Sebastian_G wrote:
A few years ago we had the same choice. We choose to buy a pre owned Meridian and sold our Mirage. In the end it was just way cheaper. You can pick up a nice pre owned turbine plane at slightly more than the price of the conversion alone.
That is a good way of rationalising it Sebastian G. And you are right, I would be flying it only 100 to 200 hours a year max.
I have noticed that the ones for sale in the US do have well used engines. Our American pilot cousins who have these kind of aircraft tend to fly many multiples of our typical hours. While I am perfectly comfortable picking up one with a used turbine, for some reason I wouldn’t feel comfortable with only 1,000 hrs to go til overhaul, which I think is a $250k job.
Malibuflyer wrote:
If the upgrade you “forgot” is a 700k jetport conversion, somebody might ask questions ;-)
Maybe in Germany 
Buckerfan wrote:
That is a good way of rationalising it Sebastian G. And you are right, I would be flying it only 100 to 200 hours a year max..
But Meridian is subjected to Eurocontrol routing fees, in general it’s less efficient than JetProp and you can’t lend it on grass.
Our American pilot cousins who have these kind of aircraft tend to fly many multiples of our typical hours.
On other forum one American pilot was complaining about not flying sufficient to feel current in Cirrus with 200 flight hours a year.
Emir,
I would definitely not get the Meridian. It has to be a Jetprop to handle my 750 m grass strip. And I refuse to pay route charges, Another thing, in Switzerland where I fly often (Sion LSGS), landing fees go from expensive to truly ridiculous above 2 tonnes. They have a philosophy that “light aviation” needs to be helped.
It is really hard to do a prebuy in a country far away.
You basically can’t. You have to go there and hang around for a while, with your engineer, and you go looking at different planes on a pre-arranged schedule. That is how I sold my Toyota Soarer… a bunch of young guys from France travelled to the UK and checked out a load of them, buying up the better ones. They wanted them for something called drifting I noted some YT videos from them doing 150mph down narrow French country roads.
It’s going to cost you thousands, and you may walk away from every one. In practice however you won’t walk away, and this has led to lots of disaster stories (most will have never been posted) and not only with plane buying but also avionics shop choosing…
You will want the grass strip to be very good Don’t let somebody with a 421C, with its 2cm wide wheels, land there 
Peter wrote:
You will want the grass strip to be very good
Fly in and find out for yourself. Smooth as a billiard table, well almost!
Paul
Fly in and find out for yourself. Smooth as a billiard table, well almost!
Just to think out of the box. How mouch would it cost to put a band of tarmac on your home runway?
Buckerfan wrote:
While I am perfectly comfortable picking up one with a used turbine, for some reason I wouldn’t feel comfortable with only 1,000 hrs to go til overhaul, which I think is a $250k job.
There are different ways to look at it. If you ingest a patch of gras it might feel better doing so into an engine shortly done for overhaul anyway ;-) Gordon Murray once said how much he did enjoy his McLaren F1. Then they got more and more valuable and now they are well into 8 digits and he no longer enjoys diving it properly.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Why would he need an outbound value stated if the plane after the modification is transferred back to the UK? The value of the processing and hence the amount that is subject to tax is the price he pays for the conversion.
Because customs may dispute that on the basis that the entire plane is now worth much more than before and try to charge you VAT on the entire airplane. Btw, I’m not sure the term is still used in a customs context, but in German it was called ‘Veredelung’ and it could really trip you up. Don’t ask me how I know….
Sebastian_G wrote:
Just to think out of the box. How mouch would it cost to put a band of tarmac on your home runway
Sadly, not allowed under the planning permission we have for the grass strip. We did get permission for “an emergency stopping zone” of 120m of tarmac at the lower, east, end of the runway, which acts as an excellent way to get the plane accelerated before it gets to the grass. I can get the Mirage to 40kts plus in that zone (and my Piper Cub into the air!)
