Cheap airplanes to buy, own and fly thread

I flew one of those some years back, wondering if I should build one. When I landed, decided not to The one I tried had a 80 HP Jabiru, it was a bit underpowered. I can’t remember anything special about it, a low wing, short field kind of thing, sturdy. Certainly is cheap to buy, own and fly. There are lots of them around, and with a 100 HP Rotax it gets the power it needs also.

Rightly or wrongly at this point, the Zenair 601’s history of in flight breakups due to aileron flutter (a decade or so ago) holds down market value. Weights were added to the aileron control circuit to de-tune the flutter. Some more recent info here

Snoopy wrote:

Why?

Don’t remember.

Snoopy wrote:

Wings falling of is not good.

That`s old news, (2010). As Silvaire points to the two places you may read that after the incidents, the CH601 was redesigned (structural modifications aileron mass balance weights preventing flutter). Have a look here Chris Heinz, Zenair designer is a well known AC designer with a strong reputation. My personal advice, if you really are interested is to contact, IEC Austria to put you in contact with a an Austrian owner of a CH601. This will save you a lot of time when/if buying and re-registering the AC. What I will be concerned it will be the engine, since all the automotive engines (included Subaru), are not 100% suited for aircraft and you may have issues. But since this is an experimental, if you are not happy you may apply to change the engine to a regular Rotax, O235 / O200. However, bear in mind that ALL experimentals are separate AC and will behave differently even if is the same type. The good part is that is LSA registered and if IEC accepts, you will be able to register the AC as an LSA.

Besides, Snoopy seems to be able to handle any unusual situations

Not another advert, but might fit into the context: I just learned that in Austria microlights are registered as Annex 1 (formerly Annex 2)-planes, hence the flight hours count for the SEP-class rating.
Also I was told that the running cost (ex hangar & Mogas) are around 1000 EUR (350 for CSL-insurance, 650 for 100h/annual) *.
When it comes to VFR day-flying with a two-seater, I don’t see a cheaper way of flying (excluding gliding, and referring to the newer microlights with possible MTOW up to 600kg).
Hence, it could be worth looking at microlights for registration in Austria…..?

Edit: * for the planes we discussed, such as Kitfox, Eurofox and other non-“high performance” microlights

If I wanted a cheap aeroplane, I would find someone bringing in a container from USA and share it. Then I’d pick up a good Taylorcraft BC12D. There are lots of them in America for $20k ish. Once you got it home you could either sell hours in it to good pilots or sell shares in it to the right people. On 75hp (if they have the mod) they can fly at 100mph, and take off/land with two people out of a 300m microlight strip. If you got the 85/90/100hp engine so much the better. They make a pure show of a J3, Luscombe, C120 of the same horsepower in terms of performance. Keeping it on the N-reg in Europe would mean it’s outside of the permit regime which gives it value if you ever needed to sell it abroad. You can have 80% of the fun for 20% of the cost of a bigger aeroplane.

Plus being able to land something like this with a low wing loading in a gusty x-wind on tarmac gives a certain prestige. Flying is a meritocracy after all, like golf.