Steve Wentworth and his father Chuck operate the world’s largest aircraft salvage operation for single engine and light twin General Aviation aircraft. They started buying insurance aircraft and selling parts 22 years ago. Their Minneapolis facilities include 110,000 square feet of storage, a two-story office, a warehouse with outdoor storage adjacent to the office, plus hangar space at two local airfields and other off-site covered storage.

Today Wentworth has 22 employees divided evenly into two groups. The first group is the warehouse, recovery, dismantlement and shipping group. The second is the administration and sales group. Steve Wentworth is responsible for aircraft bidding, and he keeps the whole operation running like a finely-tuned machine.

Wentworth bids on about 1,500 aircraft to get 200 additional salvage aircraft every year. How does Steve manage to bid on this many aircraft? He does it with a turbocharged single -engine retractable aircraft. How else can you be in so many places when time is a critical factor to your business? With this large buying volume, there is an excellent chance that the Piper part you want for your aircraft will be in stock at a significant savings for you.

Wentworth has two over-the-road semi trucks with covered trailers to recover and transport salvage aircraft back to Minneapolis. Once the aircraft arrive at the warehouse, the crew at Wentworth inspects and dismantles them. Parts are sorted by components and stored in separate locations in the heated warehouse. Wings and control surfaces are stored outside until additional space is located for these large parts. They also sort the non-salvageable items by type of metal and sell it for scrap.

Wentworth Aircraft is actually three businesses in one. The obvious first one is dismantling recovered aircraft for reusable parts—control surfaces, wings, landing gear, engines, avionics, interior and other assorted pieces—for the most popular makes and models of aircraft. These parts are stored on-site in Minneapolis and are available for immediate shipment.

These popular parts are often just a click away at www.wentworthaircraft.com (or call 1-800-4WENTWORTH). If you want to see details on the web site, click on the "CLICK HERE TO ENTER" link. The links on the left side of the window will point at certain categories of parts or aircraft. On each page, there is a "Request" link to permit you to email a specific request to Wentworth.

The second business is selling rebuildable aircraft. Typically, these are sold to shops for restoration to airworthy condition. These rebuildable aircraft may be in Minneapolis, or anywhere else in the United States. Why consider a rebuilt aircraft? After all the repairs and reassembly, the A&P technicians perform a "sign off" on their work. An inspector reviews all the repairs and logbook entries before returning these aircraft to service, with an A&P Inspector Authorization signature in the appropriate logbooks. The final product has airworthy parts and can be a real bargain.

The third business is the sale of unique or low volume items and rebuildable aircraft on eBay. To find Wentworth’s current eBay selection, go to eBay’s home page, click the Community tab (upper right hand corner). Type "wentworthaircraftinc" and click "Find a member." When Wentworth’s information appears on the screen, click the Seller’s Items link. Here you can see what is currently for sale. Under the Advanced Search, you can track what has been sold and the amount of the winning bid. To see the selling prices for rebuildable aircraft in a group, click on "price" and sort by highest price first. This is where you will find most of the rebuildable aircraft.

This eBay site changes daily. Brett, Wentworth’s webmaster, keeps the listings up to date. If something interests you, place your bid and stay close to the auction if you want the item. If accessing the eBay site is a mystery to you, you can call Wentworth and ask for Brett. He patiently walked me through the process—and it opened up a completely new world for me.

Steve was my tour guide through the warehouse, and I was like a kid in a candy store looking in all the bins. I looked in one bin and saw a small access door, which I know I can use to solve an ongoing problem. It was a gas tank cap cover from a Piper Comanche—but I can visualize using this part to create an access door for my BatteryMINDer connection cable (The BatteryMinder is an aircraft trickle charger that I described in the April 2007 issue of Flyer.)

One unique item sold at Wentworth Aircraft is an approach plate holder. It’s made out of heavy black anodized aluminum, and you can view this item on the eBay auction site. This holder will fit over virtually any control yoke and can hold approach plates, PDAs, and small electronic flight bags. For $25 or so, you cannot even manufacturer this device in your own machine shop. It is a real steal.

Wentworth has four full-time experts in airframes, engines and avionics to answer questions and track specific requests. Jo Ellen generally answers your calls and will connect you with an appropriate specialist. Dave, a longtime employee, works all areas. He will take your request for a specific part and start the process to confirm that Wentworth has exactly what you want. Dave may either go to eyeball the inventory himself, or may have someone downstairs perform this task. He will be back on the phone to you (generally in less than an hour) to confirm payment and shipping details.

Take an old Nav/Com, for example. Rather than hunt down a repair shop that still works on these units, you can buy a similar operating unit from Wentworth’s inventory. If it does not work to your satisfaction, you can return it within 30 days for an unconditional refund (less shipping costs).

Garmin equipment and current autopilots are big sellers at Wentworth. These units come with all the connectors and accessories necessary for installation in your particular aircraft. Find a shop that will quote a price for installing used equipment—and compare
it with the price for installing totally
new equipment.

I could not walk around a place like Wentworth without spotting a few items to add to my equipment wish list. Two 2¼-inch instruments jumped out at me and asked me to take them home: an airspeed indicator and altimeter.

You may wonder, Charles, why do you want those itty-bitty instruments? Well, I am planning to revamp the right-side panel with Electronics International engine instruments and space is tight. Presently, the right panel has a vacuum ADI to back up the left-hand panel’s Midcontinent Instruments Electric ADI with backup battery. The idea is to have complementary instruments on the right side of the cockpit.

Finally, my plane has one aileron with a couple of stop-drilled holes and one flap with a trailing edge doubler over a cracked area. Steve told me that doubler and the stop-drilled crack would make these items ineligible for resale in his operation; that’s the type of quality assurance that Steve Wentworth offers with parts sales. When it is time to repaint, I will consider replacing these items with Wentworth parts.

If you are interested in quality service, along with a large aircraft parts selection at reasonable prices, Wentworth is a place to consider for your aircraft parts and accessory needs. I know that I came away from my visit with a large wish list, and I expect to go back to Wentworth for parts to keep me flying.Ed. Note: For some interesting statistics and facts about Wentworth, as well as a direct link to Wentworth’s website, go to www.piperflyer.org, July issue features.

Charles Lloyd has logged 9,000 hours since his first flying lesson in 1954. He worked for Cessna Aircraft for 16 years and is currently a FAA Aviation Safety Counselor. Send questions or comments to editor@piperflyer.org.

Some quick facts about Wentworth Aircraft:

Wentworth Aircraft has purchased over 3,700 aircraft since 1986.

The lowest number of airplanes purchased was in Wentworth’s first partial year 1986, at 31 planes.

The largest number purchased in a single year was 228 in 1998.

In the last 12 years they have purchased 356 damaged airplanes in the state of Florida alone.

They have purchased airplanes in all 50 states, eight Canadian provinces, Mexico and the Bahamas.

Single- and twin-engine Pipers and single-engine Cessnas account for approximately 70% of the total aircraft purchased; followed, in order, by Beechcraft, Mooney, Homebuilt, Helicopters and Bellanca.

Wentworth Aircraft only deals with piston aircraft, although they did purchase one jet, a 1950's vintage Vampire fighter (just for fun).

Wentworth Aircraft has sold used parts to the Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft, Mooney, Cirrus and Bellanca factories!!