Congratulations, great choice! Wish you many great flights!
What a beauty! Congratulations!
Congratulations! But the aircon for a plane in Uk, is that overkill? :P.
Wish you the best with your TB20!
But the aircon for a plane in Uk, is that overkill?
Global warming, innit?
Congrats, looks like a great airplane!
But the aircon for a plane in Uk, is that overkill?
The photos of the plane in the advert look a lot like Spruce Creek in Florida, which has a somewhat unique appearance. It might have made sense there especially if the owner’s home hangar also had AC. The plane certainly doesn’t lack equipment!
It would be interesting to know how it arrived back in Europe.
Wow, that looks like a great plane indeed.
Congratulations and hope you will have a great time with it!
Thanks for all the wishes!
Indeed the pictures are from Florida (from 2019). The AC was fitted pretty much at inception according to the logs (and was delivered there). Previous owner bought it and ferried it to Germany in 2019.
Congratulation Rami1988 on your purchase, I’m sure you will have some fantastic flying to come.
I have been reading this thread with great interest. One thing that has not been mentioned much is the known corrision problems with TB aircraft. As I will explain below my TB20 has terminal corrosion problems, but I am considering buying another on.
I bought a 1988 TB20 about 5 years ago, soon after I got my PPL. I spent a fair bit of money on avionics upgrades and another fair chunk on fixing things. Despite the various problem I have loved flying it, and have put 440 hours on it in that time. I got my night rating an IR(R) in it and was just about to start the practical trainng for a full IR.
At the last annual, in October they found serious corrosion on the tailplane spar. This is subject to a mandatory six-year inspection which was allegedly done before I bought it and the next one was due. (The required extra inspection holes were already there, so they must have done something.) But when my CAMO did the inspection they found serious corrosion and on further inspection it was well beyond what Daher deem repairable. In places the bottom flange of the spar was corroded right through and it looked positively dangerous. Well, all was not lost. A replacement tailplane is not the end of the world.
However, having removed the flaps and ailerons for lubrication, they took the opportunity of inspecting the main spar with a borescope though the holes behind the flaps. They saw some worrying signs of corrosion on the main spar on both wings. The first plan was to do a non-destructive eddy current test, and they got an expert in to do it. But it turned out that the was insufficient information in the maintainance manual to calibrate the equipment and several attempt to get that information from Daher failed. (I think the problem is that the spar is tapered all the way along and there is no spec for how think it is at each point.) Plan B was to parially de-skin the wings. When they did this they found multiple patches of corrosion on the bottom flange of the spar between 5 of the wing ribs on each side. Most patches were 1-2mm deep but in places up to 4mm deep, or a spare of 7-8mm thickness. All of this data was sent to Daher who can issue a repair scheme (at great expense) if it is within limits. However they said it was beyond what was repairable.
So, barring getting a replacement pair of wings, which is not impossible but does seem like a stup too far, that is curtains for my aircraft. Despite all that, and agains teh advice of some of my flying friends, I am seriously considering buying another TB20.
When I started looking the asking prices rather shocked me. In 2019 I paid £66,000 for a 1988 TB20 with all original gauges, less that 1000 hrs and 22 years on the engine but 6600 hours on the airframe. With all the avionics upgrades it was valued a year ago by Flightline Aviation at about £100,000. So I was surprised to see asking prces of £160,000 to over £200,000 on planecheck for similar aged aircraft. However, reading this thread, it seems that is just what prices are now.
There was a lot of discussion on this thread about G-EGAG, which is one I have been thinking about, although I have not made any approach to the owner. I like the idea of the TKS system, as I enjoy doing IMC flying to get on top, but am always very wary about icing. It would bother me a bit that the engine is even older and higher hours than mine, although people on here seem to suggest that it is not really a problem. I did consider whether I could keep my old engine as a spare to slot in, in a few years time, while G-EGAG’s goes off for overhaul. But my CAMO was not at all keen on the idea of re-installing an old engine that had been sitting on the shelf for several years. Mention was made of the autopilot not working, and I would be interested in any more information about that, in a private messges if it is too sensitive for public. I know that G-EGAG was upgraded to GI275s a few years ago and I wonder if the autopilot worked before that? I have a working KAP150 autopilot in my old TB20, so there is scope for swapping parts if that is what is needed.
I did a trawl of G-INFO to look for TB20s on the G register. There were 35 in total. I arbitrarily rejected any that were older than my old one which left about 21. At the time 3 were lised for sale on planecheck. (G-BYJS has since sold I think.) Obviously I don’t know much about the state of all the others, but it is not a very large pool to expect others to come up for sale, so I could be waiting a long time for another suitable one to come along. Prices for good ones outside the UK seem even more expensive, with VAT on top in most cases. So I think I need to have a proper look at G-EGAG, and maybe G-BSCN, although I didn’t like it being described as “a project”.
At the moment I am keeping my old TB20 as if I do buy another one there may well be parts I want to transfer across. But eventually I will have to dispose of it in some way. I don’t have the facilities, expertise or inclination to part it out myself, so I wonder in anyone knows how to go about selling a complete but non-flyable aircraft.
Sorry for the rather long and rambling message. Any thoughts welcome.
Sorry to hear about your TB20. There’s actually another one in Goodwood in a similar state (unless that’s yours!!) – did you have it in a hangar at all times?
I did a pre buy on EGAG a couple months ago and it is in good shape, but with a broken autopilot. If you are going to consider it, I’d add an oil analysis so you know whether the engine is coming to the end of its life. I did loads of research into that and my conclusion was that I needed a new engine on it. 30 years old plus 1800 hours plus it doesn’t fly often and I believe it spent a few years not flying at all.
It had also a prop strike with damage to the engine mount. The engine was shock tested and it checked out fine.
I think the autopilot is a real headache to fix but they may have fixed it by now. I would suggest asking them.
I might be interested in one or two things from your TB20 if you’re looking to sell:
- 3 blade prop
- DME unit
I can get you in touch with my engineer as well if you need advice on parts etc. He’s based in EGKA.
