Originally Posted by
barne_as
Dear all
I am looking to purchase my first aircraft and have decided some criteria that it needs to meet based on my personal circumstances.
These are:
1) to be capable of 90k plus (similar or faster to standard club Cessnas)
2) to be around the £10,000 - £15,000 mark
3) to be a two seater
4) not a microlight
5) and as a bonus, to have folding wings so that in the winter / for maintinence, it can be stored in a standard garage at home.
I have been considering a Kitfox or an Avid speedwing, but would appreciate any further ideas from anyone
Also if anyone can shed any light on ownership of the above I would be grateful. I really need to get away from club rentals and start flying something that can be mine!
With thanks
At that cheap end of the market, and also hanging onto low cost Permit operations (there are plenty of cheap to buy but expensive to run C150 and PA28-140 aircraft in that bracket) the options are limited.
A thought - you'll never fly an aeroplane quite as much as you'd like, and whilst it's wonderful owning an aeroplane outright, it's also very time consuming in care and maintenance. I really would think hard about share ownership - albeit still in the permit category.
Really obvious statements, but somebody needs to make them. (1) Join the LAA (PFA as was) and also trawl through the huge amounts of excellent advice on their website, (2) If there are good reasons why you need "group A" hours fine, but if not look seriously at modern microlights, which may well give you a better aeroplane for less money.
That said, and looking on the AFORS website (always my favourite for window shopping), good aeroplanes in that bracket might include: Pulsar 582 (small, fast, light), Avis Speedwing (small twitchy taildragger but cheap to run and great fun), Kitfox (ditto), Jodel D112 (reasonably solid and reliable 2 seat taildragger), Luscombe Silvaire (ditto).
What do all of these aeroplanes have in common? Apart from being cheap and fun, they're also small and light - don't expect PA28/C172 flying to prepare you for flying one safely, nor most light aircraft instructors to understand them well. You will need to spend some quality time with some combination of a PFA coach and/or a microlight instructor. Oh yes, and do a taildragger conversion.
And, by and large, you won't regret it. But, I'd still recommend looking at your local syndicates.
G