M20C for PPL Training?

[raph]

I've searched and I seem to have an understanding that it can be done - I'm a new pilot and only have 10 hrs under my belt which I've done over the last 2 weeks or so.

A little background - I run my own business in transportation so my schedule is fairly flexible and plan on knocking out at least 3-5 hours a week of training for the next few months until I get my PPL. I'm in no rush, but I worked so much over the last 3 years rebuilding from covid that I decided I'm making time and getting my PPL since I've wanted to do so for some time.

I fell in love with the vintage M20's and it seems like their performance/price is pretty great compared to Cessnas.

I could happily keep renting but I'd love to own my own plane since I hate seeing money burned without building equity - just trying to figure out if it's feasible to hop over and get the complex endorsement through my regular student pilot training.

I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area where the average price for a C172 is $160-200+/hr and that will easily put me into the $10k+ range if I average 60 hours so I'd love to just put that toward something I would own and build experience with long term - instead of switching planes every training day as it has been lately.

My instructor is a cfii/meii, etc with years and years under his belt as well.

Am I crazy or would this be doable?

I have my medical already which was easy enough since I already have my CDL and take care of myself. I'm in my early 30's if that makes any difference.

Edited January 29, 2024 by raph

[hammdo]

Insurance will be a killer if you can get it. My average cost per year are around $20k for hanger, annual, gas, insurance, subscriptions, maintenance, etc. but, I have 650 hrs and 375 in type. Take into account down time/unexpected maintenance which will happen in the first couple of years of ownership, and you’ll probably find renting will be better until you get your PPL. You’ll need ~100 hours in your ‘owned’ plane in the first year just to come close. I’d wager your first year insurance would be 7k to 10k.  I’d check rates first to see what you could expect to pay for insurance, then see if it’s feasible…

-Don

 

[MikeOH]

It's doable, but Don is correct that you will spend a bundle on insurance.  Check with @Parker_Woodruff to see what you really will be paying to cover pre-private pilot solo flight...it might be eye watering.  As in, renting will be cheaper.

He's also right about uptime; if your plane is down your training stops...or, you have to rent anyway!

Another consideration is if you'd rather make bad landings in a rental vs your own plane

Finally, I've had my F for a little over 6 years and average $18K/year for roughly 75 hours/year.  Renting is going to be cheaper.  You buy your own plane for the access convenience not because it makes financial sense!

Oh, another thought: have you checked with your CFI to see if he is okay with instructing in your plane?  If he's affiliated with a flight school, they sometimes prohibit their instructors from flying in student owned planes.

[Hank]

@raph, it's not too early to start looking for your plane, but expect it to take a while to find a good one that you want to buy.

I bought my C five weeks after finishing my PPL, and even then insur was rough. I flew 100 hours my first year and premiums came down. It takes dedication to learn the Mooney, just stay in student pilot mode for another year and have a good Mooney experienced CFI.

There's at least one person here who finished his PPL in his Mooney, but be aware:

• It will take longer, because solo flight will be restricted until you amass a certain number of hours to satisfy your insurer.
• Most will recommend not flying your Mooney until after your landings are routinely good. Then when you change to the Mooney, you'll have to learn new power settings and speeds, and learn how to land all over again.

 

[201er]

...and I'm usually telling people not to buy an expensive headset during private pilot training because 80% drop out and you're not getting most of your money back

[dzeleski]

1 hour ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

To my way of thinking, buying and learning to own and maintain a new-to-you sixty year old airplane is it’s own educational endeavor.  Why not just stick with one educational endeavor at a time instead?   It sounds like you are making great progress towards your PPL.  I’d hate to see you do anything to distract from or even potentially derail that.  
 

Jim

Agreed, I think this is the bigger issue, finances/insurance aside. I paused my IR for exactly that reason.

[Parker_Woodruff]

I would not do this.  I'm a CFI and an insurance broker.

• Spend your time training and don't risk a maintenance item interrupting your training.
• Make your hard landings in a training aircraft
• The insurance options for a student pilot in a Mooney are exceptionally limited (and there are some undesirable coverage limitations with these carriers) and the companies I know of that would insure this model for a student aren't approved to write policies in California.  Maybe one of them would do it, but I think there's a minimum hull they need and this won't meet that.
• There are certain mistakes that a CFI can let you get into in a training aircraft were the learning experience would be much earlier disrupted because it's more likely to have a result in aircraft damage for a Mooney if the mistake gets too deep.

If you absolutely want to get an airplane and you want something with more capability than a C172 or 160/180 horsepower Piper, get a Cessna 182 or 235 horsepower Piper (Dakota etc).  They're insurable for you as a student...and insurable with an insurance company & policy form you'd actually want.

But really focus on learning to fly and not learning to own...

[Parker_Woodruff]

Oh...and as you're going through your training and you find the plane you absolutely want to own (and experienced aircraft owners agree that you absolutely should buy this plane), we can write a pro-flown aircraft insurance policy for you so that you can keep training in the rental plane but have a pilot you trust to keep the Mooney (or whatever you buy) exercised for you.  Then we make it into an owner-flown policy once you take your private checkride.

[A64Pilot]

The owner of the Company I used to work had his Son get his PP in the C-210.

Kid did it, and I’m sure must have scared himself because he quit flying. He flew me back from Dawson Ga to Albany Ga once. Maybe 10 miles away, you could see one from the other. He was task saturated trying to program the GPS, the whole time the engine was screaming at 2850 RPM (5 min limit)

As I said he must have had better sense than I gave him credit for because he quit, but he did get his license, so he can tell his friends he’s a pilot.

If you feel the need to own, buy a trainer and after owning it long enough to get time and your Instrument Rating, then sell it and buy a Mooney.

Used to be and I assume it’s still is the difference in insurance rates will pay for the instrument rating, and I believe that anyone without one is unsafe, especially if you do any night flying.

But I strongly suspect that you will find out that renting cheaper, and more importantly you can schedule them, because when one breaks you rent a different one.

For most the Journey if you will begins with the PP rating, it doesn’t usually end there for pilots of Complex aircraft, to really use the traveling ability of a Mooney it behooves you to be instrument rated.

To just fly around within 100 miles of home a Mooney has little advantage over a fixed gear / fixed prop airplane

 

[201Mooniac]

I would definitely listen to Parker as this is really good advice.  I bought my M20J after about 250 hours (PPL and IR) and it was still a handful for the first few months while I really learned how to fly the plane.  Back then (1995) the insurance wasn't a big deal but the market has gotten much tighter in the last few years and I wouldn't do anything without getting the insurance worked out first.

BTW, I'm also in the SF Bay area, let me know if you haven't gotten to experience a Mooney, I always like to show off my plane :-)

[rickseeman]

The people on this wonderful website have given you nice reasonable, caution/logical based advise from their experience and knowledge. But I'm like you, I want my own airplane and I don't like paying rent. I don't worry about the little stuff like insurance. Yes, I knew when I was flying with no insurance I was exposed, and I didn't like it. But that's life. I'm guessing I had 4 hours total time when I bought my helicopter. And I never had insurance on my Learjet, but I figured if I crashed it I would die anyway. Don't be afraid to do it your way. I wouldn't have had a lot of fun if I listened to sensible people. The only thing I liked about renting is that you could experience/learn about different airplanes.

[hubcap]

Mooneys are high performance aircraft and they are very unforgiving of low performance pilots. If I were you, I would take @Parker_Woodruff’s advice. Get your rating and 250 hours while looking for the Mooney of your dreams.

[Nokomis449]

8 hours ago, Parker_Woodruff said:

Make your hard landings in a training aircraft

Last century when I was training for my PPL I took off for my solo towered landings to Huntsville, AL.  Approach was by the book, flair was perfect, speed was nailed, stall horn sounded right before touchdown, and just when I thought the wheels of the 150 should be squeaking onto the asphalt, the Cessna fell the last 3 feet to the runway with an unexpected thud and bounce so obvious that the tower controller immediately transmitted a very loud "OUCH!".  The only explanation I can offer for the bad landing is that the runway was much longer and wider that I was used to and maybe the sight picture out the windscreen was different.  Regardless, pilot error is pilot error.  Point being, trainers are built for hard landings.  Mooney's... not so much.  Train in a trainer, even if you buy one for that purpose and trade up when the time comes.

[raph]

On 1/28/2024 at 8:52 PM, hammdo said:

I appreciate the insight of everyone.

I'm gonna keep knocking out the hours at a steady pace and get that PPL and more hours in before diving headfirst into ownership.
 

 

[bcg]

I'll be the contrarian, I had 20 hours total time when I bought my C. Almost 300 hours later, I don't regret it. I finished my private and did my instrument in it. There really isn't that much more to manage over a 172, cowl flaps, prop and gear is about it. The biggest challenge I had was learning to slow it down. They're not as hard to land as everyone says, IF you're on your speeds. I had a few hard landings but, it wasn't more than a handful, every once in a while I still have an "arrival."

Insurance is an issue, I couldn't get it as a student, period. So, I paid cash for the plane and carried the risk.

If you can afford to buy the plane outright and are willing to take the risk of self-insuring, do it if you want to. Don't let anyone talk you out of it. Yes, there is about a 70% drop out rate during private training but, a large percentage of that is because of lack of funds or younger people that just don't have the determination to finish. As a fellow business owner, I know that you don't grow a successful business without following through on things you decide you're going to do. Spending the money on the plane will only strengthen your determination to finish.

In summary, if you can afford it and you want it, go buy the plane and have fun.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk
 

[Schllc]

The only way either path is a “mistake”, is you don’t make yourself aware and respect the implications.  Most people go the trainer route, that seems to be successful and tried and True, so can’t really go wrong. 
Some choose to go the path less traveled like @bcg, I did the same thing. 
Insurance was difficult and pricey for the first year, I mitigated that by going directly into my IR, and haven’t looked back. It was not a mistake for me.  I saw the value in learning and building good habits in my long term plane. It worked out for me.  
Just be honest with yourself about pros and cons, consider all the good advice you’ve been given, and when you pick a path, commit. It’s a wonderful and fulfilling journey, regardless of how you get there. 
My only real advice is whatever you choose to fly, fly frequently, and go straight into your IR while you have the momentum.  I flew three to four times a week until I finished my IR. 
Big gaps in training are really detrimental when you are starting out. 

[Pinecone]

I am a big fan of learning in a more demanding aircraft.  If you can handle it.

When I was learning, I drove past three other airports to fly a Grumman AA-5B Tiger.

BUT, the USAF does the first solo in a fixed gear, fixed pitch prop, GA training.  In the past, it was a T-41A (straight back, O-300 C-172) and now a Diamond DA-20.

So, I would say that it might be a good idea to wait until after solo to move to a Mooney.

[RideOrFly]

On 1/29/2024 at 7:59 PM, Nokomis449 said:

Last century when I was training for my PPL I took off for my solo towered landings to Huntsville, AL.  Approach was by the book, flair was perfect, speed was nailed, stall horn sounded right before touchdown, and just when I thought the wheels of the 150 should be squeaking onto the asphalt, the Cessna fell the last 3 feet to the runway with an unexpected thud and bounce so obvious that the tower controller immediately transmitted a very loud "OUCH!".  The only explanation I can offer for the bad landing is that the runway was much longer and wider that I was used to and maybe the sight picture out the windscreen was different.  Regardless, pilot error is pilot error.  Point being, trainers are built for hard landings.  Mooney's... not so much.  Train in a trainer, even if you buy one for that purpose and trade up when the time comes.

I did something similar in a 172 on my PPL checkride. It was the short field landing, and was the last thing on the ride. Everything else had gone perfectly. I hit the spot, but a little more firmly than optimal. The tires weren't flat, so I guess it wasn't that bad. All the examiner said was "don't do that with your wife on board". I can't be sure, but bet it would have broken something on my plane. 

[Fritz1]

All sage advice, things may just take care of themselves, keep looking for a suitable Mooney while you are training, the search may take a couple of months and by then your training may be finished. During the search your criteria may change and your focus may sharpen. The airplane you may have been looking for may not exist and something may exist that you did not know was there. The journey is the destination.

[AndreiC]

My vote would be against it. I got my PPL at 29, and the first thing my instructor told me was that the first flight I would only be “blue up, brown down” — you are so saturated with information you don’t notice much else. Someone else said that it’s not much more than a 172, gear, cowl flaps, prop. Well, that’s 100% more than flaps, throttle, mixture. (And while training you don’t even do much with the mixture.) There is a reason why insurance companies don’t want to do it, or charge an arm and a leg — they know the statistics. Of course you may be sure you can beat the statistics (remember Lake Woebegone, where all children are above average?) but I wouldn’t try it. I owned Piper Cherokees for 15 years and they were wonderful, can take a lot of abuse from a low hours pilot, and take you where you want to go. A Mooney requires much more work, and there’s also more things to break and keep you grounded. 

[raph]

On 1/29/2024 at 10:13 AM, 201Mooniac said:

I would definitely listen to Parker as this is really good advice.  I bought my M20J after about 250 hours (PPL and IR) and it was still a handful for the first few months while I really learned how to fly the plane.  Back then (1995) the insurance wasn't a big deal but the market has gotten much tighter in the last few years and I wouldn't do anything without getting the insurance worked out first.

BTW, I'm also in the SF Bay area, let me know if you haven't gotten to experience a Mooney, I always like to show off my plane :-)

Would love that! I'm in Fremont and have been doing my training out of PAO

[201Mooniac]

11 hours ago, raph said:

Would love that! I'm in Fremont and have been doing my training out of PAO

I'm based at RHV, feel free to DM me is you'd like to see the plane.  Maybe we can find time for a lunch flight or something.