aircraft appraisal

NAFA member Jason Zilberbrand, President and CTO of VREF Aircraft Value Reference & Appraisal Services, announces expanding staff and specialties.

VREF Aircraft Value Reference, the leading provider of aircraft valuations for the aviation industry expands staff and services.

CHICAGO, IL, USA, June 3, 2019 /EINPresswire.com/ -- VREF Aircraft Value Reference, Appraisal & Litigation Consulting Services the leading provider of aircraft valuations for the aviation industry, continues its 25th Anniversary celebration by adding more staff and specialties to its management team to meet their expanding business requirements.

VREF has been expanding its specialty expertise’s, which now includes aviation cyber security, airport security, avionics, avionics security, and ground equipment appraisal and Litigation consulting.

“Offering expertise, consulting and appraisal work related to cyber security and avionics is not something we take lightly. It is a highly specialized field that requires years if not decades of training, certifications and experience to produce high quality and awe-inspiring results”, said Jason Zilberbrand President of VREF. 

“VREF is the only Business Aviation and for that matter General Aviation firm that offers the breadth of expertise we do with a staff including lawyers, federal agents, teaching professors and A&P technicians and is the most knowledgeable appraisal team I have ever worked with,” said Ken Dufour CEO.

Eric Pupye, Esq. joined VREF in March to oversee Cyber Security, Airport Security and Avionics Security Expert Witness and Litigation Consulting. Eric is an attorney and Federal Agent with The Department of Homeland Security and he has Top Secret Security Clearance. In addition to being an attorney, Eric is a certified Protection Professional (CPP) and a Professional Certified Investigator (PCI). Prior to joining VREF, Eric spent a decade in the U.S. Air Force working with the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Defense Threat Reaction Agency. Eric is a combat veteran and he was awarded the Bronze Star.

“Eric brings a new skill set and specialties to the firm, we are not only honored to be working with him, but it also establishes VREF as the go-to company for all aviation related litigation support matters,” said Jason Zilberbrand, VREF President and CTO. Mr. Zilberbrand continued, “We are confident that Eric’s talents will be a huge part of our continued growth as we start taking on more sophisticated projects.”

Additionally, VREF opened its third International Office and welcomed Neil Schiller, ASA of Sydney Australia to the team. This is the third International office opened in 2019 including Switzerland and Austria. Neil will be overseeing appraisal and expert witness work in the Oceania region and he has over 30 years of extensive experience in appraising aviation related assets including aircraft, helicopters, ground equipment and airport equipment. Prior to joining VREF, Neil was in charge of the GECC portfolio of Business aircraft for Australia and New Zealand.

“Eric Pupye and Neil Schiller are welcome additions to VREF. The team we have assembled represents the best talent available in the industry and our commitment to the industry to drive transparency and ethics. We plan on opening additional offices to assist the existing client base,” said Ken Dufour, ASA and CEO of VREF.  

About VREF

VREF Aircraft Value Reference, Appraisal & Litigation Consulting Services, was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa with offices in Chicago, Rockford, Los Angeles, Boise, Daytona Beach, Austria, Switzerland, China and Australia.

VREF delivers aircraft and engine data through online subscription services (SaaS) and published quarterly digests.

VREF provides valuations, appraisals and litigation consulting services to a world-wide client base of aviation professionals including, law firms, banks, financial institutions, leasing companies, manufacturers, aircraft owners, aircraft operators and suppliers. VREF Aircraft Value Reference, Appraisal & Litigation Consulting Services plays a key role in advising decision makers within the aviation industry. 

VREF is the official Valuation Guide and Appraisal company for the AOPA.

For further enquiries or interviews please contact the VREF team.

P: 844-303-VREF
E: info@vref.com

Jason Zilberbrand
VREF
3129610934
email us here

This press release was originally published by EINPresswire on June 3, 2019.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EDGEWATER, Md. – Oct. 16, 2018 - National Aircraft Finance Association (NAFA) is pleased to announce that Antares Jet Appraisals has recently joined its professional network of aviation lenders. “NAFA members proudly finance - support or enable the financing of - general and business aviation aircraft throughout the world, and we’re happy to add Antares to our association,” said Ford von Weise, President of NAFA.

Antares Jet Appraisals provides aircraft appraisal services for all types of aircraft, specializing in business jet and turboprop appraisals. With a team of accredited senior appraisers from the American Society of Appraisers, they comply with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP), putting their more than 40 years of combined experience in the aviation industry to work for banks and financial institutions, insurance companies, and aircraft owners among others.

​Antares’ appraisers are certified by the American Society of Appraisers(ASA), comply with USPAP, and have access to recognized aircraft databases in the industry like Vref, Amstat, Jetnet, etc. The company performs full appraisals and inspections, desktop appraisals, future value estimations, orderly liquidation values, marketability analysis of aircraft, aircraft maintenance cost analysis, and personalized market studies.

Much like NAFA, Antares Jet Appraisals promotes quality aircraft appraisal solutions, fostering continuity and safety throughout the aviation industry. Antares and NAFA are committed to the education necessary to maintain the highest of standards inaviation appraisals.

For more information about Antares Jet Appraisals, visit https://www.antaresjetappraisals.com/.

About NAFA: 

The National Aircraft Finance Association (NAFA) is a non-profit corporation dedicated to promoting the general welfare of individuals and organizations providing aircraft financing and loans secured by aircraft; to improving the industry's service to the public; and to providing our members with a forum for education and the sharing of information and knowledge to encourage the financing, leasing and insuring of general aviation aircraft. For more information about NAFA, visit www.NAFA.aero.

NAFA member, Jason Zilberbrand, President of Vref, writes about why business aviation needs accurate aircraft valuations and appraisals. 

Q: How did Vref get started down the road of providing prices and supporting data on aircraft?

A:  The Vref story began roughly 25 years ago. The first Vref guide was published in January 1994. Vref was first published by Fletcher Aldredge, a former analyst at Aircraft Blue Book. He was unhappy with how information and data were being published, collected and updated so he started his own Guide. Fletcher created a platform that was ahead of its time and has the most trusted data in the industry. Vref is used by every bank, financial 
institution, broker and aviation professional as one of the trusted resources they can depend on for accurate information on aircraft. By providing up to date real time values for helicopters, all fixed wing aircraft, and now engines and commercial narrow bodies; Vref is the predominant force in aircraft value data. 

Q: So how did you and Ken Dufour, the CEO of Vref, get involved? 

A: Ken and I were brought in to oversee the day-to-day business operations,  run  the  company  and  implement  new  services.  Ken and I have very different skill sets and backgrounds. I have spent the better part of my life in aviation, having come into the business when I  was  still in  college,  when  my  father  started  Jet  Support Services Inc. (JSSI), which we sold in 2008. For the last 15 years I ran an international aircraft dealership and brokerage. 
My time at JSSI was invaluable in preparing me for what I now do at Vref, in that we were myopically focused on maintenance events and costs, and I was introduced to an amazingly diverse network of people in the MRO shops, the OEM community and in the aircraft financing and banking sectors.  Buying and selling aircraft further honed my skills, and by applying my maintenance and engine knowledge base to brokerage it created opportunities 
that I might not have ever been able to identify. However, when the crash hit on 29 September 2008, a day I will remember forever since it was also the day my eldest daughter was born, we were holding some $320 million in aircraft inventory, in the form of 23 aircraft that we suddenly had no buyers for those were harsh times for many in the sector as deals dried up all over the place. We were able to reach fair solutions to those positions and moved on. However, what happened over the next few years as companies started shedding jobs was that large numbers of people decided to reinvent themselves as aircraft brokers. Simply by selling one aircraft a year they found they were doubling whatever they had been paid in their old jobs. What was once a career that you were lucky enough to get into or in most cases born into, was now nothing more then a cell phone, website and access to classifieds.  In that environment, being a broker no longer held out much interest for me. I was much more interested in the challenge of how one could go about gathering the data required to put a realistic and accurate value on particular aircraft. I was spending more and more of my time trying to determine where forecasts of values were going and appraising aircraft. It was apparent when I started doing more aircraft appraisals that Vref would be the perfect company for me to grow my career.  

Q: I believe Ken came into it from an entirely different route?

A: Absolutely. Ken is without question the foremost expert appraiser of aircraft in the US. He is a Accredited Senior Appraiser with the ASA and he has appeared as an expert witness in over fifty cases and has helped his side to win them all. I should mention that he has been mentoring me as far as becoming an expert witness is concerned, and I have now appeared as an expert witness in two cases, both of which we won. We now offer expert witness services as part of the Vref portfolio of services, be it via actual court appearances and testimony, or via deposition. 

Q: Can you give us something of a flavour of the kinds of cases involving business aviation aircraft that call for expert witness testimony?

A: A very common scenario is where you are acting either for the owner of an aircraft that has sustained damage, or for the insurance company or OEM. What you are trying to determine is what the value of the undamaged aircraft would have been at that point in time, and what its value is now that the damage has been sustained. It is a hugely complicated calculation, with a lot of moving parts. Ken is an absolute master at producing an evidence-based appraisal and his work has never been successfully challenged. That is part of the skill we bring to Vref.

Click here to read the full article.

This article was originally published in Business Aviation Magazine, Summer 2018, p. 78. 

NAFA member, Jeremy Cox, Vice President of JetBrokers, discusses the importance of on-site jet appraisals and certified appraisals versus desktop valuations.

There are real dangers in cutting corners on an aircraft appraisal.  Jeremy Cox draws on some of his real-life appraisal experiences to highlight the value of getting the job done properly.

There are multiple reasons why an aircraft owner might need to know what his aircraft is worth on a specific date, including:  Making the decision to sell; wishing to put the aircraft up as collateral against a loan; divorce settlement; an estate sale; tax settlement; insurance claim; or charitable donation.

Except for the situation of making a ‘sales decision’, all the other events listed require that the selected appraiser provide the owner with a certified appraisal instead of merely a market valuation.

The Essence of a Certified Appraisal

When an aircraft is being donated, a certified appraisal submitted to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) must meet specific requirements for it to be accepted. IRS Publication No. 561 states:

“The weight given an appraisal depends on the completeness of the report, the qualifications of the appraiser, and the appraiser’s demonstrated knowledge of the donated property. An appraisal must give all the facts on which to base an intelligent judgement of the value of the property.

“The appraisal will not be given much weight if:

• All the factors that apply are not considered;
• The opinion is not supported with facts, such as purchase price and comparable sales; or
• The opinion is not consistent with known facts.

“The appraiser’s opinion is never more valid than the facts on which it is based; without these facts, it is simply a guess.  “The opinion of a person claiming to be an expert is not binding on the Internal Revenue Service.”

To prove ‘demonstrated knowledge’ of the aircraft that is the subject of the appraisal, the appraiser must physically see and evaluate the aircraft and all its logbooks, on-site and in person. In the unfortunate instance where the subject aircraft will be written-off by an insurance company due to the total-loss of the aircraft, it is still required that all logbooks are reviewed before an appraisal report can be written.

The National Aircraft Appraisers Association (NAAA) asserts that “The walk around examination, and inventory of the aircraft, followed by the thorough study of the logbooks, and records, contribute approximately 85-90% of the data in our written report. The other 10-15% of our work is outside research.”

A sales specification that has updated hours, landings and equipment hand scrawled on it, along with a handful of images, does not come close to being a suitable substitute for an on-site inspection. It is impossible to apply a rating to the condition of the paint and interior by only examining an on- screen, or printed image, in-place of seeing the actual aircraft in person.

Why Have an Inspection?

Rarely will a sales specification ever mention the existence of any damage history, or accurately assess current maintenance and inspection status. The only sure way to determine the overall condition of an aircraft, and ultimately its value, is by inspection. The logbooks are a critical part of the determination process.

An excellent example of why an on-site inspection and log book audit is so vital to accurately report on an aircraft happened in an audit of a Dassault Falcon 900B I was involved with recently. The Falcon 900B was in the late stages of a work scope at a major MRO, and I was provided with a sales specification that was produced by an aircraft broker who had sold this aircraft a little over a year before the date of my audit.

I also downloaded a CAMP Status Report after being granted ‘read-only’ access through my CAMP-Online account. If I had utilized this supplied specification and CAMP Report instead of creating my own, I would have been very wrong on multiple equipment and inspection status issues.

For example, Collins TDR-94 Transponders had reportedly been installed, when in reality Honeywell MST-67 Transponders were the actual units onboard (installed over 10 years before). Furthermore, the ‘C Check’ date reported was later than the actual sign-off and release for return to service (another potentially very costly error). And while doing the audit, I even found two engine logbooks among the archives that did not belong to the subject aircraft...and never did at any time in its history...

This was not an isolated incident. Other examples over the years have included:

• A Learjet ‘wide’ cargo door (reported) versus the narrower executive door (actual);
• Citation CJ2 ‘3-tube EFIS’ (reported) versus ‘2- tube’ (actual);
• Falcon 20-5 thrust reversers (reported) versus ‘none’ (actual);
• Gulfstream GV crew-rest compartment (reported) versus ‘none’ (actual);
• Global Express with a ‘heads-up guidance system’ (reported) versus ‘provisions-only’, i.e. an empty box above the #1 pilots’ head (actual).

I could go on, and on with tales of aircraft that were reported as ‘perfect’, only to find otherwise in the aircraft’s logs.

The bottom-line: if the certified appraisal that you paid for and used to satisfy an official requirement was created without an on-site inspection and audit by an appraiser, even with disclaimers, it is questionable and probably unreliable.

This article was originally published in the January 2017 issue of AvBuyer Magazine, p. 137.