comanche 260 , awsome plane, I saw one take off with full fuel, 90 degree's
outside and 4 adults. There were like 7 of us out there watching to see if it
would get off the ground, me, the fuel guy and several others, it didnt have any
problems. Comanche's are like mooney's in that they are very clean airplanes.

Mooney, dont know much about them except the cockpit looks awful small.

Arrow III, you may be a bit disappointed, I have flown the Normally Aspirated
Arrow III and I own a Turbo Arrow III. The normally aspirated Arrow is not a fast
airplane. About 130-135 kts. The Turbo Arrow is a 150 kt airplane and gives much
better performance then the normally aspirated one. The T-arrow will maintain its
200 HP all the way up to 12,000 ft DA. I have taken off from an airport with a DA
of 8800 ft, gross weight, no problems. The engine in the T-Arrow is different then
the normal arrow, the T-Arrow has a Cont. 6 cylinder fuel injected turbo charged
engine and is actually rated at either 210 or 215 HP cant remember which. The same
engine is used in some other planes at 210 HP.
The insurance on it is not bad either, was alot cheaper then the comanche 400 I
was originally looking at. Also the T-Arrow seems to perform its best at
8000-13,000 ft. The POH says at 17,000 it will do 172 kts. At 14,000 a few days
ago, I had a TAS of 165 kts and a GS of 183 kts. (of course going the other way I
was only getting like 140kts). With the turbo, you can choose higher altitudes to
take advantage of winds.

Jeff
http://www.turboarrow3.com


"O. Sami Saydjari" wrote:

Jeff, I have "narrowed it down" to three planes:

1965 Piper Comanche PA-24-260
1978 Mooney "201" M20J
1977 Piper Arrow III

-Sami

Jeff wrote:

what kind of plane are you getting, if you dont mind...

jeff

"O. Sami Saydjari" wrote:


I plan to buy my first airplane and "trade-up" in about 3-4 years. I
expect my initial investment will be around $75K. At that price, it
does not seem to be worth putting in brand new avionics to the tune of
$12-$15K (thinking specifically about a Garmin 430/MX-20 combo, or a
GX-50/MX-20 combo). At the sametime, I really would like the
situational awareness benefits of such avionics. Is it practical to
consider buying used avionics? If so, where might I get used avionics
(web site pointers, phone numbers, or email addresses would be helpful
in addition to names of places).

By the way, thanks for all the great help I have been getting on this
forum. It really helps me make some hard decisions about my first purchase.

-Sami