$587.65? Really?

That has been my average cost per hour for 94.1 hours over a year and a half in my plane. What are you guys seeing? Starting to think PPIs really are worthless and that I bought a winged lemon. Still love the damn thing, though!

 

Yep...my '72 Arrow. Renting would be much less offensive financially!!

Did the math after my last $3,000 bill, which was preceded by a $1400 bill a month prior, which was preceded by...you get the picture.

I think as soon as my commercial ticket is done (a few weeks), I'll cut my losses and dump this sucker. I never expected it to be cheap, but I didn't expect to buy the thing twice in this amount of time, either! Anyone who advised me that it may be a bad idea -- you get to say I told you so.

I love having the plane and the freedom to just show up and go when I want, but I should have gone with something newer and/or less complex. The gear has been a pain from the get go.

Caveat Emptor.

 

I should have bought an L-39 and flown half as much As an added kicker -- I forgot to add my insurance into the hourly figure. ACK!

 

Nope, no cost for airplane, insurance, or space. I did include gas, oil, and expendables like tires.

At this point, I feel like I've darn near replaced everything. I had an $8500 gear repair right off the bat, and it just kept on going from there. Then, after all that, it was discovered that somewhere down the line, someone ignored a service bulletin after a different gear repair and didn't install strut brace webbing in the right main gear. I discovered cracks (after no hard landings) forming in the top of the wing as a result, and the gear well and support structure had to be completely rebuilt. Two turn coordinators, altimeter, directional gyro, more main gear surgery, transponder, several trim issues, some minor but still costly engine work, bad down and lock, shimmy dampener and bearings in the nose gear, bad mixture cable, replaced ignition chain (switch to starter), airbox rebuilt twice, re-glassed cowling after after cracks formed around oil door, replaced oil door, new window seals, door seals, door lock (on one trip, I got stuck in the plane and had to hand someone the keys through the window so I could climb out the baggage door because it just would not open outside or inside!!), new trim/flap handle housing cover...that's what I can remember right now. I could pull out the ever-growing tumor that is my maintenance records and list it all, but I'd be here all night.

The bright side? My compressions are good. Oil analysis looks good.

I almost sold it a while ago, but I decided it would never be cheap and that it had to get better after catching up a bit. I'm in a bit of a fix now -- do I cut and run or stick it out longer now that I've dumped all of this in it, hoping that I will finally end up with a sorted aircraft? I can't imagine it's just cursed. I have about 500 hours to go before prop and engine OH.

 

Well, the airframe is fairly high time at about 7200 hours. It did do some time as a trainer in a flight school, which I was concerned about at the time, but the mech's opinion was that the previous owner had replaced a lot of gear components and that it most likely was not a concern. Ha! Of course, a lot of these things are simply deferred maintenance items and a healthy dose of my crap luck.

I feel pretty stupid as I always research things to death, and all things considered, the plane seemed like a decent deal to me. Because of the high time, seller's circumstances and a few smaller things that popped up on the inspection, I ended up getting it about $10K below market. I figured that difference would carry for a little while, but I was wrong.

This Arrow is actually pretty swift -- for an Arrow. It has a LoPresti kit and is a 200 hp model, so it's not dreadfully slow, and I do enjoy flying it. I realize my CHP may be a bit lower with more hours, and it would have been great to have had the time and necessity to fly 300 hours last year, but it just didn't work out that way. Plus, when the S really hit the fan, it made me reluctant to dump anything into it in the form of petrol and other expendables.

And BTW, I'm really not whining (not that I feel accused) -- I know I have no one but myself to blame here, and I've learned a hell of a lot about airplanes from this and had a lot of fun between panic attacks, so I can't say it is a total waste...but I can assure you my next aircraft will not be an older retractable!

 

That's the way I've been leaning lately (today I hate to just abandon it before I've even logged a lot of time in it, and considering what I've put in up to now, it would suck to have done all that for nothing. If I can cruise relatively worry-free for a few years, it will be worth it. I just don't want any more huge surprises, though I can't be sure what could possibly go wrong now, short of the obvious -- TBO, etc. Knock on wood!

 

Yeah, I think you're right. At least I now have a nice plane, even if I wasn't expecting to have to do so much so soon. I'm meeting with my mech next week to discuss what else may need to be done before TBO. Hopefully, she's finally sorted for a while...though today I found out that I do need yet another turn coordinator. This thing eats turn coordinators like candy, I don't get it!!