Buying my First Airplane - What I learned.
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- Опубликовано: 27 авг 2024
- Buying an airplane for the first time - costs, resources... Take a look at what I bought, the selection process and resources that I used to make the decision and the purchase.
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Fresh commercial pilot from Australia watching your content for the first time, here. Congratulations on buying your first airplane. Thank you for uploading such informative content. All the best 👍
Congratulations, I also just bought my first airplane several months ago. Like you I went with the Piper Arrow. My son who is also an A&P for the airline I fly for is looking to start his flight training and we thought this would be a good time builder aircraft and fun for family general adventures around Florida. I had originally looked at an older V tail Bonanza, however after the prebuy inspection the inspecting mechanic and my son had concerns that the plane would cost us much more in the near future, so we kept on looking. I learned a number of lessons from that experience regarding getting overly excited about an aircraft and wanting to go with the first one I looked at. Additionally, I found out allot about trying to find my own financing and how that factored into the purchase of an older aircraft. Luckily my wife took over the CFO duties of the aircraft purchase and contacted AOPA and we were able to go through their aircraft purchasing and financing process and it went so much smoother. Now if we can just find a hangar all will be golden. Have fun with your new plane.
Tgat all sounds great. Thanks for sharing. Yeah the arrow is definitely a great time builder. Complex and fast enough fir sone great trip (like the on I just took to Oshkosh). AOPA resources are very helpful indeed. Hangar space can be tough to find. What area of FL are you in?
@@BlueSkyFlight I am in Orlando. I tie down out at Sanford. I am on several hangar waiting lists but they are years away. Will just keep flying it each week to keep the engine lubed and the corrosion X sprayed in at the annuals. I really enjoy your videos. Hope you had a great week at Oshkosh, that is on our list of things to do next year. Not sure if we want to fly up or take the RV up for the week so will work that out over the winter.
Sounds great. Let me know when you get ready to start the project. Email me at blueskyflight@outlook.com so I can come over and take a look. Maybe we can put together some coverage of it on the channel.
Great first video on the series - your thought process getting to the Arrow II was ideal. Having done lots of "interesting" things with Cherokees and Arrows over the years, I consider myself a life-long fan of the PA-28 series. I got all my PA-28 knowledge from Karl Bergey himself before he passed - great mentor and friend. I just bought a 1973 Arrow II also and going through the intentionally slow and mostly hands-on process of getting it to the condition I'd like - mechanical, panel, interior, and paint. My bird was well maintained through 2018 when the owner got a little too overwhelmed to fly it so would do ground runs periodically. Nothing throws a red flag on my project so far but your videos are great references for where I'll be taking things. Beautiful bird, nice video style, excellent presentation. I'll be following and sharing as well.
Thanks so much for the feedback. My interior is actually complete now, just need to get the rest of the videos done and posted - look for those over the next week or two. Its been a lot of work, but also very enjoyable. Glad you like the videos. Feel free to reach out if you run into any questions.
I bought a 1977 Piper Arrow III in 2010. It didn't take long for me to determine that there were more than a few issues with the plane. I started learning what it would take to maintain it as I was a CH-46 mechanic in the Marine Corps and was handy with that type stuff. Maintenance is everything and I had to do a lot over the years. Everything needs to be maintained and the parts manual and maintenance manual are a must.
It is an amazing piece of machinery and it amazes me how someone could design that with all the close fitting and myriad numbers of parts. Just amazing. But lots of trouble if it was not maintained in the past. The pre-buy is a must and surely worth the few hundreds of dollars it cost to get the "skinny" on the aircraft. And logbook entries of overhauls and maintenance are not always true or accurate. I just had an overhaul and the last people put in the wrong crankshaft. It was an L rather then the correct one. That was $10,000.00 by itself. You never know.
Really good points regarding the Pre Buy inspection. Yeah I really got lucky on mine , not doing one. Definitely could have bit me and definitely will on any future purchases.
Congrats, just now starting to conduct serious research and was leaning towards a twin... But your thought process really helped with what i was determining my mission requirements.
Thank you and looking forward to more videos from you.
Glad it was useful for you! Please subscribe. Lots more to see on the channel now. Putting the final touches on the last two videos to complete the total renovation of the Arrow interior, and just posted a few videos from my trip to Oshkosh AirVenture 2023.
Congrats on the plane!
If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the reason in purchasing a plane? And do you feel like it’s worth it? Since you’ve owned it for a few months.
Something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid. If you fly at least a handful of times a month I think the math works out to make it better than renting. But without that, having it available when you want it, and the ability to keep it clean, make the interior how you want it, etc. are the most compelling factors for me. Fixed Cost of ownership, without actually flying it, is about $1200 per month (hangar, insurance, annual inspection, loan). After that it’s about $60 per flight hour for gas.
Nice looking Arrow! Thanks for sharing your experience. Your years and hours of experience go a long ways. That being said, I will share my experience with you, but merely as food for thought. I, like you, had been looking for quite some time. I found the aircraft that I wanted and in the price range I wanted (crazy how much they have skyrocketed in price over the last 2-3 years!). So, off I went. I looked the airplane over, poured over the logbooks, and conversed with the A/P that just did the annual on it. We discussed his remaining squawk list and I was happy. So, I made an offer and it was accepted. As for a Prebuy, I chose to have an independent that was recommended by a famous make/model club. Long story short, I walked away with a new squawk list that had 37 additional items on it. Basically, from the start, there were just too many red flags for me. Had I skipped the Prebuy, I would have had major sticker shock at the 1st annual, assuming that the plane would have held together until then.
So, that being said, I think it is always a good idea to get a fresh set of eyes on it before you fly away in your dream.
Great feedback! Thank you very much for sharing your experience. I totally agree. I got very lucky with skipping the pre buy. Definitely would not do that again in hindsight. I just didn’t know enough at the time about aircraft ownership but it definitely could have bit me. I think doing a pre buy is a must. So I take it you walked away from that one? Let me know when you do close on one and share it with the channel.
Beautiful. When you were describing your criteria, you were basically describing either an arrow or Dakota.
Thank you!
fantastic, easy to watch, and great info. I'm exactly where you are on mission...( minus your years of flying). hope to learn more from your other videos.
Glad you enjoyed it… let me know what you end up buying
@@BlueSkyFlight serious question...you mentioned you flew a cirrus and liked it but the price point was a little higher. You have done some unbelievable upgrades to your Arrow which look great, but did cost you a little. Was there something else that kept you away from the Cirrus, or were you still able to stay well under that price point in the end ? Thx.
I only spent about 6k on the interior plus another 2k on the windows. Even the used Cirrus market is at least 100k more than what I spent on the Arrow. New ones are $800k and up. They are great airplanes though. They fly beautifully. Just didn’t want to spend that much initially.
@@BlueSkyFlight wow that’s terrific. You have that kind of skill, and it certainly looks great. Congratulations!
Thank you
Low wing = see where you are going when you turn left base = great choice
LOL... I agree! Thanks for watching. Hope you consider subscribing. Just posted some great videos from the flight up to Oshkosh.
Congrats, one nitpick.. TBO is determined by hours and years not just hours. While not required for part 91 the TBO is 2000 hours or 12 years.
Thanks for sharing that. I don’t think I ever knew that.
Congratulations!
Thank you!
You will like the Arrow 2
I agree - absolutely love it.
"Same shop that has done the annual for years PLUS no pre-buy inspection" is going to cost you some amount. I have not seen any of your other videos yet but will be fascinated.
I got very lucky - a little over a year since the purchase and not big gotchas. Looking back, I really should have done the pre-buy - very risky on my part not to get the opinion of an independent 3rd party.
I have time in your type of Piper…great bird..
That's fantastic. How and when was that?
I have an Arrow that was on the line with yours. I have serial number 79, N15665. You will find the window trim is not the same as 74 and newer.
That's pretty cool.. they're like cousins :)
Congratulations.
Thank you... and thank you for watching!