I know, the drawback is the high asking price (but I see it as a plus, since I already have a share in one :-)) The handling on landing, as mentioned, being a fairly new pilot, just do a couple of hundreds of landing with an instructor familiar with the type and you’re good to go :-) time and patience.
Yeager wrote:
I love these, never flown one
If you come to ENVA some day, let me know I’ll take you up (might even be on floats).
I know one aeroclub which operates a C172 which is at or around 13000hrs
The 1977 C172 that I did most of my primary training on had 13000 hours back in 2001! It was still flying with the same club at Palo Alto until 2018, by which time it was probably (by extrapolation) somewhere around 20000 hours – it still belonged to one of the instructors there. It was involved in a minor accident in 2018 and seems to have been sold to someone in Minnesota. No idea whether it’s still flying.
WingsWaterAndWheels wrote:
If you come to ENVA some day, let me know I’ll take you up (might even be on floats).
I´ve marked that down!! I used to fly around a bit up there on the Fokker 50 (SAS Commuter / Norlink) back in 1998-2001. Beautiful scenery and sh@t weather! ;-)
These threads always go off in tangents with people offering all sorts of aircraft.
I think it’s more important to, as best as possible, clearly identify your type of aircraft ownership.
At one end of the scale……you know very little,
little about aircraft maintenance, little about how you’ll see your ownership develop,
don’t have lots of time to dedicate to the ‘role’ of owner. Don’t have a specific maintenance organisation in mind. Haven’t secured if it will be outside or hangared. Nearest usable airfield is hours away.
Have life, work, family, other hobies and budget to consider.
At the other end of the scale….
Not woried about the ‘learning curve’ , have time and money. Don’t really have another distracting hobby, have support from the wife/family (either directly involved or just happy for you to be)
Happy to seek out some maintenance guys and build a relationship (very important for sanity and the health of your A/C, more so if complex)
Have reasonable access to an airfied 5 mins up the road.
Obviously there is a balance of all of those items and differing levels for everyone. Only you can begin to work that out.
I’m just thinking of a couple of people, with complex aircraft, (including me at one point) who have looked across at someone climbing into a 172 with basic IFR kit, and thinking how much less hassle it would be to own that.
Maybe consider how you feel you’ll be, in your new environment, as pilot owner and base some decisions around that too.
A fixed gear, fixed prop, with traditional IFR instruments for light IMC may be a nice entry point to see how it all works.
After a year or two you’ll be well equipped to consider your next move.
P.s. definitely not telling you to do that, as I didn’t, and love what I have.
But there are some bad days with the good days, because unless you’re minted, anything you buy will be 30+yrs old.
How “hard” is the TB-20 limit? Is it a real airworthiness limitation?
It is in the MM chapter 4, yes.
It is like the SR22 chute; almost nobody knows it needs a €20k job every 10 years… but practically no private owner will reach 10k hrs in his flying career.
These threads always go off in tangents with people offering all sorts of aircraft.
For sure, because lots of planes can do the job here. And most people don’t talk about the negatives e.g. every Annual costs 10k. One famous Aztec owner thought his 20k+ annuals were totally reasonable.
The important thing is to eliminate definite known problems. See the start of my TB20 ownership writeup linked above. For example, after possibly life-threatening events with a jammed lock, I was absolutely NOT going to buy a 1-door plane (ruling out Mooneys, PA28s, etc). I was also absolutely NOT going to give my hard-earned money to some arrogant w*anker (which in that case ruled out anything from a particular Cirrus dealer 
). Socata came up with just the right package and I bought the plane without even a flight. Logical! I think the same principle should be applied to other areas of life too… just look at how many men have wives who dislike their main hobby!
Well said @GA_Pete. The aircraft that matches your KISS suggestion and has fairly nice flying qualities is the Grumman Tiger.
Cessna 180s and 185s are surely nice looking planes, better looking in most people’s view than newer Cessnas, and more aerodynamic. They’re very useful, like an airborne SUV. But they use a lot of fuel whether you’re using their capabilities or not, they have a Continental engine that eats cylinders over time, and they also fly like an SUV drives 100% of the time. The elevator forces are out of this world. I’d personally prefer a 170 or tailwheel-converted 175 with a retrofitted 180 HP Lycoming.
In answer to the question of what tailwheel aircraft can carry four people and are also aerobatic, I’m aware of only one that was certified after aerobatic capability became something subject to certification – the Bölkow 207 T model. There is probably one or maybe two of that particular variant flying 
Watching a Yak 18T start up, a big plane making billowing clouds of oil smoke etc might convince you that it’s not for a casual operator. But what a noise, eh, and that guy in your video can fly
If you allow a nosewheel and accept that midgets in the back seat are people too, the Marchetti SF260 is my aspiration for a do it all plane. My wife is a very compact person and would fit back there. There are also the aerobatic Bonanza and Musketeer variants and the Fuji FA200.
Nosewheels are fine with me. I learned how to fly mostly in a tailwheel plane but nowadays my engineer side has me convinced that the benefits of a carefully designed nosewheel setup outweigh the negatives for my purposes.
GA_Pete wrote:
Maybe consider how you feel you’ll be, in your new environment, as pilot owner and base some decisions around that too.
A fixed gear, fixed prop, with traditional IFR instruments for light IMC may be a nice entry point to see how it all works.
After a year or two you’ll be well equipped to consider your next move.P.s. definitely not telling you to do that, as I didn’t, and love what I have.
But there are some bad days with the good days, because unless you’re minted, anything you buy will be 30+yrs old.
Spot on mate! This is one type of approach – it was my choice, so far it has worked (short time ownership only), but many days have I parked the airplane and thought, “man I´m happy for what I´ve got at this little investment” (this can change!). But, as some suggest, if you can nail it strategically, done the research, found the “perfectly” matched aircraft and the investment is not a great concern – sure why not. It´s also about financial and “sanity” risk management.
Silvaire wrote:
In answer to the question of what tailwheel aircraft can carry four people and are also aerobatic, I’m aware of only one that was certified after aerobatic capability became something subject to certification – the Bölkow 207 T model. There is probably one or maybe two of that particular variant flying
Good to know that there is one. So, if your objective is 80% flying in an aerobatic taildragger – that´s it!
Silvaire wrote:
The elevator forces are out of this world
Come on! It simply is an airplane for real men (or Norsk women, I remember an old post herein about that) , not the sissy RV and even Beechcraft airplanes you can fly with your fingertips…
Having said that, this is what comes with a very wide CG range. Same as 210…I manage it with aft fuel tank and a lot of trim usage!
The flying stabilator in the TB20 must be quite light
