Thinking out loud

Ok ... I went to see a plane I could possibly buy at Central Jersey Airport.

Here's the general impression I got.

It's a nice plane, well maintained (for what I could see of it and I am far
from an expert).

Made generally a good impression on me.

It's a Grumman AA1A, 2 seater, red, fast and jittery. You barely touch the
controls to roll it or pitch it. Forget the rudder: one small touch and this
thing is yawing like crazy.

We had a good crosswind on landing and the owner barely acknoledged it. Very
insensitive to crosswinds (which is good).

Today it was hot and muggy. It took us 2/3s of the runway to take off.
Consider that both of us were 210 pounds. Plus a few knick-knacks in a box
in the rear. We are talking about 430 pounds of load with half tanks on a
hot and muggy day.

Tanks hold 24 gallons (take or leave a gallon).

Overall I was pleasantly impressed cause I really had my doubts we were
going to lift off the ground with so many concentrated burgers and fries in
the cockpit.

Plane took off nice and spiffy and gained altitude a bit slowly but without
much esitation.

Once we got going ... we were going. The thing climbs ... and turns and
manouvers nice and quick.

He had me fly it for a while and I can see how that little two seater could
grow on me.

My feelings?

Positive overall. I am not going to lie to myself: the plane is limited.
Short range (24 gallons, at 6 gph buy you 4 hours = 400 nm with no head
wind).

It generally performs (speed wise) slightly better than a 172.

Short and stubby wings make for a fast plane, fast to roll and fast to stall
especially when heavy. The owner approached at 80 knots and let the plane
slow down over the runway... took us about 2/3s of the runway to land.

I could land a cessna in a lot shorter amount of runway than that ... I
could take off with it too.

It's obviously not a trainer and it never was.

It's also a very simple plane. It has the basic 6 pack, plus 1 VOR,
transponder (Mode C) and radio panel. Electronics look the newest I have
ever seen. Nice, shiny and crisp looking. Better than some of that crap I
have seen on the school rentals.

The guy claims he flew it to Florida in one day ... I wouldn't have reason
to doubt that.

The good thing about this plane is that it's simple, unpretentious, easy and
cheap to maintain (or so it seems).

My reasoning is this:

I know NOTHING about aviation. The only thing I have is a license with 67
hours on it. It's NOTHING. It's not worth the paper it's on.

I can't land a plane. I can just put it on the ground without totalling it.

I need hours. I need flight experience. I need to fly a lot and in order to
do that I need a plane I can afford to fly a lot. This little sturdy plane
looks like it's easy to maintain and fun to fly (oh boy wasn't it fun ... it
handled like race car).

I also know nothing about maintaining a plane. Can I afford a Skylane?
possibly .. but then what? It would cost a lot to buy, it would cost a lot
to maintain, I wouldnt' be able to fly it as much and I would spend more
time taking care of it than flying it....

I need a simple plane to start. Something cheap I can easily take care of
(from a budget perspective) and if I screw up my monthly allocations of
money or if something breaks on the plane I can get it fixed by cutting back
a bit on other "pleasures" and still be able to fly the plane.

My reasoning is that it's better if I start my owner's experience by owning
a plane that is easy to own and that I can fly a lot ... and doesn't cost me
too much, even if it's limited in range and weight carrying ability.

Get my experience (both flight and ownership experience) up to par and in a
few years move to something more beefy, like a Piper 180 or a Skylane.

I really know nothing about ownership of a plane right now. I talk a lot but
I know nothing. I need to SEE the budget flow. I need to experience the
needs of the plane, and I need to hit snags here and there so that i know
what i am going to get myself into when I finally get to own something more
complex

It just felt so simple and pure fun to fly this thing ... pulling back that
canopy and feeling the air rushing over you at 100 knots ... breathing the
air from 1300 feet ... straight from outside.

It felt like pure physical flight. Fancy technology had nothing to do with
it. Just metal wings, nice noisy engine and the rush of the air.

Am I talking myself into buying this plane?

--
Marco Rispoli - NJ, USA / PP-ASEL
My On-line pilot community - http://www.thepilotlounge.com