Murdoughnut
Well sized member
Some of you I'm connected with on the Book of Faces know this, but 29-years after took my first lesson in a Cessna 150, I now own one. My first aircraft purchase ever, and I'm a bit nervous as I took some risks for an airplane that was priced below the market rate. Feel like I got a good pre-buy and had a local A&P friend of mine consult on it, but we won't know till my first annual I suppose. Pre-buy recommended $8K in MX work. I had them do the $5K that I wanted done before I would fly it - the remainder can come later. Had $3K taken off the price after the pre-buy to compensate for some of this. She was missing the first set of logs covering 1977-1991, which dropped the price considerably. No accident history, and I have the ownership records submitted to the FAA from that period that don't show anything wonky. Pre-buy confirmed my suspiscion that as she sat mostly unflown the last three years, and the last two annuals that were done were pencil-whipped. Annuals before that were very thoroughly documented, though. That $5K was mostly fixing things the annual in April should have found. But I had them boroscope the cylinders and they looked clean, with fewer overall leaks than the A&P had expected. Minimal lelve of expected corrosion.
8K hours total time and 1.2K on the engine. Flew it back from IN to NC on Saturday. Ran great - doesn't climb terrific, but it's a 150 and it was hot, so that was to be expected. She did get me up to 8,500 on a +2K density altitude day when I needed to get over a scattered layer, so that was impressive. Having some issues with the brakes making a noise on the ground that my A&P is going to check out this week. Probably also needs to be re-rigged, as I was getting a left turning tendency during the flight back.
Why buy now? I'm tired of paying $200 an hour to get into the sky, and rushing my pre-flights because it's costing me $3.25 a minute to idle. Also tired of fighting with PPL students to get an aircraft, only for one of them to rent it right before my 8am flight and bring it back at 8:15 broken. Bigger consideration is that one of my 13-year olds has an interest, so I figured this would motivate me to finish my CFI so he can log time with me. Lot easier to practice CFI maneuvers from the right seat when it's my own plane.
I'm probably going to pay my local A&P for four hours of labor for him to dig into it and make sure there's no major issues the pre-buy didn't find. Will need an ADSB-OUT solution next, followed by some updates I want to make to the interior, and then eventually avionics upgrades. For now, though, I'm beaming at the thought that if I get a good weather day and want to go fly, I can without having to have made a reservation a month in advance.
8K hours total time and 1.2K on the engine. Flew it back from IN to NC on Saturday. Ran great - doesn't climb terrific, but it's a 150 and it was hot, so that was to be expected. She did get me up to 8,500 on a +2K density altitude day when I needed to get over a scattered layer, so that was impressive. Having some issues with the brakes making a noise on the ground that my A&P is going to check out this week. Probably also needs to be re-rigged, as I was getting a left turning tendency during the flight back.
Why buy now? I'm tired of paying $200 an hour to get into the sky, and rushing my pre-flights because it's costing me $3.25 a minute to idle. Also tired of fighting with PPL students to get an aircraft, only for one of them to rent it right before my 8am flight and bring it back at 8:15 broken. Bigger consideration is that one of my 13-year olds has an interest, so I figured this would motivate me to finish my CFI so he can log time with me. Lot easier to practice CFI maneuvers from the right seat when it's my own plane.
I'm probably going to pay my local A&P for four hours of labor for him to dig into it and make sure there's no major issues the pre-buy didn't find. Will need an ADSB-OUT solution next, followed by some updates I want to make to the interior, and then eventually avionics upgrades. For now, though, I'm beaming at the thought that if I get a good weather day and want to go fly, I can without having to have made a reservation a month in advance.
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