VREF | The Truth About the Aviation Market

The September 1 VREF value revision is live—and the numbers tell a very different story than the broad “strong market” or “weak market” headlines.

Business jet transaction volume is down nearly 19% year to date, essentially returning to 2020 COVID-era levels.
But prices didn’t simply fall with volume.

They split.

Across 658 business jet model years revised by VREF:

421 moved down.
230 moved up.
7 stayed flat.

And the dividing line isn’t simply light, midsize, or heavy.
It’s increasingly about which generation of aircraft you own.
In this episode:
Why business jet transaction volume has round-tripped to roughly COVID-era levels
Light jet volume down approximately 18%, midsize down 25.5%, and heavy down 13%
Why Jason’s 2026 sequence—volume first, days on market second, price last—has now played out
How legacy midsize values fell roughly 5.1%, with 122 out of 122 model years moving lower
Why current-production super mids moved the opposite direction, rising about 4.1%
How current-production large-cabin flagships gained nearly 7% while prior-generation large-cabin aircraft declined
Why the market is effectively repricing obsolescence
How the “age penalty” is shrinking for some large-cabin aircraft while growing for older light and legacy midsize jets
Why a 15-year-old Global can appreciate while a similarly aged Citation or Hawker loses value
How two aircraft both labeled “midsize” can be moving almost nine percentage points apart
Why broad weight-class averages can describe an airplane that doesn’t actually exist
What rising days on market and weaker transaction volume reveal about the buyer-seller standoff
Why midsize is becoming the canary in business aviation’s coal mine
How fractional ownership, charter growth, financing sensitivity, and corporate caution may be permanently removing some buyers from whole-aircraft ownership
What the September revision means for sellers, buyers, lenders, insurers, and fleet planners

For sellers of legacy aircraft, the conversation has changed. Buyers are no longer negotiating only against opinion—the published values are beginning to move to their side of the table.

At the top of the market, the opposite is happening. OEM backlogs and limited availability are pushing buyers toward current-production and late-model aircraft—and they’re paying for the privilege.

That means the old question— “How’s the market?”—is becoming almost useless.

The better question is:

“What is happening to my model, my generation, and my model year?”

Because as of September 1, there is no single aircraft market.

There are winners.
There are losers.
And the gap between them is getting wider.

For the latest aircraft values, historical trends, operating costs, fleet data, and transaction-based market intelligence, visit VREF.com.

The market doesn’t care what you paid. It only cares what it’s worth.

And as of September 1, it changed its mind about a lot of airplanes.

Fly safe. Stay smart.

The September 1 VREF value revision is live—and the numbers tell a very different story than the broad “strong market” or “weak market” headlines.

Business jet transaction volume is down nearly 19% year to date, essentially returning to 2020 COVID-era levels.
But prices didn’t simply fall with volume.

They split.

Across 658 business jet model years revised by VREF:

421 moved down.
230 moved up.
7 stayed flat.

And the dividing line isn’t simply light, midsize, or heavy.
It’s increasingly about which generation of aircraft you own.
In this episode:
Why business jet transaction volume has round-tripped to roughly COVID-era levels
Light jet volume down approximately 18%, midsize down 25.5%, and heavy down 13%
Why Jason’s 2026 sequence—volume first, days on market second, price last—has now played out
How legacy midsize values fell roughly 5.1%, with 122 out of 122 model years moving lower
Why current-production super mids moved the opposite direction, rising about 4.1%
How current-production large-cabin flagships gained nearly 7% while prior-generation large-cabin aircraft declined
Why the market is effectively repricing obsolescence
How the “age penalty” is shrinking for some large-cabin aircraft while growing for older light and legacy midsize jets
Why a 15-year-old Global can appreciate while a similarly aged Citation or Hawker loses value
How two aircraft both labeled “midsize” can be moving almost nine percentage points apart
Why broad weight-class averages can describe an airplane that doesn’t actually exist
What rising days on market and weaker transaction volume reveal about the buyer-seller standoff
Why midsize is becoming the canary in business aviation’s coal mine
How fractional ownership, charter growth, financing sensitivity, and corporate caution may be permanently removing some buyers from whole-aircraft ownership
What the September revision means for sellers, buyers, lenders, insurers, and fleet planners

For sellers of legacy aircraft, the conversation has changed. Buyers are no longer negotiating only against opinion—the published values are beginning to move to their side of the table.

At the top of the market, the opposite is happening. OEM backlogs and limited availability are pushing buyers toward current-production and late-model aircraft—and they’re paying for the privilege.

That means the old question— “How’s the market?”—is becoming almost useless.

The better question is:

“What is happening to my model, my generation, and my model year?”

Because as of September 1, there is no single aircraft market.

There are winners.
There are losers.
And the gap between them is getting wider.

For the latest aircraft values, historical trends, operating costs, fleet data, and transaction-based market intelligence, visit VREF.com.

The market doesn’t care what you paid. It only cares what it’s worth.

And as of September 1, it changed its mind about a lot of airplanes.

Fly safe. Stay smart.

Jason Zilberbrand found something unusual on an ordinary corporate website:

Luscombe Mooney Aircraft Company.

Two historic general aviation brands. One masthead. Mooney’s address. Mooney’s phone number. Mooney’s domain.

But no major announcement explaining how the two names came together.

So Jason went looking for the paper trail.

In Episode 54 of The Truth About the Aviation Market, he reconstructs the timeline using public records, trade reporting, an auction listing, court filings, and company websites—separating what the record clearly shows from what remains unconfirmed.

There are no allegations in this episode. The story is about transparency, ownership, parts support, and what happens to aircraft values when material information becomes difficult for owners to see.
In this episode:
Why a dormant aircraft manufacturer can still represent a valuable business even when new airplanes are no longer rolling off the line
Why Jason argues “the factory isn’t the asset—the fleet is”
How roughly 11,000 existing Mooneys create ongoing demand for parts, maintenance, tooling, and technical support
What was publicly announced in January 2026 about rebuilding Mooney’s parts operation—and why the language of “stewardship” rather than ownership matters
How Luscombe and Mooney later appeared together under one company identity at Mooney’s Texas address
What happened when the Luscombe factory, type certificate, STCs, tooling, fixtures, and inventory were offered at auction in December 2024
Why combining legacy aircraft brands may make more sense as an industrial and aftermarket strategy than as an attempt to restart high-volume aircraft production
The potential four-part business model Jason sees: aftermarket parts, MRO, prime subcontracting, and type certificates as assets
Why parts availability may be one of the most important drivers of residual value in an out-of-production fleet
How a 30% parts-price increase could be supportive if availability improves—or damaging if owners simply pay more while lead times remain long
The four indicators VREF will be watching: parts lead times, days on market, ask-to-close spreads, and transaction volume
The six major questions the public record still does not answer, including who acquired the Luscombe assets, who controls the relevant corporate entities, who currently holds the Mooney type certificates, and what operations are actually active today

Every unanswered question could have a completely ordinary, legitimate explanation.

That is precisely the point.

Private companies are not obligated to issue press releases every time assets or ownership structures change. But when thousands of aircraft depend on a parts pipeline, type certificate, factory, or support network, a lack of information can still have real economic consequences.
Because aircraft owners ultimately pay for uncertainty—in maintenance decisions, resale negotiations, financing, insurance, and valuation.

Sunlight isn’t a courtesy in an asset market. It’s infrastructure.

For current Mooney values, historical trends, fleet data, operating costs, and independent aircraft appraisal services, visit VREF.com.

The market doesn’t care what the website says. It only cares what the record shows.

Fly safe. Stay smart.

How does an entire market start pricing assets at numbers buyers have never actually paid?

That’s the question behind Episode 53 of The Truth About the Market.

And although Jason starts with Ferrari, this episode is really about airplanes.

Because aviation has all the ingredients required to create the same phenomenon: thin transaction data, private closings, patient sellers, emotional ownership, and asking prices that remain visible while actual sale prices disappear behind confidentiality agreements.

The result can be a market that looks expensive without ever proving buyers will transact at those prices.
In this episode:
Why asking price and market value are not the same thing
How a Ferrari benchmark around $657,000 can coexist with seven-figure listings
Why the most visible numbers in an illiquid market may have the least evidentiary weight
How one optimistic seller can influence the next seller—and eventually an entire market
Why Jason calls this process the listing cascade
How “ask referencing ask” creates a consensus price without creating a clearing price
Why active listings can eventually get laundered into appraisals, collateral values, and market narratives
Why pricing an aircraft from unsold listings can produce a number with very little connection to an actual transaction
Why aviation’s public marketplace is structurally biased toward unsold inventory and aspirational prices
The difference between a normal aviation ask-to-close spread and a market beginning to detach from reality
Why broad “the aircraft market is strong” narratives can hide major differences between individual segments
How new-aircraft backlogs differ from used-aircraft asking prices
Why delivery-slot premiums may be one of the least price-discovered corners of aviation

Jason also introduces a practical framework for identifying when ordinary seller optimism becomes something more serious.

A wide spread by itself is not enough.

Aircraft asking prices have always been optimistic.

The warning comes when multiple market signals begin moving in the wrong direction together.

And current VREF data gives that framework real context.

Year-to-date business jet transaction volume is down nearly 19%.

Light jets are down roughly 18%.
Midsize jets are down approximately 25.5%.
Heavy jets are down around 13%.

Meanwhile, inventory has been climbing in parts of the market and aircraft are taking longer to sell.

That doesn’t automatically mean prices collapse tomorrow.

It may mean something subtler:

Sellers are anchored to one market.

Buyers are operating in another.
The bottom line:
An asking price is an opinion.

A closing is evidence.

If everyone is pricing their aircraft from airplanes that haven’t sold, the market can manufacture the appearance of value for a surprisingly long time.

So before you buy, sell, finance, insure, or appraise an aircraft, ask a better question:

What is actually clearing?

Because quotes are free.

Closings are facts.

For current aircraft values, historical trends, operating costs, fleet data, and transaction-based market intelligence, visit VREF.com.

The market doesn’t care what you’re asking.

It only cares what sells.

Fly safe. Stay smart.

An $8 million Citation CJ4 is sitting on a ramp. The owner isn’t flying it. He isn’t even in the country. A line guy hooks up a tug, gets distracted, and tows it into a hangar improperly.

Forty seconds later, the damage is done.

The aircraft is repaired correctly, returned to service, and made completely airworthy. But when it comes out the other side, it’s worth nearly $2 million less than it was that morning.

That loss isn’t the repair bill. It sits on top of it.

It’s called diminution of value—and it may be one of the most expensive risks in aircraft ownership that almost nobody explains until it’s too late.
In this episode:
• Why a legally minor event can create a six- or seven-figure market loss
• Why the FAA’s definition of “substantial damage” and the market’s definition are very different
• How tugs, cars, buses, hail, hangar doors, prop strikes, and ground equipment can destroy aircraft value without ever becoming headline accidents
• Why paying cash for a repair doesn’t make damage invisible—it makes it undocumented
• How insurers actually decide between repair and total loss
• Why “repairable” means the repair makes economic sense for the carrier—not necessarily that it makes the owner whole
• The critical difference between first-party and third-party claims
• Why diminished value may not be covered by your own hull policy but may be recoverable when somebody else caused the damage
• Why you should get an independent valuation before responding to the other side’s number
• Why a clean damage-history report is useful—but not proof that an aircraft has never been damaged
• How buyers should scope a pre-buy specifically to look for prior repairs and unexplained gaps in the aircraft’s history
• How diminution of value is quantified using actual comparable closings rather than asking prices
• Why repair quality, documentation, structural severity, financing availability, and buyer-pool size all affect the discount
• Why newer, low-time aircraft can suffer a larger percentage hit than older airplanes with longer operating histories
• When an aircraft owner should consider calling an aviation-specific attorney

For independent aircraft valuations, diminution-of-value assessments, and defensible market data based on real transactions, visit VREF.com.
Know what you own. Fly safe. Stay smart.