Buying my wife a birthday present

Jim K

Jim K

360 For Spacing
Management Council Member
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Mar 31, 2019
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6,096
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Knee deep in a Lycoming
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Display name:
Richard Digits
At least that's what I'm telling her as we're scheduled to close on her birthday.

After looking at a couple 6/300s, decided the extra speed afforded by the Lance would be worth the added cost to own, influenced in no small part by @NealRomeoGolf 's recent threads. Also looking forward to being able to say piloty stuff like "positive rate, gear up":rolleyes:

Buying an airplane is harder than I expected. After a frustrating start with Saavy Pre-buy, we parted ways and I went it alone. Thank God for internet forums and type groups. I was able to find a good shop for the prebuy, and did a lot of research on the plane. POA and Piper Forum were indispensable. Agreed to a price adjustment, so now just waiting on a couple of avionics repairs.

Can't wait to get her home and start on training. 20200922_121158_copy_2064x1548.jpg 20200922_121207_copy_2064x1548.jpg 20200922_121242_copy_2064x1548.jpg DSC04486_copy_2064x1548.jpg
 
Wow Beautiful plane, and serious capability. Congrats! Take your wife someplace special on her birthday in "her" new plane.
 
Congrats Jim! We’ll have to do a Midwest breakfast meetup one of these days.
 
Beautiful airplane. Congrats !!! Thats the coolest birthday present ever !!!
 
Wow! Congratulations! Looks beautiful!
 
charheep said:
Is that tug remote control?
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Yeah... beats the heck out of the Armstrong tug I'll be using.

Radar Contact said:
Congrats Jim! We’ll have to do a Midwest breakfast meetup one of these days.
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I'd love to meet some of the folks here. Seems like the fly ins are always when I'm in the field. I have the same problem with motorcycle rallies.
 
Jim K said:
I'd love to meet some of the folks here. Seems like the fly ins are always when I'm in the field. I have the same problem with motorcycle rallies.
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@NealRomeoGolf and I met at JVL the other week. If you find a Saturday or Sunday morning somewhere around I’m sure we could get some willing participants to check out your new wings.
 
Nice!! Hope you will spend the $$ and get some quality transition training.
 
Wow. Very nice Piper Lance!!.
You have excellent judgement...first marrying a woman that will surely appreciate an airplane for her birthday, and second for buying an airplane with the wing bolted on in the right place (and no "engineering assists" to hold it up, either). ;)

The best part about having a wife that owns a plane is it solves the gift giving dilemma for the long run. Think of what you can buy your wife for Christmas and anniversaries...couple of G5s, maybe a new autopilot, air compressor and tools for the hangar, just to get started...:D
 
I’m game for a meet up. I’m over in Springfield.
And congrats on new plane.
 
Congrats!
How was your experience with Savvy Prebuy? It looks a good service on paper
 
Congrats! Beautiful plane.
Can you share your experience with Savvy? I’m constantly getting bombarded with emails from them. They pitch it like my plane can’t fly without there help

EDIT:
LOL- rene86mx beat me to it...inquiring minds what to know
 
Nice plane. What was the deal with Savvy?
 
rene86mx said:
Congrats!
How was your experience with Savvy Prebuy? It looks a good service on paper
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It wasn't a good fit for this situation. I can see where they would be useful if a buyer wasn't willing or able to do their own research. I had some circumstances I don't really want to post in an open forum that ended up with them recommending I walk away from this airplane. Maybe they're right, but in this market, and for my mission, I feel that this is the right airplane and that would've been a major mistake.

An airplane with a more questionable history might make sense, but this one was owned by the same guy for 10 years, flown regularly, and he obviously cared for it and put a BUNCH of money into it. It was being sold by a broker who deals mostly in warbirds (you'll notice this is easily the cheapest thing in the hangar), and who struck me as being very honest. They were already in the process of repairing a couple squawks the ferry pilot noticed that I don't think any prebuy would've found. Not a lot of risk here, but savvy has a system and they don't take those factors into account. The wheels turned slow and i was just generally unimpressed. I got much faster results turning to the internet myself.

I also got the impression that no one wants to work with them. The broker hadn't dealt with them before, but had heard they were "over the top". Maybe that's a good thing, but the first shop they contacted ignored them for two days and then said they weren't interested in doing the prebuy. The impression I got is that they just didn't want to deal with savvys checklist and 3 day process managed from afar. I would be quite confident that any airplane that makes it through their process is going to be a damn good one, but if you need something specific that might take years, and you might pass up several good ones to get there.

In the end I told them to forget it, and they refunded half my fee. I thought about disputing the cc charge, but decided to let it go and chalk it up to tuition in the school of life. Also, I've gotten a lot of value out of Mike Busch's articles, and I figure I can feel free to talk about my experience as I paid for that privilege.

If a savvy representative got on here, they'd place the blame elsewhere, and say I was too in love with the airplane. So take it for what it's worth.
 
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beautiful looking airplane! hope you have many safe and fun adventures in it!
 
Jim K said:
Yes. I'm anxious to see if it works any better than the auto control iiib in the Dakota.
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Mine seemed finicky at first but maybe it was user error. Works great now. Not one glitch during my big trip recently.
 
Jim K said:
Yes. I'm anxious to see if it works any better than the auto control iiib in the Dakota.
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I have an Altimatic IIIC in the Aztec and I find it a good match for the airplane. Sure the new crop of digital autopilots have more gee whiz capability, but I simply can't justify the enormous cost for the increment. And every experienced avionics shop knows the common issues that arise from these Edo/Century systems and can troubleshoot those. I had Autopilot Central check out the plane and flight test all the avionics, including the autopilot, before I bought it (the seller was in Springfield, Missouri, so the test flight was the ferry to Tulsa) and would have them deal with anything obscure my local shop couldn't fix...but have not had to do that in the 8+ years I have owned the airplane.
 
sweeeeeeet

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
Congrats! A sweet ride for sure....have fun with your transition training and then fly the heck out of it. :D
 
GRG55 said:
I have an Altimatic IIIC in the Aztec and I find it a good match for the airplane. Sure the new crop of digital autopilots have more gee whiz capability, but I simply can't justify the enormous cost for the increment. And every experienced avionics shop knows the common issues that arise from these Edo/Century systems and can troubleshoot those. I had Autopilot Central check out the plane and flight test all the avionics, including the autopilot, before I bought it (the seller was in Springfield, Missouri, so the test flight was the ferry to Tulsa) and would have them deal with anything obscure my local shop couldn't fix...but have not had to do that in the 8+ years I have owned the airplane.
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The one in the club Dakota follows the heading bug just fine, but wanders back & forth in nav mode. I always assumed that was just an old autopilot thing, but doing more reading it sounds like the old units can be tuned to work just fine.

Part of the problem might be the rigging of the Dakota. Straight and level flight requires a touch of right aileron, and leveling the ailerons and trimming the rudder to fly straight results in a slight slip. I don't fly it enough to push the issue, and no one else seems to notice or care. The Archer doesn't even have an autopilot, so adjusting the dg and heading bug every few minutes still seems luxurious.

I'm also anxious to see how different the Lance handles vs the Dakota. I'm assuming its going to be similar to the step between the Archer and the Dakota. I'll use my cfii for the transition, and a lot of it will be learning the HSI and GTN. I'll have to get some bags of seed corn from one of my dealers so we can load her up to max gross. We have to do 10 hours, so I'm hoping we might have enough time to start on commercial maneuvers, too.
 
Jim: Mark C. is one of the good guys out there and as far as I know, has a stellar reputation within the warbird world. I’ve never heard anything else about him in the nearly 40 years since I first met him.
 
Craig said:
Jim: Mark C. is one of the good guys out there and as far as I know, has a stellar reputation within the warbird world. I’ve never heard anything else about him in the nearly 40 years since I first met him.
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Thanks Craig. That's certainly the impression I got, and I suspected one wouldn't last long in the warbird community selling junk or being dishonest.
 
I am down for a weekend meetup somewhere also. Once I get #4 cylinder replaced..
 
Gorgeous airplane. Congratulations!

It somehow reminds me of the outboard motor my dad bought for my mom as a birthday present. ;)
 
Was the previous owner dying? Why would you sell a beautiful plane with such a nice panel. Way to let the previous owner put the avionics in for you and sell it at a discount.
 
Racerx said:
Was the previous owner dying? Why would you sell a beautiful plane with such a nice panel. Way to let the previous owner put the avionics in for you and sell it at a discount.
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I heard he bought a T6, and is smart enough to know you can't let an airplane sit if you aren't going to fly it.

The high dollar stuff was done in 2012, so he got some use out of it. Never thought I'd have a panel like that, though. I would've been happy with a 430W.
 
Jim K said:
I heard he bought a T6
The high dollar stuff was done in 2012, so he got some use out of it. Never thought I'd have a panel like that, though. I would've been happy with a 430W.
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Well done sir. Your patience and due diligence looks like it has paid off. Hope you enjoy the roomy cabin for many years. Shoulder room is under rated!

As for your comment in the vans thread about a 6 seat EAB...I'd be all over it too! Not that you need it anymore but if enough of us request it perhaps it'll make the wheels turn and they'll have one out for when I'm ready to take on that sort of project.
 
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