It all began when Frank Ament purchased the Sandwich Airport in 1949.  Things went well and in 1955 Frank and his wife Gerry welcomed their fourth child, and second son, Gregory Franklyn, into the world.

In 1960 my maternal grandmother and cousins came to visit from New York City.  My Dad met my Mom there while running maintenance operations for an airline then known as American Export.  The picture shows my maternal grandmother, siblings, and cousins along with one of Dad’s Cessna 172’s.  I am the one on the top far left.

I share this with you because it was not long after this day that my father began taking me to the airport with him enabling me to begin to learn and understand the intricacies of the general aviation industry.  He had a flight school, performed maintenance operations, and always had an extra clean selection of used aircraft for sale.  For a number of years he was a full blown factory authorized Cessna Dealer.

Growing up in this environment started me down the path of enjoying a life-long love of all things aviation.  I was also fortunate in that when the inventory would sell down due to a low number of trade-ins, I was allowed to miss school and accompany Dad on numerous inventory buying trips.  It gave us real bonding time and I got an extensive education in evaluating airframes and engines at a young age.  I like to think that I grew up airplane!

The great general aviation depression hit in earnest in the mid and late seventies.  To his credit, Dad saw it coming.  The Sandwich Airport was sold in the late seventies and is no longer a commercial airport.  Renamed, “Woodlake Landing”, today it's a restricted landing area.  I lost Dad to leukemia on 10/27/90.  In my 53+ years on this planet it occurs to me that throughout my entire life there has not been one day pass where there was not at least one airplane in the hangar.  I still own one of the Cubs from Dad’s flight school.

I have been actively evaluating jet aircraft and turbo-prop aircraft full time since 2002.  During this period I have inspected/evaluated well over 100 jet and turbo-prop aircraft in addition to the countless thousands of piston powered aircraft I have surveyed throughout the course of my life.  Click here to see a partial list of aircraft surveyed.