Aviation BS and Photo Thread

Heh I have to admit my light sport-ish dream plane is a one of the euro-style fully enclosed gyros.

 

Metal spar would be nice, but nothing wrong with a wooden spar either. It’s probably been flying with one since the 40’s. I concur with your sentiment on the engine. Maybe check Barnstormers or trade a plane and see if you can find a low to mid time C-90 or 0-200 that hasn’t been stood on its nose or been to the bottom of a lake. If you can find one at a reasonable price, and offset the cost by selling the A-65, you could have yourself a good performing little setup for not a lot of extra cash. I wonder if the brakes are upgraded to disks from the old pucks? Anyways, sounds like it’s had a lot of work done to it, and should be ready for you to just fly and enjoy. Good luck! I’ll be keeping an eye out here to see what you decided.

 

Yeah, who knows until I actually lay eyes on it. All he knew was the mechanic put new style brakes on when he replaced the landing struts. I asked if that meant disks and he said he really didn't know what kind they were. I reached out to a few guys here who regularly fly tailwheel to see if I can get one of them to go with me and look it over well.

So what do you think about how to approach the annual? Am I wrong in thinking that should be done before any agreement is reached and if it finds problems, what then?

 

I’d want the annual done prior to the sale to identify any issues and ensure it’s actually able to be flown without more work. Maybe make an agreement that you’ll pay for the cost or split the cost if it comes back clean and you buy the plane.

 

I just spent 3 months trying to buy a Cessna 120/140. Buying a vintage airplane can be a headache, but honestly just about every airplane purchase is a huge undertaking.

I agree with the comment above on the annual. I would have an independent mechanic do it, preferably one familiar with that type of airplane. It can act as a pre-buy inspection as well. Since it's out of annual, I would place the responsibility on the seller, but you might not be able to convince him.

Research the engine as much as you can. I found a beautiful 120 that was completely restored, everything was super clean. The motor was under 1000 hours SMOH and under 100 hrs on the top end. Through research I found that the motor he chose, while had lots of power is known to be expensive to maintain. And because he didn't fly it more than a few hours a year, it had low compression on the cylinders. He claimed they would go up after 5-10hrs of regular flying. In the end I decided against it. While the rest of the airplane was amazing, I didn't want to risk a major engine problem. Advice someone once told me about buying an airplane, "You want two things to be perfect, the wings and the motor."

 

My Commander arrived for my Part 135. 690b with Garrett -10s

 

Awesome. Be careful with that thing!

 

...^^^... Really Nice ...

 

Always wanted to fly one of those.

 

Text from my buddy today. Somebody done messed up

 

I ended up going with Envoy - I scheduled my ATP-CTP for Nov 26th and Indoc will start on January 14th - Could have gotten in as soon as Nov 5th for Indoc but I still need about 150 hours.

 

Gotcha. It's a shame, Envoy puts you up in a less-than-ideal location for training.

 

Flew to Byrd's Adventure Center, a 1900' strip in the Ozark Mountains. Awesome!

 

Cool, looks like it was a lot of fun. I tried to get out there to talk to the Legend rep that was supposed to be there, but had to work through the weekend.

 

I had my truck there for the weekend and then flew over on Monday afterwards. It's a really fun strip and the planes I saw over the weekend were cool!

 

So I've been put as the project manager for our Kingair E90 project at one of the part 135s we have. She's starting to come together after an extensive 2 year overhaul / restoration. Still a lot left to do but she's getting there. Interior has already been redone so after this is a trip to the paint shop and then to avionics to add our UHF/FM radios and some other panel updates.

 

"Nine O Nine" (B-17) and the rest of the Collins Foundations "Wings of Freedom" tour just landed here in Greenville, SC.
B-17
B-25 Mitchell
B-24 Liberator (Witchcraft)
P-51 Mustang
TF-51D.

Might get down to check them out on Sunday. Weather forecast calls for rain this weekend so I probably won't get to fly in Witchcraft again. Been a couple years.

 

I worked, waaaaayy back in the day, on Tupolev 154 and Boeing 707, as a junior mechanic. Does this qualifies me for posting in this thread?