galt1074

Okay guys, thanks a lot for all of your help. I am going to be shopping for quite a while. I appreciate all of your help. I've found a couple posts from folks about how much they spend a year so I think I have all the information I need now.

http://www.lasar.com/w/id/106/new-plane-details.asp http://www.lasar.com/w/id/132/new-plane-details.asp http://www.lasar.com/w/id/138/new-plane-details.asp First one is the category I've been looking at, last one is something I'd have to save for a couple more years to get in to. Thoughs? Again, thank you very much to all of you for the advice.

Piloto, I can appreciate the other expenses. I'm just trying to get a handle on the costs I should anticipate. I would love to have an airplane...especially a Mooney but I will not do it unless I can afford to do it the right way. I would really love to be able to work on my airplane myself and get it approved by the proper authority. I really have heart-burn with the idea of paying $200-600 a month for a hangar when I know I could build a sweet hanger myself for less than $7,000. However, I hate the idea of leaving her out in the elements. I'm sure I'll break down and get a hangar but since I plan to pretty much buy the airplane outright, it is going to feel strange having a monthly payment for a hangar and none or very little for the airplane I keep in it. Anyway, Piloto, can you tell me how much effort/time you spend each year on doing your own maintenance for the annual and how much you spend on parts? I'm pretty good with cars, can I be reasonably assured that I could do a lot of the maintenance on my airplane and have it signed off by the appropriate authorities?

sorry about the double-post...can't seem to delete that first one with the spelling errors

KSMooniac, I haven noticed that an HSI is pretty rare. I have been flying military aircraft for a while now and I've gotten used to the standard six pack with an HSI. I'm perfectly willing to do without with proper training and I'm sure I'd get the hang of it quickly. It is already the first thing I'm willing to take off the list. An IFR approach certified GPS is not something I'm willing to trade off though. I have been through Advanced Instrument school at the FAA headquarters in OKC and at the rate they are de-comissioning VOR, NDB, and even ILS approaches, I'm going to want WAAS to future-proof the plane. IFR flying is safe flying so I plan to file that way a lot. I could probably do without the autopilot, I've flown old C-130s with a substandard/inoperative autopilot for a long distance but I wouldn't do it without someone sitting next to me that knows how to read an altimiter. Piloto, $1500 a year? I was thinking more like $5,000! This of course is the driving force behind my original post. If it is something around $2,000 I can swing that anytime, if it goes north of that a lot I have to seriosly consider what plane and how much I can spend while still having savings as a buffer. I'm pretty handy and un-afraid of crawling under the hood of anything so I'd be willing to work on the plane under supervision, but I'd want someone there to watch me until I get my A&P...another retirement dream. Danb35 and everyone else, I am not locked in to an F model by any stretch. It just seems that when I look around at planes the ones that seem to be the best "bang for buck" are Fs. I've never flown a Mooney and I honestly have very little time single-engine land. My daily flyer has 16,000 horsepower and a combat crew of 8 so all of this is new to me. Yes I have a lot of time and I'm an evaluator but I'm a new guy in this world. I really appreciate everyone's assistance and I look forward to hearing more. Bottom line, what do you spend per year to fly your airplane.

KSMooniac, I haven noticed that an HSI is pretty rare. I have been flying military aircraft for a while now and I've gotten used to the standard six pack with an HSI. I'm perfectly willing to do without with proper training and I'm sure I'd get the hang of it quickly. It is already the first thing I'm willing to take off the list. An IFR approach certified GPS is not something I'm willing to trade off though. I have been through Advanced Instrument school at the FAA headquarters in OKC and at the rate they are de-comissioning VOR, NDB, and even ILS approaches, I'm going to want WAAS to future-proof the plane. IFR flying is safe flying so I plane to file that way a lot. I could probably do without the autopilot, I've flown old C-130s with a substandard/inoperative autopilot for a long distance but I wouldn't do it without someone sitting next to me that knows how to read an altimiter. Piloto, $1500 a year? I was thinking more like $5,000! This of course is the driving force behind my original post. If it is something around $2,000 I can swing that anytime, if it goes north of that a lot I have to seriosly consider what plane and how much I can spend while still having savings as a buffer. Danb35 and everyone else, I am not locked in to an F model by any stretch. It just seems that when I look around at planes the ones that seem to be the best "bang for buck" are Fs. I've never flown a Mooney and I honestly have very little time single-engine land. My daily flyer has 16,000 horsepower and a combat crew of 8 so all of this is new to me. Yes I have a lot of time and I'm an evaluator but I'm a new guy in this world. I really appreciate everyone's assistance and I look forward to hearing more. Bottom line, what do you spend per year to fly your airplane.

Thank you all very much for the information. flhelo: I will (hopefully) be flying mostly cross-country with my family. Obviously I will spend a lot of time just bumming around the pattern by myself but my purpose in looking at Mooneys is efficiency, speed, and capacity. It looks like I can take my wife and two small children on about as long a trip as we could stand to be in the air together and actually get somewhere. Piloto, thanks for the recommendation. I've been looking at M20Js and they seem to be very close to what I can afford but my only concern is that the closer I get to the top of my budget with the actual airplane, the less money I have in reserve for maintenance. I have certainly kept every M20 above the E in my shopping list (I think I'd like the longer fuselage). Do you have an average for what your annual costs are on a J model? rogerl, I hit the jackpot now! I've been compaining to my wife that shopping for an airplane is a lot harder than shopping for a car becuase I can't just walk down to the dealership and "test fly" an airplane to see if I like it. All of my shopping has been based on the assumption that I would actually like flying a Mooney. Please Please Please I'd love to meet up with you and the "local Mooney crew". I'll send you a PM with my contact information.

One more thing. I have noticed while shoping around that a lot of the M-20Fs have a very strange instrument layout. The six pack is jumbled up and it makes my head hurt thinking of flying one in IMC conditions. How much does it cost to move the existing instruments around to build a traditional IFR six pack?

Hello all, My name is Greg LeCrone and I'm an instructor pilot on MC-130's currently stationed at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque NM. I recently started seriously shopping for an aircraft and I think I've settled on a Mooney M-20F or later. My budget for the first couple years of ownership is somewhere around $80K including purchase, inspections, and upgrades. First question, is my budget realistic to get a quality M-20 with good instruments (GPS approaches, slaved A/P and HSI, for starters)? Second, I know that in civilian aviation the purchase is one thing but the money starts jumping out of your pocket with annuals, IFRs, overhauls, and general recurring costs. I have a quote from AOPA and with my flight time (about 2,500 hrs) I can get a $70k Mooney insured for about a thousand dollars a year. The purchase price is a known quantity as well, but what I don't know much about is the recurring stuff. Can you guys give me a ball-park as to how much I'm going to spend annually keeping the airplane airworthy? Third, my only mis-givings about a Mooney is the retractable gear. I've flown retractable, high performance, complex aircraft my entire career but I know that the more complicated something is the more it costs to maintain. Are the recurring maintenance costs of owning a Mooney that much higher than a similar performing fixed-gear aircraft (if such a thing exists)? Thank you all for listening and I look forward to reading your responses and hopefully becoming a "real" member of the forum with my own bird to show off. Greg LeCrone