Help With Buying

I would recommend a quick read through the various “what plane should I buy” threads we have had here; the most recent one being this one.

This is because while everybody will recommend the plane they own (and usually love) regardless of whether it will do what you want there are always useful bits of hard-learnt wisdom in those threads. EuroGA has many very experienced aircraft owners posting on it.

You can certainly get an IFR aircraft which can fly your 450nm plus reserves i.e. about 700nm to zero fuel for under €70k, but it will be an old one, perhaps 30 years old, and you will struggle to get the other bit: “relatively cheap to run and maintain” when buying in that age group.

Don’t understimate how common downtime is and how much of a corrosive effect it has on your flying. In the fly-in we have just had (Copenhagen) something like 1/3 cancelled due to “tech” issues. Most of them did’t get posted but basically there are widespread problems in GA with being able to keep a plane “on the road”. People struggle with their engineers, their maintenance companies, sourcing parts, finding somewhere to do the work which escapes the airfield politics, the list goes on…

If you asked me I would recommend a TB20 (because I have one and love it ) and you can get one for €70k but it will be ~25 years old so you will need a damn good prebuy inspection. I wrote up some notes on mine here and it is worth a quick read for pointers to buying any other aircraft type.

Keep a spare 20k or so for “surprises”. If you have 70k and you buy a plane for 70k, it will PROB99 be a disaster.

It’s a pity all the planecheck advert URLs go dead pretty quick…

I like the look of this but have heard mostly bad things about the Arrow IV

I don’t know who told you what bad things about the Arrow but from your list above this is the one I would choose. The avionics is good to go all over Europe for years to come, the plane looks nice inside and out and unless there is some hidden quirk the price seems right.
And BTW: I have never heard anything bad about the Turbo Arrow.

Peter wrote:

People struggle with their engineers, their maintenance companies, sourcing parts, finding somewhere to do the work which escapes the airfield politics, the list goes on…

This, in itself, is a very good topic to develop.

The only negative point I have found so far is that the Arrow IV has a longer takeoff run than the Arrow III.

what_next wrote:

I have never heard anything bad about the Turbo Arrow.

Then you havent spoken to any long term owners.

The main concern with Turbo Arrows is the un-controlled turbo + Conti 360 which is already well known as a somewhat problematic engine.

A clue to this is one of the lowest TBOs in GA: 1400H for the TSIO-360 .

That said, there are some very good bargains for these – EXACTLY for the same reasons

Peter warned well on the downtime. It’s often not major things that make you consider delaying a flight. Relatively minor things can too. Old planes, even when properly maintained by the prior owner and by you require constant attention.

I spent a lot of time and effort (greatest costs in labor) addressing a minor oil leak. I think it’s fixed, but there can be real issues scheduling a competent engineer to troubleshoot and fix these things. Now I have a tiny leak of 100LL (not enough to affect consumption calculations, but somehow smelling up the cockpit some of the time). Because I am a maintenance perfectionist, come hell or high water, I’m gonna get it fixed (wing removal to get at the tank). This is partly because I do stretches over water with the family on long VFR trips.

I’m also removing an inoperable ADF and stone age GPS, putting in 8.33 radios, new audio panel, G5, etc. I had to address struts after some vigorous landings in Greek Island crosswinds. I recently changed the tires. And all this is in a plane that was taken care of by an airline pilot/training captain before me, also a maintenance perfectionist.

Practically everything I have described could have been ignored & the plane would still be legal to fly. The reality is that many planes for sale have been neglected so you need to have someone do a serious pre buy. Even a good condition plane is going to require some investment after purchase. If your budget is 70K, my advice would be not to spend more than 50K at the outset.

I find you have to spend more time waiting for a qualified engineer to get to your plane, than for the work to get done. Often the troubleshooting identifies an issue which requires a part (maybe not even that expensive), so you wait for the part and for your turn for the engineer to come around again.

I suspect that as soon as I get mine well and truly sorted, I’ll sell it to some lucky bastard, upgrade to an IFR retractable and start the stupid cycle all over again! I’d really like to buy from someone like me.

zuutroy wrote:

Another tick in the Mooney column is that the J and earlier seem to run on relatively simple systems.

That may be true, but the Mooney you posted has crap avionics.

Don’t be fooled by the BIG SCREEN portable GPS – it’s cheap and not certified for IFR.

@zuutroy
I don’t want to frighten you off. Plane ownership is FANTASTIC! I do a lot with a stone simple VFR plane. But for the experience to be enjoyable, it has to be affordable. I think some people get trapped by buying more capability than they can truly afford to maintain. I would rather have a (relatively) cheap VFR plane in the air over Sicily or Naxos than an Bonanza, Mooney or TB20 in the shop.

Of course, a well sorted TB20 over Naxos or Paros is perhaps even cooler (certainly less tiring to get there).

My plane was born in 1974, so it’s gratifying to hear “is it new?” on landing.