PPL Flight Test -- PASSED!!

[aplund]

As a person working full time at a career as a professional, would you have the time or the skills to tackle the hours of owner-maintenance required for a RA-AUS aircraft? Many/most? of the owners of ultra-light aircraft are retired or semi-retired tradies with a solid background of workshop experience from their working lives, which equips them very well for keeping their aircraft maintained and flying.

Thanks for the info.

 

I'm not sure if it's just me, but my brain hurt for the week leading up and a couple of weeks after the test.

 

I clearly need to talk to people, I understand that.

 

I guess I wasn't looking at exclusive owner-maintenance nor exclusive ownership. I'm just trying to figure out the picture in my head involving my decisions and where I fit into the bigger picture. Answering these questions will take some time. I'm really trying to keep an open mind for the long term. Though in the short term, I think my options are pretty clear (or maybe the better word is limited).

 

 

[Possum1]

... in the short term, I think my options are pretty clear (or maybe the better word is limited).

Yes, they are limited for the moment.

 

You will be doing recreational flights and trying to share your costs with your passengers in the short term. If you go to places like Straddie, you will be limited by the number of passengers you can safely carry. On a windy day, you will need performance+ to climb out through the wind-shear and you won't have this if you are in any way heavy. I would recommend only 2 POB and reduced fuel to begin with. If you didn't scare yourself too much with this, then try 3 POB and reduced fuel. I do not recommend 4 POB in a 172, unless there is a 180HP engine at the front and you have reduced fuel. The Clifton fly-in on a hot day is another similar problem to this but without the terrain to worry about.

 

Long term, you should look for tax deductibility for your flights and equity in a property to use to buy a plane along the lines of my comments I made to you on another forum on this topic or find the extra income required from somewhere else.

 

A rule of thumb for GA is if you are flying 70 hours or more per year, you should be buying, not renting. We do 60-70 hours most years.

 

 

[Pearo]

A rule of thumb for GA is if you are flying 70 hours or more per year, you should be buying, not renting. We do 60-70 hours most years.

How do you come up with that figure? If I want a half decent IFR capable 4 seater (would prefer 6) I cant make the sums add up.

 

 

[aplund]

Long term, you should look for tax deductibility for your flights and equity in a property to use to buy a plane along the lines of my comments I made to you on another forum on this topic or find the extra income required from somewhere else.

I had already added this to my list of things to investigate. There are another couple of possibilities through work that I had come up with that I'll need to ask an accountant about.

 

A rule of thumb for GA is if you are flying 70 hours or more per year, you should be buying, not renting. We do 60-70 hours most years.

This will clearly depend strongly what capital and current costs are, which seem to vary and depend on many factors. But one thing I'm presuming is that when you say "we" you mean the hours done by the plane. If you have 5 people wanting to co-own, then you divide it up? Or are you thinking of a co-ownership arrangement with this statement.

 

 

[Possum1]

By "we," I meant my wife and I, so co-ownership. 70 hours is the very approximate point where you go past the point where the overheads, the annual check, repairs, parking/hangarage, insurance costs etc. equal the cost of renting, and for the remaining flights to the next annual, you are just pouring in fuel and paying landing fees. Remember for private operations under Schedule 5, you can exceed the 100 hours limit. Your insurance will also be much cheaper if just you are flying it.

 

I was prepared to scale down my aims, just to have a plane that I could use whenever I wanted to and not have to deal with a group or syndicate about who wants to use it and when, or the whines and whinges about who did the nose first landing and made the nose wheel shimmy!

 

My wife actually asked me what was the cheapest possible plane that I would be happy flying and would do what we wanted it to do. The answer is in my profile on this forum.

 

Pearo - I suppose you want a glass panel as well, perhaps an autopilot that actually works? A CSU that does not bust a seal and spray a fine mist of oil over the windscreen?

 

I want a half decent IFR capable 4 seater (would prefer 6)

You have to "cut one's coat according to one's cloth" when purchasing an aircraft. I am talking about entry-level GA. The simpler the plane, the cheaper it will be to operate. I would consider a "half decent IFR capable 4 seater (would prefer 6)" to be a doctor or surgeon's aircraft or someone on that sort of income. C210s and Bonanzas are even called "doctor-killers." A doctor I know used to own a C210 and saw it as unnecessary and too expensive to operate and scaled back to a C182, which he has been very happy with for the last 10 years or so.

 

Unless you are using those 4-6 seats on almost every flight, a bigger aircraft is a waste of money. I operated C182s and C182RGs and C206s as a commercial pilot. These were all great planes in their own way but I had a business to pay the bills to keep them flying. When I couldn't fill the 206, I scaled back to the 182s. All the extra bits cost extra money to maintain - the autopilot, the CSU, the IFR panel, retractable gear, the extra two cylinders in the engine, the extra seats...

 

 

[NT5224]

I'm gonna wade back in here.

 

I have two points to make.

 

Another handling difference I found between the c172 and the lighter J 400 (or similar plastic fantastic) is sensitivity in cross winds or turbulence. You feel every breath of breeze and every zephyr in a Jab, while the metal 172 is much more comfortable and stable to fly. So if you're planning on flying a jab across the inland in summer, you're either going to have to time legs to cooler morning and afternoon, or stick to over 5000 ft, otherwise the buffeting gets really hard. I personally find this much less of a problem in a heavier 172. Likewise I have found the heavier aircraft much less sensitive to crosswinds on takeoff and landing. It makes a difference.

 

My second point is this:

 

I reckon Possum1 has an awesome profile pic. That's REAL flying! ;)