In the spirit of @UdoR’s recent thread on first year of ownership, I thought I’d share a rather different experience after almost a year with the TB-10 I purchased in Romania last February. Unlike his purchase, I bought an airplane I knew would need some work to get it where I wanted it to be. While I would have preferred to buy something that was a perfect fit, I found my requirements just could not be met with anything on the market. I wanted a TB-10 with five seats, an autopilot, low airframe & engine hours, equipped for IFR (incl WAAS GPS, mode S, 2x 8,33 radios, and slaved compass or glass), and with nice paint and interior. I realised quickly I’d have to compromise and address deficiencies, so I tried to focus on just the areas that would be difficult or impossible to address later.
After a long search I found YR-MAY, a five-seat 1980 TB with 5-year-old overhaul on engine and prop (only 350 hours on both), about 2000 airframe hours, a non-functional Century IIB, mode S, one 8,33 radio, and a King slaved compass + HSI. Cosmetically pretty rough and definitely a few squawks to deal with, but the inspection showed no big gotchas. I flew to Romania, paid the 61k, and flew immediately to Straubing to have them overhaul the autopilot. That cost only €700, after which I had a perfectly functioning autopilot!
Airplane at Straubing:
However, on that first leg and the next one home to Rotterdam I immediately found a few new issues:
I had already planned installation of a refurbished GNS530W I purchased from Sarasota Avionics in the US plus a Garmin FlightStream 210, and had arranged for a shop in NL to do this work plus my known list of squawks. With the engine misfiring and bad shimmy I arranged to take it to them immediately rather than keep flying. This resulted in a series of shop visits over the following months, during which I had the following items addressed:
Total parts for the above work came to just over 2k, most of which was the lighting and beacon, and labor was 5k. About half of that was expected from the inspection and the other half was a surprise. The GNS530W cost me €8500 (including shipping and import duty), the FS210 €900, and installation plus cleaning up the old panel was 7k.
So far:
Purchase price 61.000
Parts 2.700
Non-avionics labor 5.000
Avionics 9.400
Avionics installation 7.000
Total: 85.000
Panel before:
Panel after:
At that point I had a pretty capable NVFR + IFR airplane, which I flew like that for quite a while and on a number of long trips. I also used it to complete my FAA IR conversion. But it still looked ugly, so time for phase two. After shopping around quite a bit, I settled on Termikas in LT to do the refurbishment. This was based on their reputation for very high quality and attention to detail. They completely disassemble, strip, and repair or replace every piece of the airplane, apply new corrosion protection, and of course paint and completely new interior. A visit to their shop showed that they have a real craftsman approach to the job, so I signed a contract and delivered the airplane in September.
The original quote for the work was 26k plus parts and additional labor for unknown defects. We also decided to replace the aging KMA20 audio panel and install a new GMA345, parts 2.200 and labor 2.800. During the disassembly and inspection they discovered a large number of broken or loose rivets (6000 in total), which added 2 months and 11k to the price. Additional airframe parts + new bolts/washers + alochrom treatment + new vacuum pump resulted in another 10k in parts and labor. We also had nearly two months delay due to a bout of COVID in the shop that stopped a lot of work.
Refurbishment:
Paint + interior 26.000
Audio panel 5.000
Rivets 11.000
Other parts + defects 10.000
Total: 52.000
Airplane state as of a couple weeks ago:
The airplane should be done in the next couple months, in time for spring weather. The project has taken much longer than I expected, due to the extra riveting work and COVID delays, but honestly the weather in LT would have probably prevented even an IFR departure without a lot of luck. It also cost 21k more than expected, which isn’t a great surprise. But I’m glad to have taken this road, because the quality standard is very high, and we will have a like-new airplane for 137k total invested. The only remaining projects would be an engine monitor and eventually replacing the AI & HSI with something glass.
Obviously this route isn’t for everyone. I could have flown the airplane day VFR as-is with only minor investment. I’m quite sure the “defects” found would be present on most 40-year-old airplanes, and it feels a bit like we’ve reset the clock back to zero with this refurbishment. I am under no delusion that the “investment” would pay off in resale, but I am very happy and looking forward to many years of flying an airplane that I know is in great shape. I’ll update the post when I have more pics of the progress!
Not sure (Peter correct me), but most EuroGAs are owners… and as such we love stories such as yours and others. There is also always something to learn, thanks for sharing.
That TB-10’s gonna be the nicest flying around EU for sure, all the best
@dutch_flyer really appreciate the OP and that looks a very nice TB10. Might you give more background on the rivets needing replacement? I hadn’t come across this gotcha before, and loose rivets are normally associated with stress events. You do have people needing to replace rivets because they have been ‘polishing’ the paint to the point of making the rivets un airworthy, but 6000 rivets sounds like a new airframe.
RobertL18C wrote:
@dutch_flyer really appreciate the OP and that looks a very nice TB10. Might you give more background on the rivets needing replacement? I hadn’t come across this gotcha before, and loose rivets are normally associated with stress events. You do have people needing to replace rivets because they have been ‘polishing’ the paint to the point of making the rivets un airworthy, but 6000 rivets sounds like a new airframe.
Yes I thought so as well at first, but actually 6000 is a fraction of the total rivets. I forget the total, which I researched when I first got this surprise, but it’s a staggeringly large number. Having said that, my experience with this shop is that they have an extremely high standard (one might call them perfectionists), and in reality it was probably unnecessary to replace so many. But in the end I decided to accept the high standard and just trust their assessment. I want the airframe in as close to factory new condition as possible, and I was willing to err on the side of doing unnecessary work to achieve that. Like I said in my post, I’m pretty sure the beat-up P28A I’m flying at the club in the meantime would have a similar defect list if taken to this shop.
Great post, thank you for the details.
Do you have a pic of th 3-seat back row ?
Why did you remove the 2nd CDI and kept the ADF ? I am curious.
Jujupilote wrote:
Do you have a pic of th 3-seat back row ?
Here you go:
Jujupilote wrote:
Why did you remove the 2nd CDI and kept the ADF ? I am curious.
I don’t actually have a second nav, and at the time I needed the ADF for my IR conversion. Of course just before the skill test they removed all the NDBs in NL, so I could have pulled it out. I do still have the CDI in case I want to use it for something else later, but most likely I will get an EHSI with multiple source input before adding the second one.
Great post! I really like the transparency. Glad to hear that you are still positive about your airplane purchase.
More of these stories would be great. I am currently “betweens aircraft” and looking forward to my next one.
Fly310 wrote:
Great post! I really like the transparency. Glad to hear that you are still positive about your airplane purchase.
More of these stories would be great.
Thanks! I really like these stories as well, so decided to share my own in the hopes that others would do the same. The transparency helps other owners and potential owners, especially in knowing how to be realistic in expectations. I have spent way more than I expected on this project, but I’ve learned a lot in the process. But I’m now convinced that spending much less would not be possible to achieve the result I want. So in that sense I am satisfied. Having said that, I currently own a lot of expensive and unassembled parts, so the story is yet unfinished!
Thank you dutch_flyer, very comprehensive. It will be the nicest TB10 since they stopped making new ones (and maybe better)
dutch_flyer wrote:
During the disassembly and inspection they discovered a large number of broken or loose rivets (6000 in total), which added 2 months and 11k to the price
Such findings are the reason why I did not want to start to make any upgrade or conversion on my panel. It may just turn into an open wormhole labelled: “just place money here”.
But I absolutely believe that you will see your return of investmest, in terms of using an aircraft refurbished to practically new standard. Thanks for sharing all this!