be running the calculation — often someone whose only credential is brokering aircraft. At best a printout tells you roughly where a model sits in the market. It cannot tell you what the aircraft in your deal is worth, whether its records are complete, or whether something in its history will surface later at the worst possible time.
If you need something better than a guide printout but you are not yet at the point of ordering a full certified appraisal — you are sizing up a deal, testing a borrower’s number, or deciding whether the transaction is worth pursuing — a Market Analysis is the practical middle step. Formally a Market Status and Preliminary Estimated Range of Value Report, it is a short non-certified report prepared without a field visit: the current market status for the model, the comparable activity behind it, and a preliminary estimated range of value for the subject aircraft. It puts an appraiser’s analysis and current market data behind the number instead of a stack of unverified adjustments. It can be prepared for any aircraft type — piston, turboprop, jet or helicopter — and is available on request as a fee engagement.
One limit worth stating plainly: a Market Analysis is a screening tool for your own decision-making. It is preliminary, it is not certified, and it is not the appraisal that belongs in the loan file. Once the credit decision is made and the file has to stand up to your examiners, that calls for a certified report with a field visit and a records review.
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Frequently Asked Questions
A desktop appraisal is built entirely from data supplied by others — logbooks, photos, and specs the seller or borrower provides. I physically inspect the aircraft, verify the logbooks against the airframe and engines, and confirm the condition, damage history, and equipment that actually drive value. For a loan decision, that difference matters: it’s the gap between an estimate and a defensible number your credit committee can rely on.
The appraisal does. I do not use value guides in my appraisal work, and it is worth knowing why before a printout carries weight in a credit decision. A guide result is a calculation, not an opinion of value. It starts from a published average for the model and year — and that average represents a specific assumed configuration. Before a single adjustment can be applied correctly, the person running the numbers has to know what that starting configuration already includes and what it does not. That is where most printouts come apart. An avionics line item, for example, typically reflects the installation cost of the new equipment only; it does not account for the value of the equipment that was removed, and it does not tell you whether the guide’s baseline already assumed some of it. Adjustments get stacked on a base the evaluator never verified, the errors compound, and they almost always compound in one direction.
Guides are also published quarterly and can run three to six months behind the market, and they do not capture damage history or airframe condition — the two factors that can move a value further than every equipment adjustment combined. In the years when I did use guides, the analysis usually stopped partway through for exactly that reason: the publication had no way to handle something about the airplane in front of me.
Then there is the question of who produced the printout. In most cases it is someone whose only credential is brokering aircraft — no appraisal credential, no code of ethics to answer to, no training in the proper use of the publication or in how its adjustments are meant to be applied, and no professional reporting standard governing the result. It is not a report under USPAP, under PAAO standards, or under any other recognized standard. So before a printout influences your decision, ask who entered the adjustments, what they stand to gain from the result, and whether anyone verified the starting configuration against the airplane. A certified appraisal answers all of that for one specific aircraft — inspected in person, records verified, conclusions supported and signed.
Most bank lending policy is built around loan-to-value ratios tied to a market value or forced liquidation value determination. My report gives you a supportable, documented value conclusion — with the inspection findings and comparable data behind it — so your LTV calculation is grounded in verified facts rather than a broker’s asking price or an owner’s self-reported condition.
Market value assumes a reasonable exposure period and a willing, informed buyer and seller. Liquidation value assumes a forced or expedited sale — the number you’d need if you had to repossess and move the asset quickly. Most collateral files call for both figures; I can provide either or both depending on your underwriting requirements.
Most lenders want a valuation dated within 90 days of closing, though your specific investor or regulatory guidelines may set a tighter window. I can turn most engagements around quickly enough to meet a closing timeline — reach out with your date and I’ll confirm.
Yes. My reports are written to a professional standard that can be relied upon by the addressed party and any parties explicitly identified as intended users in the engagement letter. Let me know upfront if the report needs to support a syndicated loan or will be shared with a participant bank, so I can address that in the engagement terms.
I personally conduct and oversee the inspection. On occasion I bring in another PAAO Certified Appraiser to assist with gathering field data, but that work stays within the PAAO-certified appraisal process — it is never handed off to a local mechanic or an unrelated third party filling in a checklist.