N9453V

I am with Falcon/Starr, last year I paid $1379 for my 1970 M20G ($50,000 hull) with $1 mil single limit and $100k sub. At that time I was Private/IFT 320tt, 64 retract and 3 make/model. I should easily pass 100 make/model when renewing, so I'm hoping that'll help.

In my 1970 "G" model, 70kts over the fence and half flaps seems to work best. I bring the power to idle over the threshold unless I am high or it's gusty. If I'm at 75kts, it will want to float and not come down. If it's really windy, I will sometimes approach at 75, but slow to 70 once I have the runway made. I've tried landing with full flaps, you need power until you are into the flare and it's harder to make a smooth landing. I previously operated out of a 2600ft field and never had an issue with half flaps (full flaps only lowers the stall speed 1kt).

I have been using Wash Wax All Degreaser on the formerly very dirty belly of my M20G and have been happy with the results. You can buy it off Aircraft Spruce or in many local pilot supply stores: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/alldegreaserpint.php -Andrew

Hi Pierre, I actually went through a similar situation when purchasing my aircraft, a 1970 M20G. I'm a Canadian citizen, but I live and work in California. An N-numbered aircraft must be registered to a U.S. entity, be that an individual, corporation or trust. The only exception is a Non Citizen Corporation can register the aircraft provided that at least 60% of the annual flight hours will be within the U.S. (this is the route I took). In your case, the only option would be a Trust, where a bank here in the U.S. would be the legal owner of the aircraft and you would be the beneficiary. You would need to hire a lawyer to draft the trust agreement and in most cases you would pay a monthly or annual fee for the services of the trustee. The FAA had temporarily suspended processing foreign owner trust applications, but it appears they have resumed them (http://www.ainonline.com/news/single-news-page/article/faa-no-ban-on-registrations-of-foreign-owner-trust-aircraft-25223/). In terms of financing, I think that will be the hardest. I was very fortunate not to have to finance the purchase of my airplane since I was unable to find any lender that would lend to a Non-U.S. Citizen despite having a good credit score in the U.S. and no Canadian lender was willing to finance the purchase since it would be stored and registered outside Canada. I have no experience with Aircraft Guarantee, but it sounds like it could be an option worth exploring, although it's unclear on their site if they just act as a trustee or will provide financing as well. I converted my FAA PPL to a Canadian one painlessly (20 question written exam), but haven't converted my FAA IFR to a Canadian one yet although it's a similar exam. I know a lot of people who trained here and converted to JAR easily... so if you wanted to convert your JAR PPL to a US one, you could come here do your IFR easily. Let me know how it works out for you. I'd recommend getting the following book - it covers Non-U.S. Citizen aircraft ownership in greater detail: http://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Ownership-Legal-Tax-Guide/dp/0071407642 -Andrew