alioth wrote:
unless you have a household income that will support a capable FIKI single
depends on how you define the mission. No GA aircraft is capable as an all-weather aircraft. They do not have necessary climb rates, de-icing and ceiling, even TBMs or PC-12 might lack any of these, so you always will want to go bigger.
But you can define your mission around that.
Well, fact of the matter is, that GA has it’s inbuilt limitations which in many cases make it a lousy family transporter.
First and foremost, if your family is not 100% behind it and best be infected by the same aviation virus as yourself, the idea of using an airplane for family transport is in many cases a case of dillusion.
Other than that, it does depend very much where you are located and where you want to fly to. For the typical central Europe to Med mission many dream of, I’d say forget it unless you really own at least a TBM or PC12. Particularly VFR, flyability across the Alps is at most 30%. Those south of the Alps are in a much better situation of course, unless they want to go north.
The only thing which works and is great are short trips of maybe 200-300 NM without alpine crossings and where a time window of maybe 10 days plus and minus are available. So, to visit family on “one of the next weekends” will probably work once or twice a year.
UdoR wrote:
No GA aircraft is capable as an all-weather aircraft. They do not have necessary climb rates, de-icing and ceiling, even TBMs or PC-12 might lack any of these, so you always will want to go bigger.But you can define your mission around that.
For TBM / PC12 the factors you listed are much less (to almost none) limiting, what is however is lack of CATII/III.
Source: I spent a couple thousand hours flying a turboprop (ceiling FL250) in Europe. Cancellations due to weather: 1 (freezing rain at dep airport).
Mooney_Driver wrote:
The only thing which works and is great are short trips of maybe 200-300 NM without alpine crossings and where a time window of maybe 10 days plus and minus are available. So, to visit family on “one of the next weekends” will probably work once or twice a year.
In my experience that is a bit on t he pessimistic side.
yes, the family support is very important.
Once you are there, having flexibility in destination and dates are key to success.
Short-notice trips to otherwise-difficult-to-access destinations is indeed where GA excels.
For eveyrthing else you are depending on probs: two summers ago we scheduled a trip to Scotland with pre-paid summer camps etc but I would never have scheduled that in say March. We also scheduled to travel there a few days in advance and stay there a couple of days after, for flexibility, which proved not required. For ref: our SEP’s deice equipment consists of prop antiice, pitot+stall heaters and windshield defrost. The little ice we found was dealt with via an expeditious level change.
Antonio wrote:
Short-notice trips to otherwise-difficult-to-access destinations is indeed where GA excels
I think you hit the nail, while the rest of the discussion is going down to CatII/III with auto-land for terminal flying while en-route is done in a Lockheed WP-3D Orion :)
For the aircraft market experts :
How do you apply the 50/50 rule with changing values (50% budget for purchase, 50% for repairs) ?
When an aircraft doubles its value on the market, it makes no sense to double your reserve, does it ?
Jujupilote wrote:
When an aircraft doubles its value on the market
Unicorns 
I meant from the buyer’s market of 3 years ago until today. Plane like Mooney’s one.
Average asking prices nearly doubled.
Indeed, in last two years prices has gone way up (not just Mooney/RV but boats, cars & houses), for new stuff it’s surely US-centric supply issues but for old stuff it’s probably no one is selling while buyers are sitting on cash, the puzzling bit is unlike the past crisis there is not much “toys selling on discount”…
I would not plan (50% purchase, 50% repairs) based on this price hike as the following applies
Maybe @williamf can tell us if this is real…
As regards “50% purchase, 50% repairs” that suggest one bought an absolute dog. Unless one did so deliberately e.g. I might buy a completely shagged TB20 for 50k and spend 50k doing it up. But that would be a huge job; ok if you are old and single and nobody likes you
