That's enough to be going on with.
So your flying experience is (from this and your profile) EV97, AA5, C152. £10-£20k to play with, not decided on your new spiritual home, needs to be de-riggable, reasonable engineering skills. Not a taildragger pilot.
My thoughts:-
- Consider microlights as well as "group A", you're likely to get more bang for your buck with the former.
- Consider whether you can hangar your new pride and joy
- It wants to be reasonably easy to transport intact from home to airfield in the first instance.
- £20k isn't a huge amount of money these days.
In the microlight world, have a look at the Eurostar, Sky Ranger, MXP740 Savannah, Escapade (available nosewheel or tailwheel, but worth getting the conversion to have a tailwheel version which is much nicer handling), Zenair CH601. All of those should tick all of your boxes so-far, and all storable outdoors with covers if you need to (although I'd really not recommend it with the Escapade, whose life will be shortened by that). I've flown all of them, test flown all of them, and would be happy to own any of them.
In the group A world, have a look at the Group A versions of the EV97, Escapade and CH601 - same applies as the microlight versions, just a bit more payload. Also the Thorpe T211 - I think kits might be still available somewhere; not flown it myself but has a reputation as a straighforward and honest little light aeroplane.
Maybe the Rans S6 or Kitfox, but for my money both are much less refined than the newer Skyranger and Escapade respectively.
Rather cheaper, ugly, and very basic but other than that a super aeroplane, also look at the Raj Hamsa X'Air microlight. However, don't bother with the flapped Mk.2 / Falcon version - the flapless Mk.1 is nicer to fly, and cheaper.
G
Last edited by Genghis the Engineer; 22nd Oct 2013 at 15:35.