Congrat Hazek for the Mooney Bravo…
One of my favorite Mooneys, was very close to get one…
Signed contract of a Mooney M20K Encore instead that suit my needs little better, pre-buy within 2 weeks.
Yeager wrote:
Excited to hear that you found a great opportunity – sounds great. Best of luck with it all and enjoy. Looking forward to you updates en route. Cheers.
Thanks, you’re right, I should report back in a year and so I will do that too.Capitaine wrote:
Congratulations hazek. The M20M is a 🚀
Thanks, excited to ride that thing. :D
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Congratulations to a fellow Mooneyac! The TLS is a great machine, you’ll love flying her.
Thank you :)) Can’t wait.
Darkfixer wrote:
Congrat Hazek for the Mooney Bravo…One of my favorite Mooneys, was very close to get one…
Signed contract of a Mooney M20K Encore instead that suit my needs little better, pre-buy within 2 weeks.
Thanks and awesome for your K, should be fun to fly just as much from what I read.
Congrats @hazek and @Darkfixer!
Can’t wait to read your reports!
Just in relation to the title of the thread, as Peter said quite early on the answer is yes. The weather this weekend (13-14 April) just called out to go skiing as the season finishes this weekend for a lot of resorts. EasyJet flights all full – I took my plane and my grandson had his first ever flight with my wife and I. See https://www.euroga.org/forums/flying/15586-what-have-you-done-with-or-on-your-aircraft-this-weekend-april-13-14-2024
Would like to share my experience as a new aircraft owner. The benefits are well known and endless especially if youre looking to gain and build up experience. However, im going to focus on the downsides so people are well aware.
I inspected a total of 8 planes prior to buying N219RT (one full day of inspection each at a cost of around £500 each). 6 were absolute crap, 1 was OK but AP didnt work and it was old/high engine hours, and 1 was N219RT which was in top condition with great avionics, low hours, spotless oil analysis and compressions all near 80.
Nevertheless, 30-40 hours on, and one early 50 hour check in, i have spent a significant sum replacing various parts which were not in optimum condition. This includes:
- Prop overhaul – known issue – £8k and 3 weeks downtime
- Dynamic prop balancing – known issue – £1k – 1 day downtime
- New engine mounts – not known issue – £3k and 2 days downtime
- New spark plugs – not known issue – £250 – during 50h check
- New battery – not known issue – £1k – 1 day downtime
- AP broken down – not known issue – unknown cost and downtime for now. Will likely install a new Garmin one for around £20k and probably 3 weeks downtime
- New alternator belt – not known issue – £500
- Oil temperature sensor bug – not known issue – unknown cost and downtime
I am now finally getting to a stage where i have a shiny nice plane that starts quickly, runs smoothly, and is as safe as it can be.
but really, in terms of cost, we are looking at around £30k+ on top of the price to bring it to top condition. And this is for the best up front condition and lowest hours by a long mile (compared to the 7 others i inspected which were already filtered down).
I dread to think what the cost would be for an expensive, old, or more advanced aircraft.
I suggest adding a MINIMUM 10% of the price on top for unknown issues. For aircraft in less up front condition, this could be up to 25% (obviously sky is the limit if youre taking up a project but here im talking about aircraft that are airworthy).
Another warning is that aircraft ownership is very time consuming. At the moment its a part time job for me. Hopefully once I get the aircraft up to tip top shape and 0 defect policy it will be better.
Of course, you can also choose to run it like a dog but for me life is too short. I just wouldn’t buy a plane if i can’t afford running it to top condition.
I dont want people to think i am regretting buying an aircraft – to the contrary – the experience and knowledge ive gained just fixing things is priceless. In addition to the hours building i did which in 1 month was equivalent to 6 months in a flying club pretty much. However, its important to know what youre getting yourself into.
Sorry if a lot of this stuff has been repeated elsewhere!
Prop overhaul – known issue – £8k and 3 weeks downtime
- Dynamic prop balancing – known issue – £1k – 1 day downtime
- New engine mounts – not known issue – £3k and 2 days downtime
- New spark plugs – not known issue – £250 – during 50h check
- New battery – not known issue – £1k – 1 day downtime
My costs to do the same on a plane with a four cylinder Lycoming were as follows:
Prop overhaul – $4500 (MT CS 3-Blade, by American Propeller, removed and replaced myself)
Prop balancing – free (A&P friend has equipment)
Engine mounts – $800 (parts from AS, did it myself)
Spark plugs – about $400 (parts from AS, UREM37BY plugs)
Battery – $420 (Concorde RG-25XC from AS)
Which is 36% of the cost, and other than having two less cylinders in the case of spark plugs mainly shows that a good relationship with your mechanic(s) and a willingness to get your hands dirty can vastly reduce certified aircraft ownership costs.
Where this doesn’t help is when you can’t contribute anything except handing the plane to somebody you hope to trust and pulling credit card from wallet. Examples for me and my plane would be replacing bonded-in windscreen transparency and repaint, which in combination is about $20K.
The new alternator belt for £500 is an interesting one given that the prop came off to be overhauled. The belt itself is about $100 and with the prop off it’s about 15 minutes work to install a new one on an Lycoming including safety wiring the alternator bolts.
@Rami1988 thanks for that honest report 👍🏻
I now sincerely hope your aircraft will now fulfil all you wished for.
It also nicely demonstrate how costly such an exercise can be. A old (and new…) certified tourer is an expensive toy… on a personal note I’m happy my interests turned around since I couldn’t justify these kind of costs without my better half having a go at lynching me…
Rami1988 wrote:
- New engine mounts – not known issue – £3k and 2 days downtime
- New spark plugs – not known issue – £250 – during 50h check
- New battery – not known issue – £1k – 1 day downtime
- New alternator belt – not known issue – £500
- Oil temperature sensor bug – not known issue – unknown cost and downtime
Didn’t you say you had the airplane inspected? While a new battery and spark plugs are stuff which simply gets exchanged quite normally during checks, engine mounts and even the alternator belt should have been spotted at a PBI. And to exchange a battery, one day downtime? Why?
* AP broken down – not known issue – unknown cost and downtime for now. Will likely install a new Garmin one for around £20k and probably 3 weeks downtime
What exactly is wrong with it? It’s a KFC225 i understand? So any good AP shop should be able to diagnose and fix it? When did it break down, after a couple of flights or did you find it broken after you took possession? The King AP’s are usually of a fairly good quality and also work well. Stuff which tends to break are servos.
I find it is quite important to have a good maintenance and avionic shop nearby who know the airplane and are on top of it.
Yeah I’m going to ask about the engine mounts (how we didnt spot them). Do they usually wear evenly or suddenly? Also I’m not sure how badly worn they were. We replaced them in the quest to reduce vibrations and it actually helped as the engine now runs smoother and sits slightly differently.
Regarding the autopilot it captures altitude about 60-80ft higher consistently and it keeps rocking back and forth very slightly after capture. You can see the FD moving back and forth similar to an issue Peter experienced. Doesn’t change the altitude by much but you can see the nose going back and forth. It happened to me after about 30h. I am also yet to test it in turbulent conditions to see how it acts.
I read a lot about how unreliable KFC225 is and the endless issues Peter experienced. Trouble is there’s no easy to access avionics shop in the UK. You will have to wait forever and most likely end up sending the box state side. I do think I can eventually fix this but life is too short to have a problem with it every x hours and Garmin is apparently much more reliable so..
