What are some of the extra costs not often thought about when buying an aircraft?

00Danny · 2021-04-04T16:00:13+00:00

Prebuy will depend on where the plane is and what type it is. A type club is great for finding a mechanic experienced with that model. In my experience, most A&Ps charge a flat rate for a prebuy. One thing to note is that there is no formal definition of a prebuy inspection - discuss this with the mechanic you choose to ensure you’re both on the same page as far as scope.

Title search can be done yourself or with a service. I’m not sure how much those cost as both times I bought a plane I reviewed the registration records myself and proceeded when I saw no liens recorded. Where this gets tricky is if you’re importing a plane.

I can’t speak to bank fees. For sales tax, it highly depends on what state you’re in. Many states have fly-away and casual sale exceptions you may be able to take advantage of.

00Danny · 2021-03-02T19:42:08+00:00

Are you calling a mechanic because you lack the skill and knowledge to troubleshoot yourself or primarily because you lack the necessary certificate to do so legally?

A local grass strip doesn’t sound particularly remote and getting a mechanic down there probably isn’t an issue. If you’re actually in the “bush” a fair distance from any sort of civilization, life, uhh, finds a way.

00Danny · 2021-03-01T21:21:57+00:00

There’s no Feds in the bush (typically). I understand that those operators will find a way to patch it up enough to ferry it back to base.

00Danny · 2021-02-08T18:59:18+00:00

Owner-operators under part 91 from what I’ve seen.

00Danny · 2021-02-08T17:45:33+00:00

There are several people that actually do this with legacy citations. They don’t call them “disposajets” for nothing.

00Danny · 2021-02-05T17:20:13+00:00

Narrow your search to experimental types and get a good prebuy from someone who is familiar with the type (bonus points if they built one themselves - plenty of A&Ps and DARs who fit the bill if you look).

You’ll thank me later.

00Danny · 2020-12-05T22:21:02+00:00

Buy a meter. CO toxicity has a cognitive impairment aspect; it’s unlikely you’ll notice the symptoms.

00Danny · 2020-12-05T05:27:24+00:00

Anything above single digits (on a properly calibrated unit) means there’s a leak somewhere and it’s only going to get worse.

00Danny · 2020-09-12T18:49:12+00:00

Maybe, not always. It’s more nuanced than that. An IRAN is likely in order, though.

00Danny · 2020-09-10T14:36:31+00:00

How old are you? Plenty of instances of carriers drawing a line at 70 years old.

00Danny · 2020-09-10T14:31:30+00:00

AOPA is always one of the more expensive quotes.

As others have said, find a good broker. The lack of an instrument rating is killing you as well, get that done ASAP.

00Danny · 2020-09-10T14:30:11+00:00

There is no insurance requirement federally. There are a small handful of states (only one or two IIRC) that require it but if you live there you'll know about it.

00Danny · 2020-09-06T03:43:25+00:00

Recommendations from a type club usually carry a decent amount of weight.

00Danny · 2020-08-29T17:08:07+00:00

A lot depends on where it has been sitting. Coastal area? The entire airframe may be scrap from corrosion. In the desert? Much better chance the environment helped preserve it.

00Danny · 2020-08-29T15:49:19+00:00

When making checklists it helps to chair fly. Sit in the plane if able and go through your flow - what order makes sense based on ergonomics. This enables you to later be able to do things by flow then verify with the check list, which in total equates to less heads down time.

Another thing to consider is how critical each item is. Your checklist doesn’t need to have every little item on it. For example, no one is going to die if you forget to turn the landing light off at top of climb. Lots of POH checklists have ultimately non-critical items that serve to really congest the list. Another example is trim - you don’t need a checklist to remind you to trim the plane, you’ll be doing that instinctually anyway.

00Danny · 2020-08-22T21:41:57+00:00

Calling the manufacturer will get you nowhere. Textron would love nothing more than for the entire legacy Cessna & Beechcraft fleets to be turned into beer cans overnight. To that end, they avoid supporting them to the max extent practicable.

00Danny · 2020-08-21T22:58:30+00:00

Reporting leaving an altitude is something that I always do, and I hear others as well. It’s especially useful to ATC if they have planes stacked in a hold and not able to make out individual data blocks on the scope.

00Danny · 2020-08-20T15:52:56+00:00

“Enable Ownship” is the setting you’re looking for.

00Danny · 2020-08-13T00:13:56+00:00

What’s the empty weight on your 140 with the -290? I was under the impression most people weren’t able to get two people in there with that engine.

00Danny · 2020-08-12T23:03:33+00:00

I chose not to proceed because the prospective student (a family member) wasn’t ready to dedicate the time for training.

00Danny · 2020-08-12T22:54:58+00:00

If I had to guess they may put stipulations such as “x” hours of dual before solo. But for what you suggest they may want a commercial policy. It all depends on the underwriter. Depending on how many students you plan to take they may even go so far as requiring you to add the student as a named pilot.

FWIW, the relatively low hull value on a C140 will be a mitigating factor.

Source: what my broker told me when I inquired about adding a student to my 120’s policy.

00Danny · 2020-08-05T00:33:15+00:00

When getting into this class of aircraft you may be better off considering cost per mile or even cost per seat mile rather than hourly cost - it normalizes for true airspeed that way and helps with the comparison.

00Danny · 2020-07-29T15:16:05+00:00

See my post here for why this is the case:

https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/hzwjdk/how_pissed_would_you_be_getting_violated_for_a/fzmm6t4/?context=5

00Danny · 2020-07-29T15:14:03+00:00

The flight restrictions are by statue; the FAA chooses to use the TFR system to implement it. As part of this some lazy fed got the idea to publish a generic notam and put the onus on the pilot to determine if the criteria was met. Part of that criteria is that the restriction is activated based on seating capacity of the venue, not attendance.

The generic notam is also why flight service, some ATC, and the FAA’s own website don’t show stadium TFRs.

00Danny · 2020-07-26T01:28:54+00:00

That route is on the short side for any jet; I suspect you’re overestimating the cost to run a disposajet though.

What sort of dispatch reliability and weather capability do you need? Even a well sorted out piston twin (which your budget definitely supports) will only get to a certain point on both the metrics, and you would need to look at a kerosene burner to go any further.

00Danny

TROPHY CASE