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Socata TB20 for first aircraft.

Well it has been discussed a few times as to airplane ownership: no matter how good a prebuy, you must plan for a significant percentage (15-25%) of your initial expenditure to correct additional items in the next couple of annuals, especially for a mid-complex aircraft like this.This could be easily 50% if your prebuy is bad and you later discover nasty surprises.

Also, I agree this airplane is begging for a $30k-$50k avionics upgrade, but that can wait until you get your IR, so that may well be after that first couple of annuals!

Antonio
LESB, Spain

There’s also a TB20 GT for sale in Luxembourg. Engine has 1200h (budget future maintenance appropriately). I don’t think it has TKS. One can hope that owner(s) will be reasonable with price. PM me for contact.

ELLX

I have read again and again the following advice for first airplane ownership:
Either buy new (with warranty) or buy a used plane with engine at TBO and put in the new engine yourself. Preferably find a plane already equipped with the avionics you want.

always learning
LO__, Austria

My 2 cents :

If you can find an FI really good at the TB20, who teaches gear failures etc, great.

If not, try at least to know a experienced owner who could become a mentor. Just get the variants needed with an FI and then fly with a mentor, several leg trips, refuel, practice hot starts, the real life of an pilot, not just 1hr lessons from base.

LFOU, France

Zozi wrote:

My favorit is TB20 because i like it. But some pilot frinds say me, that is too much for my fresh PPL. This is not a “weekend pilot” aircraft.
Is it difficult to fly the TB20?

Those people are not pilot “friends”, they are sour grape envy folks who want to dissuade you from what you want because most of them can’t get it for themselfs or folks who want to stop others from reaching where they have. Seen that many times and all over the place. How many of those people actually own a plane? How many fly a TB20?

For me, the TB20 is a plane that any PPL with appropriate training will be able to master. It is a very versatile plane with good payload and a lot of range which will keep you happy for a long time. There is no reason whatsoever that a new ppl can not learn to fly it safely.

Peter here has a very similar GT than the one you are looking at. He is certainly very knowledgable with this type. As with any airplane, you will have to do a proper pre-buy inspection and evaluate the results. The one in the add will eventually need an avionic upgrade in the GPS department but looks otherwise quite nice. Others can say more about this particular plane. Personally, I don’t see any show stoppers from here.

As a perspective new owner you will get a lot of negative flack by people who for some reason or the other will want to dissuade you. Be prepared for that. On the other hand, talk to people who really own this type and get information, not hearsay doomsday gibberish. And then go ahead with your plan.

Do look around however, there are quite a few TB20’ties on the market. Certainly the GT model is better than the predecessors, put primarily it should be in good shape and have no issues which will get you into maintenance nightmares like Alex did when he took on a TB some people here thought was bound to make trouble. But as you can see, Alex has overcome all that and now has a very nice exemplar.

If you like the TB20, there is no reason not to buy one. You can also define your mission and then see what is around which fulfills that, but in that regard, there is not a lot a TB20 can’t do. So choose a nice one and get on with it.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Indeed; the TB20 is dead easy to fly and has no strange behaviour.

I’ve had mine since 2002 and made some notes here.

If I crashed it (and walked away) I would buy another one the same

This one says “engine has only 324 hrs since a mandatory Lycoming factory rebuild.” which would be 324 hours since about 2009 which is not great (there may be long periods of inactivity). The price may thus be too high. Otherwise, it is really similar to mine in equipment.

A google reveals probably very little flying has been done.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The TB20 is an airplane that will fly like any other and its certainly doable with a fresh PPL, but with some training on type of course. The stuff to worry about is mostly not related to the type but weather related stuff like VFR into IMC. Airplanes that will require more pilot skill are generally taildraggers or other unstable aircraft or with low wing loading. Many times the higher the performance the easier to fly.

Three things that you have to get under your skin in a TB20. It’s a retractable so you just have to get the habit of lowering the gear on approach and raising them on positive rate after takeoff. Not difficult but if its not an automatic habit sooner or later you will hear a very expensive sound of the prop smashing into the tarmac. The prop governor takes a little getting used to as well. But really no big deal just pay attention to avoid the scenario of low RPM and high MP at the same time as this is what can cause damage.

Last part is speed. While the TB series are not blisteringly fast it does require you to think ahead. And if you come from a 100 KT trainer things will happen slightly faster. But the mind quickly adjusts and most of the time you would wish you had a quicker plane.

Now I see the particular plane has TKS which is good especially if you consider using it for IFR at one point. Indeed if that is the long term goal with this aircraft consider looking for a TB21 that is the turbo version of the TB20. Its more expensive and not many on the market but for any long range IFR touring it’s the best upgrade you can buy and unlike TKS and new instruments it cannot be added later. Some will try to tell you horror stories of maintenance issues with a turbo, especially the once that own aircraft without a turbo. Off course there is no free lunch. A turbo is more expensive to buy and operate yes but if paying attention to stay safely inside temps then it’s a fantastic upgrade. However if the goal is VFR only or mostly local trips from low elevation airport a TB20 is the better plane as a turbo isn’t really worth the extra expense and complexity. Turbo Piston engines require more precise handling and paying closer attention to engine temps, but if you start flying in begin conditions its not too difficult. The more complex the aircraft and less experience pilot, the less disturbing factors you will want, that be weather, passengers, traffic situation or whatever.

If you can afford a GT model then great – its newer with small fixes here and there, but for the TB series I would not worry about buying a good pre-GT model. The GT series have a bit more headroom. They both have the same performance. Much more depends on the maintenance that the previous owners did and their mentality toward aircraft ownership. Its like buying a used car. You can find a 20 year old car that is nice and working great because it was taken good care of or you can find a 5 year old car ready for the junkyard because the owner didn’t care. That also why a prebuy inspection is very important. In TB series one thing you probably want to look for is the access panels in front of the windscreens which makes instrument work much easier. Overall the TB series are good aircraft (and good looking too in my opinion with sleek lines and retractable gear for 20/21). I have had very little mechanical problems with the TBs I have owned.

THY
EKRK, Denmark

THY wrote:

It’s a retractable so you just have to get the habit of lowering the gear on approach and raising them on positive rate after takeoff. Not difficult but if its not an automatic habit sooner or later you will hear a very expensive sound of the prop smashing into the tarmac.

Gear warning systems help. It is said that every pilot of retractable will have at least one gear-up landing, but I feel that one can escape that with the right kind of gear warning system. I know of two types:

  • One is triggered purely by the position of the throttle lever (and gear), and sound a horn. These suck, but are much better than no warning. Too many false positives (annoying and one gets used to ignoring the horn), the horn is not specific enough (is it the stall warning? that’s normal, I’m about to touch down).
  • One is triggered by airspeed (and gear position), and has an actual voice telling you in your headset (female voice) “check gear” or (male voice) “gear is down for landing”. These are great, and may have actually saved my lunch when the gear malfunctioned and I “forgot” to check for green light. I happily ignored the horn, but the voice got me to go-around.
ELLX

The TB20 has warnings on throttle lever position, and flap position.

It is pretty difficult to do a gear up landing in one.

Yes; it’s been done. There is that famous Megeve video, but the two clueless guys in that one knew nothing about the aircraft and didn’t know what that really loud warning beep was. It has also been done in cases where pilots don’t use the full flap (which is contrary to the POH in all cases).

And it’s been done in planes which have not seen grease in years, never mind having any applied to the landing gear You can spot this within seconds of walking up to a TB20.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

It is pretty difficult to do a gear up landing in one.

It has to do with level of distraction and how pilot copes (including lowering gear without checking) you can set-up as much warning as you want but there will be scenarios where it is not in the right position, I am not sure about TB20 but on few other types it makes huge difference to aerodynamics: it is hard to achieve performance to land/climb without dropping/raising it, I take that as confirmation that gear is out/in, irrespective of cockpit switches/signals tough that feeling quickly goes away when I fly other types

@Zozi just for fun, when flying as pax in airliners try to remind yourself to lower gear/flaps after getting that seat-belt signal (e.g. throttle or checklist signal) and see how much success rate you get vs cabin distraction

Last Edited by Ibra at 20 Sep 17:25
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom
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