Can £10k buy you a fun flying aircraft

[bingoboy]

Local discussions have made £10k available so what would you buy that gives fun flying or am I deluding myself ?

[Kingy]

In a word ‘YES’!!

As can £5k or even £3K. I'm going to assume that you are an 'a' license holder, not a microlight pilot and so I’m not going to recommend a microlight.

First thing you need to do is join the PFA. Membership is £42PA this will give all the benefits of the PFA (see their website) but also entitle you to copies of 'Popular Flying' - the by monthly mag. Many aircraft are advertised in the classified section at the back... many under £ 10K too.

You need to decide what type of aircraft you want - single or two seat? Monoplane, biplane, open cockpit... it’s a long list.

£10K would get you a Jodel, maybe a Taylorcraft, or an Aeronca Chief etc. It depends what’s on sale at the time really. At the other end of the scale aircraft like the wonderful Isaacs Fury or Pietenpol Aircamper also change hands for this kind of money.

£5K would get you a Turbulent, Taylor Mono, Jodel D9 etc.

£3K may get you a VP1, or a FRED

I actually bought a freshly permitted PFA single seater recently for fifteen hundred quid... but that was a bit of a fluke!

If you don't mind getting your hands dirty once in a while and find a nice grass strip to fly from you'll be amazed just how affordable the whole thing becomes.

Good Luck

Kingy

[TheKentishFledgling]

I know someone that just bought a FRED for 2.5k, and I think if flying about 80 hours PA it works out around 18 quid per hour.

tKF

[QNH 1013]

First do as Kingy says and join the PFA. £10k will give you a wide choice of group A PFA aircraft, some of which you can take home on a trailer to save on hangarage. In the last couple of years I've bought two PFA aircraft at under £2k each. Or, you could join a group.

[Pilotage]

Minimax is highly thought of for £4-5k, and a plethora of Kitfox/Avid variants for about £10k.

I've always had a yen for the nearly-but-not-quite-aerobatic MW7 which are selling for £3-4k second hand at present.

Or if you fancy a challenge, spend £4k on a reasonable second hand flexwing, £1k on a microlight conversion, and the other £5k flying it for the next 6 years. ( I did that a few years ago, still have it, and have huge amounts of fun in it).

Aviasud Mistrals sell for around £10k, which is a nice touring biplane.

And numerous Shadow variants from about £8k upwards.

I've had the odd pleasant afternoon soaring in a borrowed Chevvron - a motorglider flown on a microlight license and they sell last I looked for a little over £10k second hand.

Or buy a cheap kit (there are quite a few out there), set of plans or incomplete project, and build/finish your own over the winter - something very satisfying (and mildly unnerving at first) about flying something you built yourself.

Doesn't matter if it's microlight or group A (if you have a strong pro-PFA bias, they have 700+ microlights) Just ignore aircraft on CofA, the purchase and running costs are too high for private flying for most of us.

P

[FlyingForFun]

Are you definitely looking to buy outright? Can't think of much to add if an outright purchase is the only option - but if a share is an option that opens up whole new worlds...

FFF
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[BlueRobin]

Trouble is even if you had the cash, you'd have a hard time finding one for sale. :oh:

[SlipSlider]

No question in my mind that a 50% share with the right person is the best way to have Fun Flying.

All those big bills are cut by 50%, which reduces the 'guilt' factor.

Availability is hardly impacted, bearing in mind that if you fly 50 hours a year the aeroplane will be on the ground for 8,710 hours!

Flights sharing the flying / navigating are far more relaxing and fun.

So with £10K I would spend £6K to £7K on a 50% share of an Aeronca, Champ or Chief, and keep the rest for emergencies :D

Slip

[Noisy Hooligan]

A mere £2k can buy you a share in a fantastically fun aircraft - a Jet Provost. Only one requirement, due to insurance reasons you must have a commercial license to join this group.

The cost per hour is more than a light single but not that different from hiring a light twin. Good for 400 Kt and +6g/-2.5g, amounts to some pretty serious fun anywhere from 3,000 feet to 30,000 feet!

[ratsarrse]

A Jet Provost...now there's an incentive to get your CPL!

Can you pick up a Cub or an Auster close to £10k, or am I being very naive here? My post-PPL pipedream is an Auster: I just like the look of them, although that may change if and when I get to go up in one.

[bingoboy]

Thanks for the input ... I am in a C172 group, well club really as there are in excess of 30 of us ! Access is pretty good as most have access to other aircraft.

I really want something that is aerobatic or very nearly and can use microlight size strips as my local area has more of these than anything else.

Biggest bugbear as far as I can tell is hangarage which seems to be either very pricey or not available (suppose those two statements fit together).

Have thought about a remote share that I could utilise over long weekends. Anyone been there, done that? Do it work?

[TheKentishFledgling]

Thanks for the input ... I am in a C172 group, well club really as there are in excess of 30 of us ! Access is pretty good as most have access to other aircraft.

Is it actually a group? As the ANO says a group member can't own more than 5% of an aeroplane...

tKF

[Tiger_ Moth]

If I had 10K I'd get a Turbulent and use the rest ofthe money to cover hangarage/running costs/maintenance etc.

Bingoboy, sounds like you could do with a Turbulent, its not aerobatic but its got good crisp controls, apparently.

When I get my license, hopefully this summer I'm probably going to try out the Tiger Clubs Turbulents, they're only £45 an hour. I just really like the look of them. If I like them as much as I think I will, I think I might look into starting a Turbulent group with 2-4 members.

By the way, for an airfield around London, ie: White Waltham, Stapleford, Denham, Fairoaks etc etc how much might one expect to pay per year for hangarage and landing fees? £1000? Because this seems like it might be one of the biggest problems.

[Evo]

You've already convinced me Slip... :)

[Genghis the Engineer]

An interesting point about the Tiger Club turbulents - they are on permits yet you can hire them quite legally.

Not enough clubs know about article 130(2)(c) of the ANO, I commend it to the reader.

G

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Or if you fancy a challenge, spend £4k on a reasonable second hand flexwing, £1k on a microlight conversion, and the other £5k flying it for the next 6 years. ( I did that a few years ago, still have it, and have huge amounts of fun in it).

Often wondered about doing this. Pilotage - at 4K I presume it was a 2-stroke. Do you have to do lots of work to keep it fettled? Does the engine fail occasionally?

Do you keep it at a field (at some cost, presumambly) or at home, meaning rig/de-rig?

Any 'gotchas'?

SSD

[Crossedcontrols]

ratsarrse,
I don't think you'll get an Auster or cub for 10K, more like 15K plus. Some are on a permit, so are cheaper to run.

You pay a premium for Cubs so could be a lot dearer

A few Cub groups about, usually 4 to 6 people so a share will be 2.5 to 4K. But pretty cheap per hour costs (25 to 40) depending how they split it.
Difficult to beat that type of flying, but I'm biased.

CC

"There's many a slip between Cub and strip"

[Pilotage]

I keep it in a de-rigged hangar, which costs me £25/month. The biggest pain behind running a flexwing is rigging and derigging times. On a good day it takes about 45 minutes to rig and 30 minutes to derig and put it away - my normal solution to this is if a high is coming in to rig at the start and leave it tied-down for a couple of days until the weather deteriorates then derig and put it back in the hangar again. The flip side of this is the ability to stick the trailer behind your car and take it on holiday with you.

Flexwings are pretty benign things to fly once you've got the hang of them (took me about 10 hours to pass the differences training and another 20 to start to feel genuinely comfortable), you do need to be careful of hypothermia in winter flying (I solved this with a biker-type electric thermal jerkin), but other than that will fly in most conditions you'd fly a light aircraft. (I do admit to working up a bit of a sweat even now in more than 10kn of crosswind).

2-strokes aren't as bad as made out, what they are is intolerant of not enough (or too much) care and attention. My engine has just died at the tender age of 17 years / 500 hours from age-related problems and a replacement cost me about £600 second hand which isn't too bad. In general however they're only slightly less reliable than more traditional engines and are usually fairly sporting and give you plenty of warning if they're going to fail - I've had a couple of failures on the ground, one after a precautionary landing, but none in the air.

Routine work on a Rotax 2-stroke basically comes down to about ½-1 days work every 50 flying hours, which isn't too arduous. Parts are cheap - a set of plugs every 25 hours (2 or 4 depending upon engine, at £1.80 per plug), £5 worth of gearbox oil annually and a similar value of air-filter cleaner and oil each year.

The biggest expense is fuel and 2-stroke oil, which I suppose I use about £12/hr worth of in total, or roughly half my total flying cost in it.

One other gotcha with flexwings is the sail, which is worth usually more than the engine. Before buying one, it's vital you get a BMAA inspector to check it over and confirm that it's got plenty of life left in it - keeping it de-rigged in the bag helps here because the main killer is UV.

If you're looking for a cheap flexwing, I'd go for a Raven (what I fly) a flash 1 or a Pegasus Q, all cheap, reasonable performers with a good safety record and plenty of support available.

P

http://ww.ravenmad.co.uk/laggan.jpg (Photograph gratuitously linked to from a microlight manufacturer's website because I liked it)

[FlyingForFun]

Tiger_Moth - I also love the Turb, and hopefully will get to try out the ones at the Tiger Club at some point. But my ex-instructor always swore that his Jodel was much better - this biggest difference, apparently, being it was aerobatic. Can't remember the model number (I'm sure some Jodel expert will know though!), but it was a single-seater, same kind of power, speed, etc as the Turb... and maybe better for Bingoboy if he wants aeros?

As for hanagarage, I can't speak for the other airfields, but at White Waltham you won't be worrying about the cost of the hangar space, because you'll be very lucky to get a space at all. The waiting list is several years, and realistically you'll never get to the top because spaces will go to people who know people who know people (that's how my Europa group got our space, I believe, although I wasn't involved in the negotiations myself).

FFF
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[LowNSlow]

Tiger_Moth hangerage is more like £3k pa anywhere around London :ooh:

I was paying £150 / month but our new owner has upped the rent to £250. This has made me think about getting an Avid or similar so that I can fold the wings and take her home.

Anybody want an Auster for around £14k? It'll be complete with long range tank and a solution to the slight oil leak I'm suffering at the moment (show me a Cirrus that doesn't leak) by the time it's sold :ok:

[foghorn]

2 grand for a Jet Provost Share?

Oh my god the temptation. The wife would kill me.