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Old 4th Mar 2007, 21:49
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IO540
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
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At the budget specified you will be looking at 20-30 years old metal no matter what you get.

At that age, the ongoing maintenance costs will be highly significant; you can expect Annuals possibly well into 4 digits each, unless you are lucky.

Socata's look nicely designed, but I have heard mixed reports about maintenence/spar corrossion and the chap qouted in the new edition of "Go Flying" describes his aircraft as the most thrown-up on a/c on the Kiddlington fleet....

That must be the pilots, not the aircraft. A TB has a higher wing loading than any common spamcan and therefore has a correspondingly better ride in turbulence. There is no real maintenance cost issue - all old planes are likely to cost a packet. That's why people tend to form groups - the £5000 bill gets split up among the members.

If you can up your budget another 20k or so you can get something a lot better.

I fly a TB20 but you won't get a good one of those under about £100k.
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