adrian1970

Thank you onetrack.

the link doesn't work 😔

 It's probably not hard enough to fly to be a good trainer.  At some stage get into something different and consolidate on it. I'm not sure that what I learned on means much ( Chipmunk) but I can only speak for myself. Some planes I originally flew because they were cheaper to hire and not in great shape and weren't used much

 

. .Similarly I did X countries in Austers and Tiger moths as they were cheaper by a significant margin. The more different planes you fly the more adaptable you will be. You can get into a comfortable rut with just the one.. Same with where you fly. Go to different aerodromes and put in the preparation required to do it well.. Nev

 

Hi Nev, what you think is one of the more challenging small GA planes to fly?

 It's probably not hard enough to fly to be a good trainer.  At some stage get into something different and consolidate on it. I'm not sure that what I learned on means much ( Chipmunk) but I can only speak for myself. Some planes I originally flew because they were cheaper to hire and not in great shape and weren't used much

 

. .Similarly I did X countries in Austers and Tiger moths as they were cheaper by a significant margin. The more different planes you fly the more adaptable you will be. You can get into a comfortable rut with just the one.. Same with where you fly. Go to different aerodromes and put in the preparation required to do it well.. Nev

 

Thanks nev, I have booked a Piper low wing for next month, also i am in the process of organising some Dual flights in a sling. should be fun. cheers. Adrian.

Hi Jetboy, thanks foe the insight. that all makes sense to me. cheers.

I will add to that case study, I have and still train in C172 high wings and i think that is my preferred machine.

Its good to evaluate buying vs renting right at the start. True that nobody really knows what type you are going to prefer to own but that can be changed later anyway, every $300 you spend building hours in a hire is $300 less available to buy one (less the fuel / mtce costs of course) but it adds up quickly consider on average you need 70hrs training to go to PPL. 

 

I did all my training at an aero club and like any organisation the rates are stacked up to suit their operation, we were to fly at reduced rpm so they could pay less for fuel while charging out more hours flight time and overhauling the engines less often (tacho time is less). I know that effectively got us a PPL at lower cost along with bumping our bookings whenever a tourist wanted the plane for scenic - depends what price you put on your time and if those logged hours are effective value for the money.

 

The other factor is you dont get to take a rental anywhere or anytime you like, it has to be booked and if you get stranded with weather etc. you might be paying twice for someone else to get it back. To go on holiday the economics of hiring self fly dont stack up but if you already own it then the actual cost of making that trip is only the cost of fuel and oil  and landing / ATC charges all the other costs are going to happen whether you fly that trip or not.

 

 I chose an older Cessna after doing due diligence on the type, visiting more than 2 mtce shops for advice on the pros and cons, Lycoming issues vs. Continental. Avoided a syndicate because I wanted full control over useage and no arguments over mtce standards. I was able to save a lot of costs by doing simple items like corrosion control under advice / supervision, often they would let me use their workshop facilities while I was there for the annual no self respecting LAME would rather do this work if you will its like the garage sign that reads "repairs $100 / hr while you watch $120 / hr while you help $140 / hr"

 

They had told me an annual on a Cessna would take about 9 hrs vs. 11 or 12 for Cherokee as the removal for inspection work is more. It cost less if I opened up all the inspection panels for them also it doesnt cost any more to maintain 4 seater vs. 2 the inspection items are equally tedious.

 

   Best of luck choosing, either way I dont regret getting into flying. Its an observation that pilots often prefer the type of plane they trained most in, I started with C172 and preferred high wing ever since. Mate was a Piper man, so much hassle getting in & out but it got us there regardless.

 

Thanks Djp, so to clarify it is an option to register a RAA ultra light to VH rego? & if so what are the pros & cons?

Cheers

Adrian.

As  PPL now also an  RAA Cert,  I can tell you that the difference in handling is significant. Don't know about the big Jab's, I did my conversion on little ones and now fly a long wing Czech beauty and I found it quite challenging to adapt to much lower inertia and way lighter more responsive handling - I hope it makes for a better pilot ( probably a bit like having a glider endorsement).  As for the rest of it you will still be making the same radio calls, flight planning and applying the same training/theory.

 

Thanks skippy

Every qualification you have on any  VH operation will transfer to the Certificate. You have to do a few hours to cover low inertia if you need it . It used to be a bit of a deal, but now many planes fly more efficiently than some GA types and you may never fly a low inertia plane. There's pax carrying after solo of min one hour. Check schools for details. Get used to the idea of practicing engine failures, and landing off field issues like SWER power lines.. Nev

 

Thanks nev for all your help you seem a wealth of info cheers!

Hi Head Honcho, yes i have considered an RA plane, how would that work with my CASA PPL and then flying to RA planes, i think someone mentioned this earlier somewhere but im assuming there is another course or something i would have to do in order to be licensed for the RA machines?

 

Also, at this stage i do have 2 little 3 year old kidlets who will eagerly fill the rear seats but also they wont be small for long, particularly at the rate my boys are growing.

Another consideration is do you really need 4 seats? If not you will be able to purchase a modern RA registered aircraft with equal or better performance than the old C172 or PA28 although with less payload and space. A J230 though has a heap of space as the 2 seats of the J430 model are not there. Maintenance is likely to be considerably cheaper & if you have & maintain your PPL & the aircraft is fitted with a Transponder you can fly in controlled airspace. The cheapest part of buying an old GA aircraft is the purchase price by a county mile.

 

Hi Head Honcho, yes i have considered an RA plane, how would that work with my CASA PPL and then flying to RA planes, i think someone mentioned this earlier somewhere but im assuming there is another course or something i would have to do in order to be licensed for the RA machines?

The Beech 23 is also worth considering, they are beautifully built. This is what my 56 year old looks like on the inside, not many of the parts were painted internally back then. If you see any amount of corrosion in any aircraft pass.

 

[ATTACH]42116[/ATTACH]

 

yes that looks brand new.

Hi Adrian, don't  let the nay sayers put you off. I get a lot of satisfaction from owning. I know it would be more economical to rent and now live in an area with plenty of choice only 50 km away, it used to be 200.  

 

Hi Thruster, Thanks & yes  i assume a lot of what is payed for is satisfaction of owning, it prob a bit like any toy as in it may not be purchased based on economical reasons.

Thank you for you response. Cheers☺️

Thanks Nev.

Thank you for the input and it is what i expected, in general mixed.

I have been renting and still do, i guess at some stage i will have to buy something as the wife and I would like to fly around Qld in a few years time to see what it's all about and eventually if we so desire we will do a trip around Oz, well that's the plan & the question had been asked to me how that could be done with a rental.

I owned a 1967 Cherokee 180 for about 10 years in the 90’s and have operated a 1977 Archer II for about the last 10 years.  Neither aeroplane gave me an ounce of trouble in all that time.  I also flew a Commander 114 for about 5 years before the Archer.

 

The 180 was based in the bush on my farm strip and the Commander and Archer are based on the coast.

 

Plenty of older aeroplanes will give good service if they have been looked after.  None of the three were ever used for training and all had/have around 4000 Hrs TTIS.

 

Look for a good airframe first and look at the engine second.  You can always replace or overhaul an engine but, if the airframe is a dog, it will eat up money at a huge rate and never be any good.

 

The right aeroplane may be able to run on Mogas with an STC.  My Gliding club has run two Pawnee 235’s on Premium 98 for more than 10 years (thousands of hours) with a significant saving in costs.  My Cherokee 180 did over 300 hours on mogas.  She ran cooler, smoother, and didn’t even look like fouling a spark plug.  Something she did a lot of when running on avgas.

 

I wouldn’t go for an Arrow or similar,  maintenance costs rise to ridiculous levels when you add retractable undercarriage and constant speed props to the equation.  The Archer costs less than half to maintain than the Commander 114 that she replaced doing about the same number of hours each year.

 

I think it is worth owning your own aeroplane if you are going to be doing a fair bit of flying.  If you don’t do at least 70 odd hours or more a year, it will probably be cheaper to rent.

 

Piper or Cessna?

 

You say potayto, I say patarto!   You can sit under the wing of a 172 in the shade.  You can see out of a Cherokee when you are turning.  A little of column A, a little of column B.

 

Robert

 

great advice thanks.

Hello everyone. 

                           I am sure this subject has been flogged to death in the past however, does anyone have any practical experience with owning an older piper cherokee or Arrow or similar and any usefull input on costs and possible pros & cons, I am leaning toward purchasing an old plane to do my PPL in and it seems a toss up between an old Cesna 172 and a piper, i see there is quite a lot of other second hand planes at cheap price points however i think the brand seem obscure and probably for a reason and i cant be sure but the recent input i have is to steer clear of jabiru.

any helpfull information is appreciated.

You'll all be sorry when MH370 flies out of the clouds next year, and lands in Beijing.

 

I know time warps can happen, my friends from the tunnels under the South Pole have told me it's true - so it must be!

 

What? You didn't know about the tunnels under the South Pole?? Just goes to show how little the "educated" people know! 

 

wonder whatever happened to MH370. when technology can track a mobile phone down to one meter..why not that big old plane and all the gear and not to mention passenger phones that would have been on it.

My Question is a statement ..a Rhetorical question ..who comes up with this stuff?..like surely they could have made it all believable, anyhow you may wonder how i came to be thinking of this, simply i was reading about the Bermuda triangle and somehow found myself knee deep in odd air & sea transport stories.

Yeh what stuff??

 

google flight 914 Miami to Florida.

What stuff?

 

google flight 914 miami to florida..you will find the story.

Has anyone else read about flight 914 new york to miami in 1955? who comes up with this stuff

I'm going to answer this post if I can.

 

1.  Stay with the 172 and get your RPL

 

2.  You can't swap to RAAus and do your cross-country - stay with the 172

 

3.  Unless you plan to go thru lots of CTA, or do CPL - just do RPL

 

4.  Do your cross-country navs in the 172

 

5.  Include Class D CTA during these navs - you don't need Class C

 

If you had asked the Q about where to start, then I'd have said start with RAAus, (RPC), then do navs in RAAus, then switch over to GA, and convert to RPL. All your endorsements carryover to GA. This route is definitely cheaper.

 

Good luck.  Redcliffe isn't a great place to learn due the winds, but it is what it is. Caboolture probably easier.

 

happy days,

 

Thanks Potoroo,

                          Is there no allowances for a RPL holder to then join RAAus and do some time there, including navs?, then moving it over to the RPL?  at this stage im keen to do a PPL  however im not sure if i will continue to cpl, OR,  if i will just fly recreationally,  Im feeling like regardless of licenses i would like to explore both areas in any case.

I did my training 0h to RPL in 37h at Moorabbin, all of it in Warriors II and III.

 

I think I could have cut another 3-4h, had I been more organised and more strict with my instructor. The sticky point for me was a delay in getting my medical certificate processed which meant that a month went by before I could do my first solo.

 

In hindsight it was my mistake as I should have gone to a DAME straight away. Unfortunately I wrongly assumed that it wouldn't take long to get that processed afterwards. The other sticky parts were mostly down to school organisation and getting them not to cancel lessons all the the time. At one point I even requested that we do two flights a day to get through the syllabus.

 

Technically speaking, I found landings to be the hardest part to master. I changed instructors midway into my training and the new one was a obsessed with hitting the sweet spot on the ASI right on base and final. Becoming more respectful of my airspeed on final really helped me the most. The other part I found tricky was staying focused while receiving instructions from ATC. I must have given those folks in the tower a bunch of good laughters ?

 

My humble advice if you want to keep your time down:

 

1. prepare your lessons beforehand and be as ready as you can,

 

2. squeeze as much training into as little time as you can afford to keep your muscle memory fresh (nothing worse than letting weeks lapse between flights),

 

3. commit your checklists to memory,

 

4. practice scenarios in the aeroplane on the ground, engine off, e.g. PFL. If necessary, battery ON and learn every corner of your avionics,

 

5. record your flights, both audio and video. No matter what level you're at, there's always a lot going on in a flight lesson. Your brain only has so much bandwidth to process all those simultaneous signals. I found that having the ability to replay my flights afterwards allowed me to get so much more out of them and know what to focus on for the next ones.

 

i was thinking of video rec my flights i will begin to do that it obviously makes sense and yes the radio calls and hearing and processing the rx while doing eveything else can be challenging ive also found.

thanks for the advice ?

Cheers

I took 26 hrs to go from RPC to RPL, found going to 182 for learning meant getting used to weight difference, performance, the prop and mixture stuff, then cross country and minimum instrument time. Also some time spent getting used to radio in tower time compared to CTAF time in Raaus flying.

 

Hi Clinton, so how many hours approx to do sport license then was it a further 26 hrs tp cover the RPL? if so how many hours all up?