I made the best worst decision ever, and bought a plane.
Well, half of it, to be precise, as I bought it 50/50 with a like minded friend. He’s my risk mitigation strategy and I fear I am his, for any can of worms we have opened by purchasing this thing. But, we’re super excited and happy to own a first airplane.
I want to thank all of you for the helpful advice I got throughout the years. I learned a ton (at least I hope so)! Thank you!
In the end, I (or rather, we) decided to go with
-) sub 1000kg MTOW as something over 1000kg would mean double the fees (e.g. a C172 with 1042kg is double the landing fee) at my base.
-) IFR ready without major upgrades required straight away
-) MOGAS possible in case of any AVGAS troubles (or “greek prices” occurring suddenly around here)
-) payload for two europeans (one of them fat), a little luggage and full fuel to do a mix of VFR and light IFR touring around Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy etc.. full fuel is 50 so around 6 hours till empty.
-) instructing a friend or two per year for CB IR (open for applications!)
- ) starting plane ownership on a budget (in my personal case a Corona necessity), trying it out for some time and if I like the plane, spend some €€€ for fancy upgrades
- ) going with a common airframe so parts availability, maintenance and upgrades are easier.
So, drumroll, here is the GNS530 (non WAAS, of course, how dare you ask!) and Century (old) AutoCrapilot equipped Piper 28 Cherokee 140 with an STC’d 160hp engine:
Yes, that is actually some (terrible) kind of yellow, not some aged kind of white. Classical 10 feet paint job, the closer you get the worse it looks, haha.
Only flaw so far, as you can see, is that it’s registered in Germany, which will hurt my austrian heart everytime I approach the plane (just kidding, it’s fine).
It has a Lyco O-320 at around 400 hours, still within calendar time. We had a prebuy done, corrosion inspections on engine/airframe with a borescope, oil filter checked, oil chemically analysed, all looking good. The airframe and engine seem good, but cosmetically it’s not yet up to our standards, so we’re looking for a place to redo the seats. Probably will C-STAN the landing light to LED and do some other minor improvements.
Next post I’ll let you know how it flies ;)
Snoopy wrote:
Next post I’ll let you know how it flies ;)
So you intend on actually flying her, not only own it? Just jocking of course, and congrats :-)
Looks like a solid plane with the right boxes ticked.
Congratulations 
Congrats, Snoopy !!!
PS: you really gotta get rid of that D-reg, LOL !!
Hey Snoopy, this totally makes my day!
Congratulations and best wishes for your purchase. With all the stuff you have done to verify the airplane before buying I am confident your owner experience will be very satisfying.
Before I bought my Mooney I did look very closely at a PA28-140, original though and almost bought it, unfortunately the pre-buy was not as successful as yours. The -140 in particular with the 160 hp upgrade is a very solid airframe with little in the sense of tricky parts and few expensive items which can go wrong.
Now of course we expect panel pics and a good write up on the good old Piper!
For the seats and if you need yokes call our common friend in Graz, He can give you directions.
Fantastic Snoopy, felicidades!
You deserve an airplane, and you have probably been as meticulous with finding the right partner as with selecting the right craft. A good solution.
Hope to be able to welcome you one day over here.
Congratulations!
Where is the fat one?
Very nice, Snoopy,
good choice of platform for your requirements. Looking forward to follow you in finding out what can be improved.
Enjoy your new toy.
Congratulations for the new baby of the family !
Your mission is kind of specific and you found the right platform for it.
Can’t wait to read your reports. Especially about IFR in a 160hp fp plane.
It is not affected by the piper AD, is it ? Do you plan to conduct the eddy current inspections nonetheless ?
Excellent, Snoopy.
Now you can come to our fly-ins with the appropriate amount of street cred 
