Looking for a first airplane - TB9?

What about the Rallye ? Purchase price seems even lower than TB9/10 and some variants are really capable. From my understanding, you essentially lose some comfort / modern looks. I don’t know if the 4-seater variants are actually able to accomodate 4 people.

For your 1st plane, try to get something in a good condition. Once you know the ins and outs of aircraft maintenance (which is generally quite political) then you can buy something in a worse condition and manage it…

I would not buy a TB9 when there are similar planes that can burn MOGAS.

The OP is not after MOGAS, which anyway doesn’t exist in the vast majority of Europe’s airfields. The whole thing is a moving target too, with the term being used for everything from the “old MOGAS” (quality controlled, ethanol-free unleaded car petrol) to current petrol station product (full of fuel-system-eating ethanol and other crap). Also even a TB9 has tanks big enough to make jerrycans completely impractical (unless you are built like Geoff Capes) so a fixed pump installation is a must.

The Socata TB cockpit stands out in GA for its user-friendliness and great all around visibility. I would just start with a TB10, due to much better range and performance.

Rally are really uncomfortable. I’m still flying them for mountain stuffs, where they excell, as well as stability, but confort and warm seat are not of its qualities. Ans they are even slower than TB 10 for the same engine.

Peter wrote:

All GA planes are really underpowered

That depends strongly what you expect and want of it.

Personally, I think that a plane which is capable of
- carrying the full complement of people it’s got seat for on a regular ops
- going in and out of reasonably short runways our GA fields offer with a decent load
- climb between 800 and 500 fpm up to the most suitable altitudes
- have a cruise speed of 120kts or more for non complex and 150 or more for complex airplanes

can not be really called underpowered. There is a bunch of rather undervalued airplanes which imho do their job quite well, if you treat them right.

In general for GA planes from 1000kg up to say 1300 kg MTOW, I’d say 180 hp is where you get a good bang for buck. Up to 1000 kg 150-160 hp will do quite well too. Above that, its the IO5xx engines which are more appropriate.

As an example, an airplane which really surprised me was the old and venable original Cherokee 180 with the “hershey bar” wings. It is a very simple plane but it does astonishing things with a simple 180 hp carburetted O360A engine. It will take 4 people out of 500 m runways without too much difficulty, it will climb quite briskly up to 8000 ft or so and it will cruise between 110 and 120 kts for the better part of 5 hours. I’d say for a “cheap” go everywhere in the VFR circuit airplane it is pretty hard to beat.

Cessna’s Reims Rocket is also a fairly powerful airplane with 180 HP. And I’d also call the Grummann Tiger a fairly well powered airplane, doing 140 kts with fixed gear and prop is quite remarkable.

And I’d recall the M20C and E’s which also have quite a lovely runway performance and of course speed for the power provided. The C can pretty much do what the 180 does, but with considerably less payload. But operating those old Mooneys out of fields with 500 m or below was not a big issue, but it did become one later with the J and K models and all the others after it.

The question is what you want to call underpowered. In my experience, I’d call the 140-150 hp Pipers and Cessnas the ones which have the most restrictions, particularly when it comes to take a full complement of people. The very same airframe with 180 hp does a much nicer job. The one exception there may be the Cheetah, which does remarkably well for the power it has.

All GA planes are really underpowered.

As Wolfgang Langewiesche put it, and he was correct, “all engines are puny”. I think it’s a good frame of mind to have when flying a plane, in order to have an intuitive feel for what’s going on. After the initial rush of acceleration in takeoff when the plane isn’t actually a plane yet, we are left with an engine that is putting out all the power it can, for long periods, to slowly, slowly make us climb. Then in cruise at altitude we use what we like to call 65% or 75% power… but it is actually close to all the power the engine can make at that altitude. There is literally never much power in reserve unless you’re descending.

The most interesting example of this for me was in my recent back seat P-51 Mustang flights, observing that on something like 1400 HP it staggers off the ground, then you wait for a while to get to climb speed, then finally you can go up. Nothing happens fast in a piston powered plane, even one with almost 10 times as much power as my plane.

Peter wrote:

The OP is not after MOGAS, which anyway doesn’t exist in the vast majority of Europe’s airfields.

I doubt a TB9 will see the vast majority of europe’s airfields.

The whole thing is a moving target too, with the term being used for everything from the “old MOGAS” (quality controlled, ethanol-free unleaded car petrol) to current petrol station product (full of fuel-system-eating ethanol and other crap).

Avgas is a moving target. Mogas isn’t. Yes, ethanol (E5, E10) in car gas is a problem for some rubber parts and (under some atmospheric conditions/for higher power engines) vapor lock is a factor. The solution is premium car gas without ethanol, readily available at most gas stations.

Also even a TB9 has tanks big enough to make jerrycans completely impractical (unless you are built like Geoff Capes) so a fixed pump installation is a must.

With Spain’s big UL scene I’m sure there is some MOGAS infrastructure present.

The Socata TB cockpit stands out in GA for its user-friendliness and great all around visibility.

Same as any other entry level SEP in my opinion. What it stands out for is double gullwing doors, that is unique.

I would just start with a TB10, due to much better range and performance.

The TB10 is the lesser performing sample in the fixed gear 180hp category due to the bigger cabin = more drag.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

As an example, an airplane which really surprised me was the old and venable original Cherokee 180 with the “hershey bar” wings.

Cessna’s Reims Rocket is also a fairly powerful airplane with 180 HP. And I’d also call the Grummann Tiger a fairly well powered airplane, doing 140 kts with fixed gear and prop is quite remarkable.

And I’d recall the M20C and E’s which also have quite a lovely runway performance and of course speed for the power provided.

Add a 160-180hp Robin (such as – you guessed it – my favorite the 253) to that list and the OP will have a good choice of very suitable, not complex (except the Mooney), performant and relatively affordable aircraft to choose from.