Recent content by dcr-wss

Newer certified planes have life limits, e.g. I believe cirrus is 12k hours.

It also matters a lot these days what state you're in and they don't like pressurized or vintage. Gotta get your own numbers if it's part of the decision process.

Make sure to be looking at the real spec of actual real-world aircraft you would consider buying, because every one is different and always significantly lower than what the spec sheet says. Some types have "sweet spot" years where the gross went up but the weight of the trim bits hadn't yet.

When looking at 50+ year old aircraft, the parts that are reliability issues have already been replaced many times. The question is how old are those parts, not the airframe.

The math problem gets a lot easier when considering how few non-trainers are available new. Is an Archer actually a fit for your mission or is that an example for the exercise?

You and your passenger will have to stay quite svelte to squeeze through the front seat birthing canal of a PA46 anyway so it's not as bad as it sounds. But really, picking a GA plane for a mission is one of those "least bad option" exercises. You'll have plenty of time to obsess over spec sheets.

Useful load on a Malibu is only about 1250lbs. With 1000lbs on board you have enough space left for your reserve fuel, but you can't take off. And look at the engine failure data on these before you decide to fly your family over the sierras in one. You pushed back early on regarding why this...

There's a huge range of ice capability among FIKI planes. There's a reason everyone who wants to do this and can afford it has moved to SETP.

You will have a very hard time getting insurance for any pressurized plane as a fresh private pilot in today's insurance market.

Flight training in California these days is near 200 for the plane and 80 for the instructor in big cities. How much worse is Germany? I haven't been able to find pricing on the several flight school websites I've google translated.

Last time I did the transition heading south I was at 2000ft at night, several frequency changes along the way but it's not too bad. They'll give instructions such as "stay west of xyz landmark" or provide a heading. I've done it twice VFR over the past few years, no problems either time. It's...

Travis is easy to work with and as mentioned you get handed off to them. It's fairly sleepy airspace relative to Norcal or Oakland. I even got cleared for practice KSUU ILS a couple times when I did my instrument rating in the area, terminating missed of course. Nice airport, secure and well...