There are several threads which keep coming through when one looks at other owner-pilots who seem happy with their lot.
They tend to
- be
easily able to afford their plane and their flying
- understand the plane technically
- be able to arrange and manage the maintenance
- have somewhere to park it / hangar it, without hassle
- live not too far away from the airfield
- be happy with it meeting at least 75% of their mission profile, but 100% is not essential
So... if you have £10 and you buy a plane for £9.90, you have just 10p left for "suprises"
That's may be OK if you bought a new plane, well built (not like some of these plastic camping caravans built in the place where I come from
) and with a nice warranty, but it won't be OK with anything older.
If changing the gears in a manual-box car is a technical challenge for you, don't buy a TBM850 and/or try to do an IR - no matter how much money you have. I guarantee perpetual misery (even if you finally manage to do it), and I have seen very rich pilots who got that far and then just gave up flying totally.
If these things are borne in mind, there is no problem with somebody (rich) buying a Rockwell Commander, a TB20, a Cessna 400 (make sure the plastic is
stuck on the wings properly) and doing the PPL in it, with a technically competent instructor (finding one of those is another story) and totally skipping the whole crap-spamcan scene. If I was going to get into helis, I would buy a Gazelle and rent an ex mil instructor to teach me how to fly it, and skip the Robinson sewing machine stage altogether.
Re the mission capability, it is quite hard to get beyond the ~ 80% point unless you are prepared to drill a hole straight through almost any frontal weather, in icing conditions. There are planes that will do that, not necessarily pricey (if you buy an old heap) but you need to ask yourself whether you actually want to be doing that.