AlexLev

Hi all! Have really enjoyed reading some of the posts in this community and appreciate you being here. I'm considering buying my first airplane. I just got my PPL in May but have already put over 100 hours on it since May (260hours TT or so) flying XCs in an Archer (through a flying club) and would love to have something like a 20C to make those long XCs a bit more fun. I'm not IFR yet, but have started the process and will hopefully finish up by early Spring. An M20C seems to fit my mission, so does a Cardinal RG. I would prefer to go at this with a partner. It just so happened that I found a 20C hangared locally that is for sale. It is a 1966 and I'm going to take a look at it this weekend. I've sat in a 20C, but never flown in one yet. I mentioned to the owner that I'm more interested in buying half of an airplane, he's had it for about 10 years and he says his average annual is about $2200 and he's just flying it less and less to justify ownership (but still about 50-75hrs/year). He mentioned he will think about my offer to buy 50% of the airplane and share it with him. This particular plane has a high time engine (2500 hrs SMOH) and he mentioned that my buy in for the airplane could be overhauling the engine. Although, why overhaul the engine if it's not making metal and doing well at 2500 SMOH? What do you think about that? Anyway - I'm not too mechanically inclined, so I'm afraid of ownership on my own, but would ideally like to find a partner so I could learn more, but bearing the entire responsibility of maintaining an aircraft seems a little cumbersome to me at this point in my life. Anyway some specific questions: * Any suggestions on where to go for a prebuy near Buffalo, NY (east coast -- I saw the ultimate recommendation was TX but not sure it's feasible to fly it there for the prebuy). * This is very variable, how far would 10k per year get me with aircraft ownership in a 20C? * 3-bladed prop vs 2-bladed. This one is a 3-bladed. I'm not too sure on what the positives / negative on each. I'll do some searching and look though, so you fine people don't have to repost what's probably been said many times :P. * Any other words of wisdom are appreciated! I think I'm too excited and need to take a breather, implore some patience and take my time. Thanks!