Used Avionics

A 1980 TR182 (turbo, retractable) - useful load ~1150 lbs,
carries four adults and baggage plus enough fuel for 3.5hrs
with reserves, or two people with fuel for 5.5hrs with reserves.
Cruise at 160 at 10k, 170 in the low FLs. Rock solid flying.
14 gph at cruise.

And if you practice plenty of landings, those big biceps will
look great on the beach. (About the only, very minor, drawback
of the plane is that it takes quite a lot of heft for pitch control.
Trim is most definitely your friend).

John

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
John
what kind of plane do you have?

Jeff

John Harper wrote:

I love my turbo. It is of course a waste of time/money/etc at lowish
altitudes, say below 8000'. But the freedom to climb at keep on
climbing,
not to mention high-performance take-off without having to worry
about density altitude (well, not so much anyway) is enormous.
I can climb to FL200 at a steady 500 fpm - the plane would probably
go quite a lot higher although it is not certificated to do so and I
haven't
tried it. On long journeys going up high is a real bonus, especially
over
unfriendly terrain.

John

"O. Sami Saydjari" wrote in message
...
OK. I added one to my list today. What about a Cessna 210 Centurion.
They seem to have a good cruise speed, a good range, and good lift
capacity. What do you think about them? -Sami

FWIH, they're maintenance hogs...moreso than others of similar complexity
and performance (approaching the cost of a light twin, I've heard). On the
upsude, they're spacious, comforable, good handling and performance.

Our company has one (an '81 T210) for shorter flights (300 miles or less),
but it spends a lot of downtime for fixing. The managing partners have been
trying to unload it for over a year now.

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
I sold it about 8 months after I added the options.

See the thing was, the guy had been looking for a decent plane all over,
everyone he said he looked at was ragged out, rusted out or something.
He Said he was tired of looking and since my plane wasnt not ragged out,
rusted
out and had good avionics he took it. A CFI I know who was building time
ferried
it to his airport for him. The guy who bought it was a pilot for an
airline. I
picked him up at the vegas airport when he flew in took him to see the
plane
then had to hurry him back for his return flight.
You may be surprised at some of the planes being sold and prices people
ask for
them. I looked at alot of planes before settling on the turbo arrow I got.

Just like buying cars! :~)

I really wanted to avoid a dealer when I started my search back in
September, but after two dozen calls to people whose sense of "value" was
greatly different than mine, I went with a company that has an affilation
with an A&P (not that I trust that particular A&P, but...). I also like your
idea of getting someone to ferry the plane. The one I'm most interested in
is based in upstate New York...about 1500nm's away.

really close to what the Turbo Arrow does, with full fuel I can fly 6 hours,
I havnt flown 6 hours straight yet, farthest leg was 680 NM (louisville Ky -
Oklahoma City) and I had about 90 minutes of fuel left when I arrived. But
with full fuel (72 gallons) I can only carry about 630 lbs.


John Harper wrote:

A 1980 TR182 (turbo, retractable) - useful load ~1150 lbs,
carries four adults and baggage plus enough fuel for 3.5hrs
with reserves, or two people with fuel for 5.5hrs with reserves.
Cruise at 160 at 10k, 170 in the low FLs. Rock solid flying.
14 gph at cruise.

And if you practice plenty of landings, those big biceps will
look great on the beach. (About the only, very minor, drawback
of the plane is that it takes quite a lot of heft for pitch control.
Trim is most definitely your friend).

John

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
John
what kind of plane do you have?

Jeff

John Harper wrote:

I love my turbo. It is of course a waste of time/money/etc at lowish
altitudes, say below 8000'. But the freedom to climb at keep on
climbing,
not to mention high-performance take-off without having to worry
about density altitude (well, not so much anyway) is enormous.
I can climb to FL200 at a steady 500 fpm - the plane would probably
go quite a lot higher although it is not certificated to do so and I
haven't
tried it. On long journeys going up high is a real bonus, especially
over
unfriendly terrain.

John

with the weather they are getting on the east coast, you may have to wait untill
summer to get that plane

Jeff

"Tom S." wrote:. The one I'm most interested in

is based in upstate New York...about 1500nm's away.

John Harper wrote:
: I love my turbo. It is of course a waste of time/money/etc at lowish
: altitudes, say below 8000'. But the freedom to climb at keep on climbing,
: not to mention high-performance take-off without having to worry
: about density altitude (well, not so much anyway) is enormous.
: I can climb to FL200 at a steady 500 fpm - the plane would probably
: go quite a lot higher although it is not certificated to do so and I haven't
: tried it. On long journeys going up high is a real bonus, especially over
: unfriendly terrain.

A non-turbo Comanche-260 will pretty much hold 500 fpm up to
higher than you can fly without oxygen. Unless you go full-tilt into high
altitude with O2, etc, a Comanche-260 seems to outperform a turbo Arrow in
just about every respect. It also doesn't have the drawback of the
extremely abused TIO-360 Continental in the mid 70's Turbo Arrow. My
mechanic just bought one of those, and all I can say is that he's
comfortable with the twitchiness of that engine. Something to be said for
simplicity... either normally-aspirated, big-bore, or at most a
turbo-normalized engine.

YMMV...

-Cory


--
************************************************** ***********************
* The prime directive of Linux: *
* - learn what you don't know, *
* - teach what you do. *
* (Just my 20 USm$) *
************************************************** ***********************

Sami,

I've had a bit of success acquiring used avionics on e-bay. If you'd rather
not mess with it, you might try www.avionix.com (as someone else suggested),
which has just about everything. For GPS units in particular, you should
also take a look at www.avionicsgps.com aka Joliet Avionics (JA). These
guys regularly sell direct and on e-bay. My avionics guy told me that JA
regularly buys up all the reconditioned units coming out of Garmin. As a
result, they usually have a good selection.

Our needs are probably different, but my PA28-140 had a pretty pathetic
avionics stack when I bought it (all Narco radios, an original piper "audio
panel", and a no-name Loran, about the only thing I recognized was the
PM-1000 intercom). My number one goal was to get more reliable but cheap
(read: older) radios into the plane. For this purpose, e-bay worked fine.
I picked up a KX-175B, indicator, KMA-20 audio and KR86 with antenna all for
about $1500. These avionics are cheap enough that I felt it was worth the
risk of possibly getting a bum unit. However, if you're going this route,
make sure everything has a RECENT yellow tag and make sure you understand
e-bay's feedback system. Also, unless you have some hidden backchannel,
installation is going to be a major expense and is not terribly dependent on
the age of the avionics (unless you get something really old or strange).
That's something else to consider when thinking about installing older and
cheaper stuff.

Someone else mentioned buying a handheld GPS and reselling it when you
decide to upgrade. That's actually worked out great for me. Several months
ago I purchased a Garmin 196 for $1000. For various reasons, I'm now
installing a Garmin GNC-300XL in the plane and I've already sold the 196 on
e-bay for $930. So I paid about $70 to "rent" the unit for about 6 months.
Not a bad deal.

best of luck,
mark

"O. Sami Saydjari" wrote in message
...
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

wrote in
:

A non-turbo Comanche-260 will pretty much hold 500 fpm up to
higher than you can fly without oxygen. Unless you go full-tilt into
high altitude with O2, etc, a Comanche-260 seems to outperform a turbo
Arrow in just about every respect. It also doesn't have the drawback
of the extremely abused TIO-360 Continental in the mid 70's Turbo
Arrow. My mechanic just bought one of those, and all I can say is
that he's comfortable with the twitchiness of that engine. Something
to be said for simplicity... either normally-aspirated, big-bore, or
at most a turbo-normalized engine.

A friend of mine used to have a partnership in a Comanche 260. And
yes... I fly a turbo-Arrow III. One a number of trips we would wind up
chasing each other (both coming back from the same meeting, but couldn't
plane-pool up there; or I would take him up to pick up his plane when
another partner had left it somewhere due to weather or repairs). It
was always a fascinating exercise in flight planning to see which plane
would chase which.

The Comanche clearly was faster at low altitude. Down around 8K or less
the turbo Arrow flies pretty much like a straight Arrow - figure 145
knots or so. And initially the Comanche has more "get up and go" climb
performance from sea level.

OTOH, at high altitudes (low flight levels) my Arrow will true out
around 175 knots (it has the Merlyn wastegate) and burn a LOT less fuel
(GAMIjectors). Also, at those high altitudes, my ability to get more
direct routing is a lot better. [BTW, both the GAMI and the Merlyn
greatly reduce both the "abuse" and the "twichiness" of the turbo
Arrow.]

Objectively, it was about half and half who one. Long trips,
particularly with a tailwind, and I would virtually always win. Short
hops of 150 nm or so and the Comanche would always win. Fun...

-----------------------------------------------
James M. Knox
TriSoft ph 512-385-0316
1109-A Shady Lane fax 512-366-4331
Austin, Tx 78721
-----------------------------------------------

James M. Knox wrote:
: The Comanche clearly was faster at low altitude. Down around 8K or less
: the turbo Arrow flies pretty much like a straight Arrow - figure 145
: knots or so. And initially the Comanche has more "get up and go" climb
: performance from sea level.

: OTOH, at high altitudes (low flight levels) my Arrow will true out
: around 175 knots (it has the Merlyn wastegate) and burn a LOT less fuel
: (GAMIjectors). Also, at those high altitudes, my ability to get more
: direct routing is a lot better. [BTW, both the GAMI and the Merlyn
: greatly reduce both the "abuse" and the "twichiness" of the turbo
: Arrow.]

: Objectively, it was about half and half who one. Long trips,
: particularly with a tailwind, and I would virtually always win. Short
: hops of 150 nm or so and the Comanche would always win. Fun...
:

Yeah, that's about the way I figure it. Having never flown a
turbo'd plane, I haven't gotten used to the notion of much above 12kft.
Flying east is great, but my plane's slow enough that the speed gain from
altitude doesn't come close to making up for the headwind hit. Flying
west I'll usually cruise 2000' AGL and argue with the bumps and slightly
faster groundspeed.

Question though... my mechanic recently did the the wastegate
upgrade, but it seems like it didn't do a whole lot for it. Stock setup
was atrocious (make boost all the time and regulate MP with throttle
only). It was almost rotation speed before he was able to look up from
the MP and tach on takeoff, because it wanted to overboost so much. Even
with the new one, it seems flakey and prone to overboost. True? Any way
to add an intercooler to the setup too?

-Cory

--
************************************************** ***********************
* The prime directive of Linux: *
* - learn what you don't know, *
* - teach what you do. *
* (Just my 20 USm$) *
************************************************** ***********************

Jeff wrote:

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

I have to chime in here with my standard response to this frequent comment...

It's not as small as it looks, but it's not as big as some claim. There is a
claim floating around that it's as wide as a Bo, or something like that. I
haven't measured, but it doesn't feel all that wide. The space between the
shoulders of the occupants of the front seat is limited.

Your seating position is more like a sports car, with your legs straight out in
front of you. There is *plenty* of leg room and head room. I'm 6 ft. tall and I
adjust the seat to the second-from-full-forward position. I was skeptical about
this seating position, but I find that I can fly for longer periods of time
without back pain than I used to be able to in my Archer.

The rear seat legroom is even quite good, once the front seat pax get in and
slide the seats forward (they'll slide the seats back for ingress/egress, but
the seats have a lot of travel).

The windscreen looks like a tank-slit from the outside, so you might think
visibility is compromised. In fact, the seating position is quite close to the
windscreen so your angle of vision is quite good.

The Mooney's speed with the relatively low horsepower and low fuel flow was
achieved to some extent by making the cabin a little smaller. Everything's a
compromise. It's a compromise I happen to like. Try it on before you decide. The
combination of speed and economy is addictive.

The crashworthiness of the Mooney, with steel tubing construction like a "roll
cage" is legendary.

Used Mooneys frequently have very well equipped panels. People who fly Mooneys
choose them because they want to go somewhere, not just to fly around the patch.

The most annoying thing to me about the cabin size is trying to maneuver my
oversize flight bag between the front seat headrests to put it on the back seat.
Otherwise, I'm OK with it.

Remove SHIRT to reply directly.
Dave