I don’t think everybody with tons of money would buy a pressurised TP or a jet. Regardless of funding, you have to get a plane which fits the mission profile. That may mean compromising, or buying two or even three planes.
Snoopy wrote:
Any experience is valuable but if you want to reach a ski destination from cyprus and offer comfort to your family a single engine piston will disappoint you or get you killed (alps, imc, icing, no instrument approach).
I’m not going to reach a skiing destination with my family in a single-engine piston. I mentioned flying to skiing destinations only as a kind of missions that I saw as one of my ultimate goals. And I understand that I need a very capable plane and a lot of experience to achieve it safely and with comfort.
Snoopy wrote:
The bottom line – and the truth – here is that everybody who could afford (I mean really afford, not scraping together kind of afford) would buy a TBM, Piper M600 or Pilatus tomorrow and invest the money and time straight into mastering to fly one of those safely and with confidence.
I wouldn’t say for everybody. For me, it looks like a crazy decision for zero-time PPL.
Snoopy wrote:
Flying around in a Cessna in cyprus will be a lot of fun but after 10 hours you will be bored and realize it is not what you want. For your mission (overwater, family comfort, dispatch reliability and far away destinations) you need range, power and pressurization.
I realise that flying only in Cyprus will become boring very soon. However, this does not mean that I need range, power and pressurisation straightaway. Between flying just locally in Cyprus and flying to skiing destinations with family and high dispatch reliability, there must be something in between, right?
WhiskeyPapa wrote:
One problem with Cyprus is that for even routine VFR flights to anyplace else, you are going to want to be comfortable on instruments. That’s because over water and out of sight of land, you can quickly lose a discernible horizon. Thrown in some mist or rain and you have de facto IMC.
I’m going to practice more flying under the hood with my instructor. And then to fly with him to Beirut (BEY), as he suggested. And then do it myself. Then probably fly with him to one of the Greek islands (LGST?) and then myself there. I also plan to get VFR night rating here.
WhiskeyPapa wrote:
I would consider learning to fly in two places (Cyprus and some place else easy to reach) and maybe base the plane there until I had an instrument rating.
Let’s see. This place must be very convenient for me to travel to it. I’m afraid I would get less flying this way (I can sometimes fly locally in Cyprus if I have my plane in Cyprus, LCPH is 30 minutes drive from my home). I could get two planes parked in different places, but this might be too much hassle related to plane ownership.
LeSving wrote:
Explore Cyprus from the air, thoroughly. Just learn to fly on your own, learn to master every situation, be comfortable in the airplane as PIC. Fly in good weather, fly in bad weather, nail every cross wind landing etc. Find every little strip and try them all. Cyprus isn’t that small, is it? I have only been there once
Unfortunately, it is quite small for flying. And there are no little strips. We have two international airports: Larnaca and Paphos. And that’s all where we can land. The airspace is quite limited too: LCLK and LCPH control zones + a few training zones (practically 3 of them) + one night VFR route between LCLK and LCPH. The rest is a prohibited area.
Valentin wrote:
However, this does not mean that I need range, power and pressurisation straightaway.
P210 with weather radar.
There are direct flights from both Paphos and Larnaca to Chania (Crete). Wrong end of the island, but it would be a way to get to Sitia to meet EUROGA folk.
Crete might be a better place than Cyprus to base your plane (perhaps get permission at Chania?). Crete is MUCH closer in SEP terms to the rest of Europe and offers delightful island hopping opportunities to the mainland. Also, Heraklion is friendly to SEP and not wildly expensive.
I would get my license first, or at least get to solo, before buying a plane. I agree that instrument training is best done in your plane. Not so sure about primary training though!
Sitia LGST is a 3hr bus ride from Iraklion LGIR and probably another 3hrs from Hania LGSA. I have driven that route. A long winding road, packed with tourist buses and tourists going slowly 
We once got so frustrated we stopped overnight, in a weird hotel where everybody looked like they were brainwashed, never left the hotel, and all were wearing coloured plastic bands on their wrists
IMHO having to take such transport to where your plane is based is a recipe for driving yourself around the bend and giving up pretty soon. I have known a number of pilots who used to do this sort of thing and most of them packed up. A thread on how far people travel is here. At a certain level of frustration, people just throw in the towel.
A huge advantage of GA is not having to queue at the cattle market at airline airports. If you have to fly by airline to fly GA, that just finishes it.
Also there is no hangarage anywhere. It’s same on the Croatian islands. A nice business opportunity missed. A plane left there will just rot. There is a lovely TB20GT rotting in the sea spray on Chios, AFAIK. A pressurised hull is at least sealed and exposed jet engine parts are made of heat resistant alloys which corrode very slowly so with TPs and jets this doesn’t matter as much, but a piston plane will just turn into the sort of wreck which you see abandoned all over southern Europe, notably some Spanish airports.
I think, given Valentin’s mutually exclusive constraints and the specific environment where he is based, he should buy a nice SEP and make the best of it. Given that so many used planes are cans of worms (and some prebuy inspections turn out to have been dodgy; I have quite a few examples in my mailbox; this is a big problem to a newbie in the ownership game) he should buy a brand new plane with a warranty and a decent range. Sitia and Ionina have avgas and customs and from there he can travel anywhere else quite nicely.
WhiskeyPapa wrote:
I would get my license first, or at least get to solo, before buying a plane. I agree that instrument training is best done in your plane. Not so sure about primary training though!
I’m very close to my skill test. I hope to pass it before mid of August when I leave for vacations with my family. I’m not going to buy any plane before the skill test in any case for it needs time and I don’t want to lose continuity in my training.
Wrong link! Wanted to refer to Peter’s fly in suggestion.
[fixed ]
Good plan. You are in a great position and whatever you elect to do will be a wonderful adventure. Go to different manufacturers and try out different planes. Buy the one you feel best about and go with your gut.
All the best for the skill test and have a nice vacation ;)
