You'd best read that whole document carefully. Use of the term "top overhaul" carries no regulatory weight -- zip, nada, nil. Anyone can use that term any way they want, and neither you nor the FAA can infer even a minimum level of what was done without reading all the maintenance records for the work.
Easy -- I didn't say the engine was definitely trash, just that given the information available, the odds against it being in shape for another 800 hours like alfadog said are extremely poor. I'll stand by that -- just like I'd stand by saying the odds of rolling snake-eyes on one throw of the dice are extremely long, like 36:1. Sure, you might get lucky, but the odds are strongly against it.
Apples vs oranges.
I agree, but I also thing the purchaser should be prepared to pay for an engine overhaul pretty much on delivery, and make the purchase decision accordingly.
I agree -- engines are easy to fix (all it takes is money); airframes are not.
Like I said, if you get it for the right price, even getting a couple hundred hours out of it before the engine goes west it can make for some pretty cheap flying. On the other hand, yeah, it could implode tomorrow. It's a risk you take with any airplane, it's just nowhere near as big a financial risk with a sub-$18K airplane.
Buy $35K airplane, engine dies, get a rebuild or write off $25K.
Buy $17K airplane, engine dies, get a rebuild or write off $10K.
One of these is less painful than the other, if you're not in a position to write big checks and laugh it off.
If you started out with a cheap airplane with an engine at or beyond TBO, you're not out much. If you bought something with a mid-time engine and it croaks tomorrow, you're out a whole lot more.
I dunno. But either one can fail tomorrow, and one's going to be a lot less of a hit if I can't write the check to rebuild or replace it.
). Go to the airport, look at some FBO bulletin boards, typically you will find a couple of business cards pinned there.
There are pros and cons to going that route.
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- plane is (assuming a good mechanical condition) allways available, you only have to schedule the instructor.
- it is YOUR plane. You know who flew it last, your charts and pencils are right where you left them, you wont find the trim cranked all nose down and the alternator switch off when you taxi out.
- the ability to lie to yourself that 'it isn't really that expensive' :wink2: . Once you spent the money in big chunks (purchase, annual inspection, insurance bill), individual flight lessons are only little chunks. As each incremental hour only costs you $25 in fuel out of pocket, you will fly a lot more solo than if you have to swipe the card to the tune of $200 after every flight.
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- you are the one who has to write the checks.
The regular and expected ones (tiedown $50-200/month), insurance ($100/month), annual inspection ($1000)
The unexpected ones: A cracked exhaust ($500-$1500), a new tire ($127) or a replacement used engine ($15000 installed
If you are mechanically inclined and you have an A&P mechanic willing to work with you, there is a lot of stuff you can learn do as preventative maintenance yourself, but aircraft are heavily regulated and some stuff that may seem trivial (re-tightening an alternator belt) has to be done by someone with the ability to swing the blessed pen).
- it is not some anonymous maintenance lackeys fault if your plane is not ready for a flight lession, it is YOUR fault.
- if you decide that flying is not your thing after all, selling the plane is going to be a painful experience and you are probably going to loose some money on it.
You may or may not save money by doing everything in your own plane. But if you find an instructor interested to work with you on this, you are probably going to be a better pilot with more experience if you learn in your own plane than if you have to pinch the pennies every time you take out a rental. Now, something like an AA-1x is not much of a travel plane once you have the ticket, but it still beats sitting in traffic on the 405 'freeway' (that said, a friend of mine used one to commute a couple of hundred miles accross northern MN and WI on a regular basis).
My best in put would be, concentrate on one rung of this ladder at a time, get your PPL.
I don't know that I'd call a 172 a cross country airplane either. I finally coaxed SWMBO into the right seat of one this evening. Her response was, "And you think I could spend HOW LONG in this claustrophobic little thing??"
I didn't even bother trying to show her a Cherokee. I've seen a couple of Grummans on the ramp, but have not seen any owners around to get a good look at/in them, so I don't know how they compare. Trainers like this are NOT speed demons. They'll be faster than driving, but I think a long trip is still going to feel like a long trip.
