Three brothers with no PPL considering purchasing a plane

The first rule of flight club is....you don't talk about flight club.
 
As you setup the structure of your common ownership, you need to have an agreement that provides for what will happen in the case of death, disability, disinterest, drugs, delinquency, divorce, and the eventual dissolution.
 
So we pulled the trigger on a 172. It’s an old, boring, simple, vfr 172. But we will use it for three of us to get our ppl then look at possibly upgrading.

It’s a 1960 172A. 900 hours smoh, fresh annual last month, ancient narco radios, basic 6 pack, four place ics, manual flaps, full logs, no damage history. Thorough prebuy only revealed a small exhaust leak and a few cracked push rod seals.

Though I really wanted something with a little higher useful load and a gps, we got it for $47,000. Well below our budget. We had even started looking at $90,000 planes. But in this market it seemed impossible to find anything with a decent useful load, gps and not at tbo below $125k. Much less on the east coast.

This one popped up a few hours south of me and it turned out we had some mutual acquaintances and I knew a few guys that had flown the plane.

What do y’all think?

7593dea962b54d090da196cead6d55f2.jpg



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Another option to consider is joining an existing club. That's what I did as a student pilot (25 years ago). I'm still a member of that club and it is the lowest cost way of flying. Note, I DID NOT say cheapest. As I'm sure you are aware, there is nothing cheap about flying (other than the pilots, we're cheap bastards).
 
Clubs or partnerships are great!
 
So we pulled the trigger on a 172. It’s an old, boring, simple, vfr 172. But we will use it for three of us to get our ppl then look at possibly upgrading.

It’s a 1960 172A. 900 hours smoh, fresh annual last month, ancient narco radios, basic 6 pack, four place ics, manual flaps, full logs, no damage history. Thorough prebuy only revealed a small exhaust leak and a few cracked push rod seals.

Though I really wanted something with a little higher useful load and a gps, we got it for $47,000. Well below our budget. We had even started looking at $90,000 planes. But in this market it seemed impossible to find anything with a decent useful load, gps and not at tbo below $125k. Much less on the east coast.

This one popped up a few hours south of me and it turned out we had some mutual acquaintances and I knew a few guys that had flown the plane.

What do y’all think?

7593dea962b54d090da196cead6d55f2.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Looks like the perfect trainer for PPL getting north of 100hrs doing IA in and then selling for something better, more capable, etc.

Did you put the ownership in an LLC? Do you have club by laws and an operating agreement? Look at a bunch of other clubs forms on the web for ideas. These cover things like...who pays if you are flying the plane on a trip and something breaks, like a mag...not your 'fault'. Or what if you flat spot a tire? Its very easy to loose friends/family over this kind of thing unless everyone has agreed and knows how this will be worked out.

Oh and have fun.
 
Greatest trainer ever.
I have tons of hours training in the small Cessnas, and I owned a 172 for a few years. In my opinion, the 150 is the best trainer. Why? Because it is underpowered, and you need to learn to think ahead before you get in trouble. The 172 may allow you to power out of a problem, but the 150 often will not. For that reason, I think it is a better trainer.

This is not an opinion that came easily. When I took my current flight instructing job 14 years ago, I got a checkout in a 150 in August with another CFI who weighed 230 pounds. It was August, and the climb after takeoff was anemic. I thought, "I am going to hate teaching in this airplane." But, over time, I discovered my students in the 150 were better at the basics than those who trained in the 172.
 
I have tons of hours training in the small Cessnas, and I owned a 172 for a few years. In my opinion, the 150 is the best trainer. Why? Because it is underpowered, and you need to learn to think ahead before you get in trouble. The 172 may allow you to power out of a problem, but the 150 often will not. For that reason, I think it is a better trainer.

This is not an opinion that came easily. When I took my current flight instructing job 14 years ago, I got a checkout in a 150 in August with another CFI who weighed 230 pounds. It was August, and the climb after takeoff was anemic. I thought, "I am going to hate teaching in this airplane." But, over time, I discovered my students in the 150 were better at the basics than those who trained in the 172.
Instructing in a straight tail C-150 was the only time I experienced climbing out of ground effect without enough airspeed resulted in sinking. We talk about it, but to see it happen was a real eye opener.
 
Instructing in a straight tail C-150 was the only time I experienced climbing out of ground effect without enough airspeed resulted in sinking. We talk about it, but to see it happen was a real eye opener.
Interesting that you said that. It happened to me yesterday.
 
I have tons of hours training in the small Cessnas, and I owned a 172 for a few years. In my opinion, the 150 is the best trainer. Why? Because it is underpowered, and you need to learn to think ahead before you get in trouble. The 172 may allow you to power out of a problem, but the 150 often will not. For that reason, I think it is a better trainer.

This is not an opinion that came easily. When I took my current flight instructing job 14 years ago, I got a checkout in a 150 in August with another CFI who weighed 230 pounds. It was August, and the climb after takeoff was anemic. I thought, "I am going to hate teaching in this airplane." But, over time, I discovered my students in the 150 were better at the basics than those who trained in the 172.
Dad had a partner in his six that bought a 150 for his kids to learn. When he was flying it home after buying it, he was ahead of a thunderstorm but couldn't outrun it so he had to spend the night somewhere. Dad ended up partnering in the 150 when he bought him out of the Six partnership. He thought he'd start IFR training in the 150. He flew in it exactly once. Too cramped and too anemic for him.

OP bought an o-300 145 hp 172. My a&p has one he's restoring. So he'll probably learn about being underpowered vs the later 180hp models.
 
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