Come on Michael, you know very well that nobody needs A&Ps and IAs, it’s just a money making scheme…
There was this Mexican criminal that bought a Lear 24D from the museum of Altenrhein in Switzerland and flew it with a fake German registration without having a pilot license or a CofA or maintenance for quite some time until he mad a mistake with managing the fuel tanks. The guy was even advertising flights on a pilot forum and posting his trip logs on Youtube. So that proves that if you get the engine started, the plane is fine 
The guy only got a 10 month sentence.
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20120915-0
That’s even more “mojo” and “can do attitude” than Adam…
achimha wrote:
Come on Michael, you know very well that nobody needs A&Ps and IAs, it’s just a money making scheme…
Yeah, no argument about that, but fuel seems to be a requirement, nonetheless.
achimha wrote:
That is less than what you pay per year to fix non working cockpit lights. You would spend less money per year buying a significantly more expensive jet built post year 2000. A Citation from 1978 will give you huge maintenance bills and a lot of AOG. The engines will be fine but the avionics and the empennage will give you a lot of trouble.
I have to take your word for it as personally I have no experience with airframes of that size. I only have one acquaintance who flies an even older Citation 501 single pilot and he told me a few years back that he is more than happy with it and has very few issues. He is not flying it much (maybe 150 hrs per year) but sais he would not change it for anything.
What I like about this particular combination of airframe/engine is the versatility. It can do 2000 NM when necessary and it can do half of that with ease and in about 2.5 hours and quite a bit of payload. With the F44’s the consumption is a lot less than with the original engines too. The performance is really not bad:
Cruises FL370 with 383KTAS using 120GAL/800Ibs/h total.
Cruises FL410 with 375KTAS using 112GAL/750Ibs/h total.
Cruises FL430 with 364KTAS using 96GAL/640Ibs/h total.
Now: Would I spend some 3 million for a much more expensive jet or buy this one for the advertized 800k $ and use the rest to fly it, if I had this budget?
Same discussion we’ve had over other older airframes vs new and shiny. Do I buy a 50k vintage Mooney or a recent SR22 if I have the budget to buy both outright. My answer would still be the same: buy for half your budget and use the rest to fly the airplane.
BTW, I was told as well that maintenance would eat up my savings from my 52 year old plane, well, it has not happened so far and hopefully it won’t in the future. Not once have I had a maintenance bill which went over normal expense and there are no recurring 10k repacks e.t.c. either.
But anyhow, as I said, it’s my Euromillion pipe dream…. and then money does not matter that much anymore :)
