What would you buy with £300,000

[bvgs]

Hi guys and gals, I am a ppl (h) and own my own R44, however I'm thinking of transfering over to fixed wing. The main reason is that we are looking to buy a house in south of France/ Costa blanca area and would like to be able to get there under our own steam. My plan would be to go to the states and convert my Heli licence to fixed wing and do my instrument rating and put my plane on the N reg if its not on it already. So cutting to the chase the question is what would you buy to give you a decent range and decent speed. Single or Twin, second hand or new and if it made a big difference I could stretch the £300k a bit. I would want a minimum of 4 seats as I have 2 dogs and 6 or a large 4 seater might be preferable. If this has been asked before please don't chop my head off, just direct me to the appropriate thread and oif its not been asked I would be most grateful for your advice. Thanks!

[G-SPOTs Lost]

A nice Conquest 1 or a refurbed (USA) Kingair C90, you might also get a C500 with some time left on the engines for that money, WADR recommend you keep 60k per annum or £400per day in the budget for a professional minder/hand holder for 12 months.

Gorgeous conquest just arrived in Jersey, was drooling over it the other day, Fast too!

[B200Drvr]

P166 Albatross

[bman0429]

Buy a Cirrus SR22GTS Brand spankin new!!. Fast, good range, awsome avionics, and well within your budget.
Good Luck,
Bman

[Phil Brockwell]

Deposit on a CJ and have us fly the arse off it for revenue?

[His dudeness]

bvgs, I´d make up my mind about the running cost rather than the buying.

Airplane value stays more or less the same over some time, but costs for overhauls, refurb, avionic upgrades etcetc can eat you alive.

Why not charter out something nice? Navajo springs to mind...

Turboprops and Jets are expensive to maintain and for that sort of budget I´d doubt that you get the best mantained example of all possible when looking at TP and Jets. Mind you that EASA- CAMO is around the corner (deadline Sep08?)
and "cheating" on maintenance will be more difficult, and more important, things will get more expensive.
Decent sized Pistons are ageing. tricky one, I´d say.

[bvgs]

With regard to the Cirrus and please excuse my ignorance here but is the servicing similar to that of my heli, ie a 50 hour, 100 hour, annual etc and do they do fixed price servicing like in the heli world or is it simply charged by the hour and any ideas roughly the costs. The Cirrus looks like a great machine with an excellent range. Any further help / comments would be much appreciated. Thanks

[Mach Tuck]

Just a thought, but you might bear in mind that you cannot bring your dogs back into the UK in a private aircraft. They will have to travel with an approved carrier through an approved port of entry or go through the Chunnel.

So, if you're planning to do a lot of flying with your dogs, it might just be less hassle to use the airlines. Alternatively, I think NetJets is an approved carrier. You'll get a lot of airline tickets for £300k, with Netjets your cash won't go quite so far! You pays your money....

Good luck.

MT

[bman0429]

Hi,
The cirrus really is a nice aircraft and it is well within your price range. If you want to kow about maint. contact there local rep as follows:
Multiflight, Ltd
Leeds Bradford Int'l Airport [LBA] Steve Borrowdale - Managing Director
Leeds
West Yorkshire, N/A LS19 7UG
Phone: 44 (113) 238 7100
Fax: 44 (113) 238 7114
[email protected]
They should have the answers you need!
Good luck!
Bman

PS

If you can avoid getting on an airliner do it! Netjets just say no unless you just like giving away money.

[bvgs]

Mach Tuck, thats news to me about the dogs, thought that as long as they had their pet passports to show they were immunised it would be ok...are you sure about this? I take your point about the airlines, just can't be bothered with all the wasted time checking in and security restrictions never mind them not flying on the days you want. Netjets would be too expensive but thanks for the feedback.

Bman thanks for that I will email steve and ask the questions. Thanks again for your help and advice, looks like I might have to loose the dogs....or the wife.....or both, now there's a thought.:)

[GAMABIRD]

Mach Tuck is correct we had to drop some mutts off in le touquet from our plane the other day & get netjets to take them into the uk for us.Doesn,t matter even if they have their own passports!they can only go in on aoc aircraft, so that rules out you flying them in.You will be in big trouble if you try take them in youself in a private plane.As for 300k get yourself a baron for 100k then pay for a professional pilot to fly you around, with the money you have left over it should pay him/her for a few years.That sort of money will only buy you an old turboprop or a very old jet(non rvsm).Good Luck

[scooter boy]

I would buy a new Mooney Acclaim-S (243KTS @ FL250, 1860nm range, 20-22gph) for $595K.
If you want better economy then get the non-turbocharged Ovation 2 or Ovation 3. You go further more slowly (but still significantly faster than any other non-turbocharged single).
The Mooney offers better range, speed and economy than anything else out there - no question.
You will be able to cross entire continents without having to refuel.
I hope the doggies can cross their legs as well as you can because your bladder capacity will become the range limiting factor.
In addition to this it also has the G1000 all glass cockpit as standard (the one to have) and the GFC 700 A/P flight director. The glass cockpit is fully integrated (unlike the Avidyne).
You can also have (the only factory fitted FIKI approved) TKS deicing, TCAS, install the MT weather radar system if you want and you will have a proper mini airliner.
The 3 year warranty with the new aircraft is well worth having as is the 1 week residential flight safety pilot training programme.

Most importantly you will be flying yourself around between your homes whilst sipping fuel at your convenience with minimal overheads in most weather conditions and will be under the 2MT euronav limit.

I think you will miss flying the R44 though - are you going to keep the helo?

SB

[bman0429]

Scooter boy,

I would agree with you about the mooney. It is one slick bird. Moonies have always been so, but at the compromise of cabin size and payload. That's where I think the Cirrus has the upper hand.

As for used aircraft, my thought is if you are spending that kind of money get something with the latest avionics and a warranty (buy new). Besides PPL's don't belong in twins for recreation or jets. There are few things in aviation that will kill an inexperienced pilot faster than a light twin.

[Phil Brockwell]

Going back to the Dogs, Cats and Ferrets (yes they all come under the same approval). Many charter operators have pet clearance, best bet is to come in through Biggin.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/quarantine/pets/contacts.htm#air

Phil

[winkle]

how often do you think you will travel to france, this would have big influence on what type of machine to buy. where abouts you are in scotland and where you are planning to land in france also are huge factors.