NEW AIR PLANE- Model and Fuel options?

[Squall79]

I live in Istanbul Turkey, and I am about top get my PPL in a few weeks. Due to the very small number single piston engine A/C in Turkey, it is very difficult to rent, say, a C172 on a regular basis for local flights (let alone cross country or commuter flights).

Almost all of the exisiting ones belong to flight schools training students on their way to their CPL's, and they can barely address the needed hours for PIC and training flights of these students.

For these reasons, I decided to buy my own C172 with possibly a second shareholder.
Due to difficulty of bringing the plane from USA and dealing with JAA conversion issues which I hear may be costly and difficult, I am looking for models in Europe. What I found until now was it is possible to buy for 60000€ a nice N model with reasonable avionics, and a relatively recently overhauled engine and prop with little time on them.

I talked to one of the flight schools and they told me they could hire an aircraft I was to import for their students' PIC flights, and this seems logical to keep the cost of ownership down.

One problem we have in Turkey is that price of AVGAS is very high (around 2,6 USD per liter). Therefore I am also considering a plane with 1.7 diesel centurion, but with all the uncertainty regarding Thielert, and also problems I hear about the engines reliabilility, I am not sure ıf the economics in fuel consumption and cheaper JETA 1 will work with one of these earlier centurions.

A final option is MOGAS. MoGAS is much cheaper than AVGAS here, and a mogas STC would seem logical in Turkey. However,there are no planes currently with mogas STC here, and I do yet know the national aviation authority SHGM will behave when one tries to import a mogas stc plane to Turkey.

What would your suggestions be at this point? I have about 60000€ budget to buy a plane, and although it would proove very difficult for me, I would somehow try to dish out 90000€ for a centurion engined model if and only if the cost savings would be guaranteed and enough to justify the difference.

Many thanks in advance, I appreciate any help...

[vanHorck]

It sounds like you re working on a tight budget....
There is a very good and wise saying: If you have to ask what it costs you cannot afford it....

Why not start then after your ppl with a two seater (preferably on mogas), use that for a while and then find out what your missions realy are, rather than anticipate now what you will be doing and perhaps stretching your budget too far? remember any god owner always has the price of a new engine in reserve!

Good luck!

[IO540]

There are many mogas STCd planes in the USA, so in this case you could investigate what penalties there are (if any) in keeping an N-reg plane permanently in Turkey.

There are also UK CAA approvals for mogas for quite a long list of engines - the list is on their website somewhere. If this is feasible then the Turkish CAA might accept a UK CAA approval. However I know the Turks are strict; for example they implemented SB569A (Lycoming crankshaft life limit) literally and grounded everybody affected in Feb 2009.

Squall79 - email me your contact details as I know an experienced Turkish pilot who may be to help you.

[BackPacker]

I doubt whether you'd be able to find/buy a C172 with the Thielert conversion in any case. I think Cessna was very, very relieved that they did not yet deliver any to customers when Thielert went bankrupt. Diamond ended up with a whole lot of airframes, mostly DA-42s, ready for delivery except for the engine but they're now delivering these with their own Austro engine, and Robin (who delivered the DR-400 Ecoflyer) is in receivership right now. In all cases, getting spare parts for anything Thielert powered was impossible for a while, and is very expensive but at least possible right now.

I tend to agree with Bert. Buy a relatively cheap two-seater now, preferably one who is JAA certified (for instance with the Rotax 912S) to run on mogas. There's actually a few aircraft like that which would almost fit your budget. Just for reference, I have Flyer from March 2009 here, which has the roundup of all light aircraft for sale today. Included are, for instance:

AT-3 R100 Club, euro 67.000. (| www.at-3.com (http://www.at-3.com))
Aerostyle Breezer-C, euro 37.800 (Startseite (http://www.aerostyle-gmbh.de))
CSA SportCruiser, UKP 50.820 and up (Czech Sport Aircraft (http://www.czechsportaircraft.com/))
Dova DV-1 Skylark. Price unknown. (www.dovaaircraft.cz)
Evektor Sportstar RW, USD 105.000 (Welcome to Evektor - Aircraft Producer and Design & Engineering Company (http://www.evektor.cz))
Funk FK-9 MK IV, euro 51.685 or other Funk airplanes (FK Lightplanes (http://www.fk-lightplanes.com))
Issoire Aviation APM-20 Lionceau (www.issoireaviation.com)
Meteor Sky Arrow, USD 103.300 (SKY ARROW web site (http://www.skyarrow.com))
Rans S-7 Courier, USD 85.000 (default (http://www.rans.com))
Tecnam P2000 Sierra (various models; Tecnam (http://www.tecnam.com))

Of course, you would want to be very careful with renting these planes out for flight training - they are probably not as robust and long-lasting as a 172 or PA-28. But you could consider renting them out to post-PPL pilots who are hour building towards their CPL. With an appropriate checkout of course.

In any case, buy an aircraft that fills *your* needs. Not the need of the flight school who might want to rent the aircraft from you. If the flight school would be able to give you sufficient business for a price that would allow you to run your aircraft relatively cheaply, they would buy the aircraft themselves.

Oh, by the way, USD 2.60 for a liter of 100LL is by no means exceptional. I think the current price at my home base (Rotterdam) hovers around the 2.30-2.40 euro per liter right now.

[AN2 Driver]

Hi,

my 2 cents, as I have been investigating to find a plane for myself for quite some time. With your budget, you should however have some selection available, as long as you don't fix yourself on the one type you seem to learn how to fly on. Primarily, I'd have a close look at several key factors such as engine time remaining, prop time, avionic fit (what does it have and what do you really want) and maybe restrict your budget a bit for the purchase, as you'll need money to run it too, maybe to around 40-45 k. That way, if something untowards happens after you fly for a while, such as an engine rebuild, you'd still have the cash to do that. One rule of the thumb I once read sais, take your budget, cut it in half and that is what you should spend for an airplane, so you still have sufficient reserves. I'd think what you need to cover primarily is the cost of a new engine anytime you operate an aircraft, so in your case that would leave you within 30-50 k Euros.


Alone in Turkey a quick search would bring forth some interesting aircraft for someone who'd rather not go through the hassle of importing a plane, thereby saving quite some costs.

TB10 for 40k PlaneCheck Aircraft for Sale - New planes and price reductions (http://www.planecheck.com?ent=da&id=9397)

Looks nice, has a decent avionic fit and 0 hours since overhaul on both prop and engine.

Arrow for 52k PlaneCheck Aircraft for Sale - New planes and price reductions (http://www.planecheck.com?ent=da&id=10281)

Likewise, if you can stand the idea of foldable legs.

Both of those look pretty nice to me particularly since they have basically newly revised engines and props. I kept noticing that in recent months a lot of Turkish registered planes have come up for sale, if you can spare the hassle of importing, that alone might save you 10k or more.

If you look outside Turkey, you can find literally dozens of airplanes in this price range, basically the whole Piper Cherokee / PA28 range in various conditions and equipment.

A pretty nice variant in the C172 class are the Grumman AA5 series, either the Cheetah or Tiger, both of which have some aircraft in that range. The Cheetah can get a Mogas STC, but is already fairly tame in fuel consumption and quite a bit faster for the same money than a 150/160 hp Piper.

I have noticed that Piper's are generally much cheaper to be had than Cessnas, while having better range and payload, certainly in case of the PA28-180 / Archer vs the 172.

With the budget you quote, that is what I'd do, look for something nice but maybe not that new, lots of hours left to the next overhaul and a reasonable avionic fit. Planes in that price range won't also loose that much of value, so you can reasonably expect to get your money back once you sell it in a few years, and if the economic crisis is gone by then, you might even make a small profit.

Best regards
An2 Driver

[Squall79]

Thanks again for all the answers. All of them were actually very informative.

First of all, you are right I am on a tight budget, but the reason for my decision to buy a plane was the difficulty in finding a plane to rent for local and cross country flights.

My first aim is not finding a school to hire my plane and possibly make money on it. However, if there comes such an opportunity along the way, I would be willing to utilitze it if it had the potential to reduce cost of ownership. The primary and maybe the only use of the plane would be for my own leisure and PIC flights.

I also considered the option of getting a two seater first, and I am still not against that idea. I know almost all of the options you listed and have thoroughly examined them in the past. However, all of this planes fall undert the LSA catogory aircraft if I am not mistaken, and under the Turkish general aviation regulations (yes IO540 the Turkish CAA is needlessly strict) an aircraft has to weigh more than 470 kgms. and has an engine with more than 100hp power.

The only seater I can think of that weighs more than 470 kgms other than Cessna 152 is Diamond 's Katana. I would love to have a rotax version with 80 hp, but then 100 hp barrier would stop me. The 120 hp continental version is also nice but I would be again using AVGAS (of course the consumption of 5-6 GPH would still be favorable as opposed to a C172)

I do not know if 150-152 would be a nice option for me, but I suspect the operatiing costs of the aircraft would be similar to a C172.

AN2 driver, thank you for the links from Turkey but although there some TB9 and TB10 on the market with very attractive prices, I am a bit reluctant to ho down the Socata road, as I have no experience as an aircraft owner, and I read maintenance on Socatas can be very expensive due to different part numbers from Socata. , thus the need to trace engine parts with the original numbers. Also, wouldn't things like constant speed prop, and in Piper case (there is no piper service center in Turkey by the way, I think the closest is in Bulgaria or Greece) retractable gear complicate things and increase the cost of ownership?

[grevesz]

Hello,

Think about categories.

The Evektor Sportstar or Eurostar are two very robust, easy to fly and land (yet very maneouverable and relatively fast) aircraft and many flight schools use them. However, depending on the category you register it, its usability may be severely limited (if it works the same way in Turkey as it does in North America), so be carfeul with that. Also, in North America, the C172 can only be registered in categories, where maintenance requirements are much stricter than in the categories a Sportstar can be registered. This makes a huge difference in maintenance costs. Also, medical requirements are much more relaxed in the categories the Sportsar can be registered. Insurance and hangar fees may also be dependent on the category.

I agree with a previous remark: Buy a plane for yourself primarily, not the flight school that you MIGHT lease it back to.

If you need more info, you can join the relevant Yahoo and or Google (or other) groups. The group for the Evektor Sportstar and Eurostar is at evektor_sportstar : Evektor Sportstar (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evektor_sportstar/)
You have to provide a reason to become a member and the response usually comes within a few hours.

I own a Sportstar and couldn't be happier. Should you have any question, please feel free to ask.

Good luck!

Gabor