My friend has an N-reg Piper PA22-108 that hasn’t flown in years. It would be a good cheap project, as the fabric was good on it. The Colt is much more than a J3:
Electrics, starter, parking brake, baggage space, 35mph faster, vac system if you had to fly in bad weather.
There is an art in buying a good low-value aeroplane.
Taxiing out from a lunch stop on Sunday, I saw a PA22 Colt and remarked to my wife that it seems to me they’re so ugly they’re cute. She agreed 
The Colt has always been a lot of plane for the money. They fly OK too. It used to be you could a decent one for $13K but I think its up to $20K or so now complete with bulletproof O-235 engine.
There is for sure an art to getting value in a plane that costs say under $50K. Avoiding anything with a well publicized glamourous image is a good place to start.
The Rallye and its ilk mentioned above might be another good choice in Europe.
Fairly interesting looking at C150 prices…. those planes really do hold their value.
On the other hand, I came across this:
https://www.planecheck.com?ent=da&id=54309
planecheck_D_EFVB_54309_pdf
30k for a pretty clean F-172. Not a lot of details but it looks well kept. Needs “some work” for ARC, question is what.
172’s are quite sought after, not quite like the 150ties which fetch crazy prices in the trainer market, but still…. maybe worth a look.
Let me translate GA to English.
63.000 landings + „needs some work for ARC“ = this thing is junk metal.
Exactly. Lived on the German North Sea islands for many years…
We have 5362 signups so far so I expect 5362-26 aircraft recommendations But actually 1875 have posted so it will be 1875-26.
Running cost of a C150 (certified) vs. an uncertified plane is a factor of 2, maybe 3, acc. to my gut feeling. I have access to a nice 150 and incl. maintenance it costs 5k in a good year and 10k in a bad (hangar excluded!).
That’s mainly due to factors unrelated to the aircraft and unrelated to the fact that it is certified. It is high because it is a pile of junk, with decades of neglect, and because regulatory politics drive the owner to a maintenance company instead of DIY. But if you cannot do DIY then all similar planes will cost similarly because the required maintenance actions will be similar.
I can’t make a recommendation to the OP from personal experience but clearly he is looking for something small because that is the only way to get running costs way down. Fuel dominates and fuel burn scales with cockpit volume. My TB20 does similar MPG to a PA28 despite having vastly greater capability. A C152 or some such would do the job but all available ones will be either junk or will be rebuilt ones which will cost you a fortune because they are ok for PPL training and being hammered into the runway all day.
Given the mission and the pilot/owner, I would stay clear of any certified type.
The recommendations above show the bias-toward-certified of this forum.
Peter wrote:
That’s mainly due to factors unrelated to the aircraft and unrelated to the fact that it is certified. It is high because it is a pile of junk, with decades of neglect
Yes, but for half the price of a 150 you can find a experimental or UL that is much newer, designed to burn mogas and won’t need the same amount of TLC.
IO390’s Europa comes to mind
I’ve never flown an MCR-01, but do know of one accident not in Snoopy’s list, F-PIUT BEA report. A fair summary would be:
To which I would add:
Otherwise it has a good reputation.
I had my most expensive year for maintenance ever last year…. Maintaining my 50 year old certified plane must have cost over $2K, including $1400 labor on some projects. in conjunction with the annual inspection. The rest was parts.
This is the plane bought for $35K in 2010, replacing a substantially less expensive and quite beautiful certified plane that was eventually sold for what I’d originally paid 17 years before. That one despite having cost only $22K would have been too nice for on topic commuting duty. I had both of them for 9 years.
Doing things right while spending only what’s necessary and proper is what I like to do, for various reasons having to do with the most effective use of my money. Using your head, learning and meeting the right people is more important than the certification status or age of the plane, and I believe that to be true even in massively, painfully and ineffectively over regulated Europe.
Storage however cost $5300 last year, including room for the plane, a car, five motorcycles and a workshop to maintain them and a few others. I love my hangar
