Owners: did you overbuy for your original expected mission?

[iamtheari]

My first aircraft was a J-3. how do you over buy one of those?

It's possible. A J-3 with both wing tanks would be over-buying. And then there's me, who over-bought a pair of skis for the J-3 just in time for two winters without snow and the permanent closure of our grass runway.

 

[David Megginson]

My first aircraft was a J-3. how do you over buy one of those?

By paying twice as much for a J-3 as you would for comparable planes like an Aeronca Champ? (Just kidding; I'd probably have done it too.)

 

[Southpaw]

My first aircraft was a J-3. how do you over buy one of those?

A cowboy friend back in the 60's had a J-3 .
Flew it every where around the ranch and locally searching cattle , checking fences and other great ideas.
One day he offered it to me for $1200.
Guess he put it on its nose in a pasture landing .
Was the last time he flew.
I almost bought it but the wife said NO ! (It was her money , We up graded our 49 Buick Super a 61 Buick LeSaber instead for the same money )
Took me another 55 years to gather the money to buy the 172 I have now.

 

[Tom-D]

By paying twice as much for a J-3 as you would for comparable planes like an Aeronca Champ? (Just kidding; I'd probably have done it too.)

My Dad bought my J-3 for $450 bucks, (1954) and I ran it on farm gas at $.08 from the tank in the wagon barn.

 

[Adam Weiss]

As I finished my PPL, I kept a spreadsheet and a list. The list was trips that I took by car and wished I had a plane or that I canceled but could have taken in a plane. The spreadsheet had rows for destinations and columns for different airplanes, with the cells being the one-way trip time for the combination of destination and airplane.

My conclusion was that my mission at that time called for a 4-seat plane at least 130 KTAS and as affordable to operate as possible. So when an Arrow became available, I wasted no time buying it. I am selling the Arrow now, about 4 years and 400 hours later, simply because my mission has changed to needing more speed and either fewer or more seats. The Arrow has been very good for fine-tuning and understanding my mission. The new owner will be doing the same thing as he finishes his PPL and spreads his wings.

The mission redefining has been mostly flying solo (thank you to @EricBe's MyFlightBook app for letting me quickly find out how many flights I have had N passengers) so a plane that is faster and more efficient with fewer seats was a better fit. Thus, I've spent almost 3 years building an RV-14 and I am nearing first flight. That plane will go 30-50 knots faster than the Arrow on the same fuel burn and less maintenance costs, plus more fun.

Then, one of my main family destinations moved from 230 nm to 1100 nm away, with miserable airline service on both ends. Mix in a pandemic, and suddenly my family's margins of agony between commercial and private air travel have narrowed considerably, so I am also shopping for a plane that will haul 4 adults and maybe a couple kids at 170+ knots.

A lot of planes will work for that mission-defining role. Any of the Cherokees, a 172 or 182, a Mooney, a Bonanza, or any of a dozen other types. A couple hundred hours in, you'll better understand your mission. It's like a Honda Accord, the car you buy when you don't know what kind of car you need. It will do most things well enough to get used, help you see what you really need, and be easy to sell when you're ready to get into something else.

Congrats on the RV-14!
Be sure to post lots of pics here at PoA!

 

[iamtheari]

Congrats on the RV-14!
Be sure to post lots of pics here at PoA!

You can congratulate me when it flies. Until then, it's an airplane kit, and that's about the dumbest thing a person can own. I did start a thread before my build and I plan to necropost there when it's flying.

 

[Checkout_my_Six]

My Dad bought my J-3 for $450 bucks, (1954) and I ran it on farm gas at $.08 from the tank in the wagon barn.

Too expensive....

 

[David Megginson]

My Dad bought my J-3 for $450 bucks, (1954) and I ran it on farm gas at $.08 from the tank in the wagon barn.

That's a big markup from the $300 they'd cost as war surplus a few years earlier.

 

[Groundpounder]

My airplane buying journey started by talking with a friend and fellow professional pilot about starting a flying club. I was a member of one at the time, and was beginning to grow frustrated with it. My friend wanted to have access to a GA airplane again. So we figured we'd buy something like an Archer, and have a 10 member club. Fast forward about a year, and he and I were now the sole owners of a F33A Bonanza. It's a long complicated story as to how we ended up with that, but there has been zero regrets from either one of us about what we ended up with. He and I are both people that like going places, and this is an awesome travelling machine. I can easily beat the airlines to anywhere in the Carolinas, and I can beat them to a big chunk of Florida, especially when you consider door to door times.

 

[Tom-D]

That's a big markup from the $300 they'd cost as war surplus a few years earlier.

But they did not come with N numbers for that price, my was certified