z987k
Well-Known Member
On the Cessna 180 right? Had to replace any door latches lately? Got a price on those?!
Cost expectations
- Thread starter Boris Badenov
- Start date
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
As above, I'm not (contrary to popular opinion) an idiot. I understand how engines work, and can field-expediently diagnose and crappily repair them. I just lack the patience and skill to do a proper job. It's something to do with temperament, big 5 personality traits, and all of that rot. Like, I'm fairly confident that confronted with an engine which isn't working the way it should, I can tell you that it seems to have a fuel problem or a spark problem, etc etc. I just cannot be arsed to sit around for 60 hours getting every little thing *just so*. And yeah, I'm pricing in the huge uptick in cost for someone who likes or at least is willing to do that sort of thing, or at least I think I am. Hence the questions.
milleR
Well-Known Member
In that case plan on $150/hour (labor) for everything from a nav light to a cylinder replacement with a minimum of 4 hours for the shop to troubleshoot the problem. That’s a budgetary number. The longer you own, the cheaper it gets.
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drunkenbeagle
Gang Member
From my experience in a flying club over the last 10 years - you make some friends, who happen to be mechanics - things are suddenly much cheaper. I personally would find the club, and friends first - then buy the airplane.
The only reason I do not own an airplane is that they are still so easy to rent. The day that isn't true, I'll be an airplane owner.
z987k
Well-Known Member
That's only true if you're doing some really mundane things with them. The second you want to land off pavement or go upside down, the doors slam closed.
alaskadrifter
Landing gear operator
I hear it’s near impossible to get insurance on an experimental these days.
GypsyPilot
Mohawk Town
Dude... Come on man, be practical. A 997.2 Turbo perhaps?
inigo88
Composite-lover
Agree 1000%. I was going to post something similar but you said it much more eloquently.
I would emphasize that buying someone else’s experimental really is the Wild West of airplane ownership. The quality can be immaculate or terrible and completely unsafe. Fortunately with a Skybolt the construction methods are fairly conventional and inspectable (4130 steel tube, fabric and wood), but don’t underestimate the power of a senile old man to leave out a critical piece of structure because he either forgot or decided he knew better than those damn engineers. You either need to be willing to become intimately familiar with the drawings to make sure everything is all as it should be, or you need to hire an expert who can do it for you. There are checks and balances in the home built process but a DAR isn’t going to catch everything, and not all homebuilts are created equal to begin with (does the engineering comply with FAR part 23 certification standards? The skybolt is likely overbuilt for what it does but other less common experimentals could be a crapshoot here). Fortunately Skybolts are pretty common, are built with the same conventional 1920s-30s design and construction techniques as other aerobatic biplanes like the Pitts/Great Lakes, and there are a good number of them flying so there’s some precedent that it’s a proven design.
chipdumper
Well-Known Member
I apologize for creeping off-topic but checkout Mike Busch’s latest: Savvy Maintenance
He discusses the FAA’s Coleal interpretation (2009). It green-lighted “simple and minor preservation tasks” that are not specially stated in Part 43 Owner Maintenance. So changing the bulb in your compass is legit so long that it is simple; mine takes 5 seconds. This is outside of what I learned which was that Part 43 was a finite list of what tasks we could complete. So you can unchain your hangar fairies to a reasonable level; just document the work and be able to articulate the “simple and minor preservation task”.
Somebody mentioned hoses here — it is specifically stated in Part 43 that the owner can replace hoses with prefabricated ones. New fire-sleeved Aeroquip hoses aren’t that bad.
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He discusses the FAA’s Coleal interpretation (2009). It green-lighted “simple and minor preservation tasks” that are not specially stated in Part 43 Owner Maintenance. So changing the bulb in your compass is legit so long that it is simple; mine takes 5 seconds. This is outside of what I learned which was that Part 43 was a finite list of what tasks we could complete. So you can unchain your hangar fairies to a reasonable level; just document the work and be able to articulate the “simple and minor preservation task”.
Somebody mentioned hoses here — it is specifically stated in Part 43 that the owner can replace hoses with prefabricated ones. New fire-sleeved Aeroquip hoses aren’t that bad.
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z987k
Well-Known Member
No, it's just expensive if there's not a lot of them flying.
drunkenbeagle
Gang Member
I might actually have more takeoffs from turf than pavement at this point. Not something I log, so no way to really know.
alaskadrifter
Landing gear operator
Can you get liability and Hull?
BigZ
Well-Known Member
Falcon Ins EAA plan - never had an issue
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
Mike Busch is a dingdong and I’d take anything from him with not just a grain but the whole shaker of salt.
z987k
Well-Known Member
Yes.
EIR
It's 5 o'clock somewhere
This. Our annuals are $600.
