There is a great thrill to buying an airplane. At least that’s always been my experience.
The search, the pre-buy inspection, the haggling, the deal. It’s all a heady concoction that ends, hopefully, with an aircraft in your hangar that can bring you joy and adventure whenever you get the urge to fly.
For most of my flying career I’ve been a renter. It was convenient. It was also expensive, but not as expensive as ownership, I reasoned. And that’s true to a point. But there is a cost that goes along with that savings. This particular cost is known as inconvenience.
I recently checked out in a C-172 at a nearby airport so I could take more gravitationally challenged aviation enthusiasts on their first flight. These familiarization flights are instructional as much as they are intended to provide first-person exposure to what it’s like to sit in the pilot’s seat. To see what the pilot sees. To have the chance to do what a pilot does in flight.
Alas, I’m not the only pilot who flies that rental airplane. Now, nobody does. It’s crumpled a bit after a subsequent renter left a runway and came to a stop in a ditch. Oops.
Thankfully, I’ve avoided that experience myself. But I no longer had a rental airplane to use. Maybe it’s time I start shopping for an airplane of my own…again.
I’ve owned six airplanes in my life, most of them for a fairly short time. And contrary to conventional wisdom about the huge hole you have to pour money into if you want to own an airplane, I have come out ahead financially with four of them.
Still, my wandering eye causes each to move out of my hangar at some point, to a new home where they’re hopefully loved and cared for before being passed on to yet another caretaker who will cherish them for their capabilities.
My first airplane was a 1963 Cessna 150. The old straight-tail design, with no back window. The term fastback is used to describe this particular design, but let’s not kid ourselves, there’s nothing fast about a 100-hp Cessna 150.
That’s not to say it’s not a great airplane. It was. It is. Given the proper maintenance and housing, that airplane should last for many, many years to come.
It hurt a little to sell that classic, basic trainer. But I’d bought a Cessna 172 in the interim and have only so much hangar space to store them in. So, the C-150 went to a flight school where plenty of new hopefuls learned to fly in it. That’s as it should be.
Initially I thought of that airplane as being gone. Not long after I realized it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t gone at all. It was just somewhere else, doing what it does, bringing smiles to new faces and teaching lessons that need to be learned.
More than a year after selling it I came across a photo on social media of my former airplane being flown cross-country by a student pilot and a certificated pilot, hundreds of miles from where I had it based.
That made me feel good. It also gave me a whole new perspective. I wasn’t the first owner of any of the aircraft I’d owned. I was no different than the next person listed on the registration paperwork or the previous one. Just a temporary custodian of a remarkable machine. One that would outlive me, more than likely. And I’m just fine with that.
The C-172 that replaced the C-150 eventually went to the Philippines where it got a new engine that burns Jet-A, which is far more readily available than avgas in that part of the world.
The J-3 Cub that once graced my hangar is now located slightly less than 100 nautical miles north of me. It belongs to a good friend, which makes me think I may have visiting rights, although I haven’t tested that theory yet. I was the 28th keeper of that airplane, if I recall correctly. My friend is number 29. I have no doubt there will be a number 50 one day, a century or two from now.
Undoubtedly the most personally important airplane I’ve ever been in possession of carries N101SB on its fuselage. It’s an AirCam, and regular readers of this column will know the history of that twin-engine, tail-dragging, experimental machine.
The kit came from the Lockwood facility in Sebring, Florida. My dad, a retired Pan Am 747 captain, had it delivered to a workspace near his home in Glastonbury, Connecticut. The captain and a couple friends built it over a period of several years. It was a side project, which was finished but never flown by the time my dad departed this world.
It came to me in need of a variety of tweaks to correct the multiple glitches that are common with a first-time homebuilder project. But it was a wonderful machine that gave a considerable number of people the opportunity to float above the lakes and forests of central Florida in a way they never dreamed possible.
I sold it eventually, having no practical need for it beyond the obvious sentimental value it held for me. Then one day, out of the blue, a new owner, someone I have never met, wrote and shared a photo of himself with the airplane. He’d flown it to AirVenture, more than 1,000 miles from my hangar, and nearly that far from the place it had come into being in the first place.
I think the old man would be pleased. His airplane is doing what he’d hoped it would do.
A few weeks ago a friend I hold in particularly high esteem wrote to let me know he’d come across my dad’s AirCam in Colorado. Way out west. And it has a canopy now. Upgrades, baby.
It’s not gone. It’s just somewhere else. Somewhere wonderful. And along the way, it’s doing what airplanes do — bringing joy to those who fly them.
So, maybe it really is time for me to start looking for my next airplane.
Suggestions?
The trick to NOT be the last owner of an ✈️
Never an owner, always a renter. But someday….
Great piece Jamie and I went back and reread your story about the AirCam. Beautiful!
I’ve owned 6 airplanes in my relatively short flying history of 9 years. Of the five I have sold, 2 have gone to South America in containers. I think of those 2 as being really gone, the other three are still active and who knows I may end up owning them again someday.
Had a 182 and a partnership on a Grumman Tiger. Most recently renting a Mooney.
For the money, the Tiger is the most fun and a reasonable travel machine.
Hey Jamie. Jim H hit the important key. I sold aircraft for about 5 years way back in The ‘70’s. My first question/discussion was “what are you going to do with your next airplane?” ….and read between the lines for the true answer. “I always wanted to fly to Alaska” isn’t the valid definer… That said, I spent many years shunning short wing Pipers but I guess I’ve owned 8-9 of them since I owned a highly modified float version in Kodiak in ‘85-‘89. Since that I’ve been a fan to include the four Colts I very successfully used in a flight school ‘92-99. Maybe find a nice PA16. You get sticks, O235 lycoming (the only 2,400 hr tbo) economy and it WILL haul four folks if you plan a bit. In lieu of that find a PA20 or 22/20. Im in the midst of putting sticks and a few STOL mods on my current O320 version of a 22/20. In addition you will find yourself served by one of the most outstanding Type Clubs Short Wing Piper.org
Beautifully written and heartfelt posts on the Aircam and your difficult youth with your father. He came from a generation where, in theory and myth, dad dictated and offspring obeyed. Hard for some to adjust to changed conditions.
I’m like you, I’m just caretaking all this stuff for the next owner.
Seems every time I sell, trade or give stuff away, somebody gives, trades or passes on to me some treasure to delight me.
You can’t hold on to treasures or people. Just love them while you can. Look back with fond nostalgia and never regret.
I try to caretake myself the same. Too bad I won’t be passed on to others. I do the PM and the PT in the AM on my gizmos and on myself to last as long as possible though.
Good posts. That Aircam is wonderful.
A pre-Lycoming engined C-182 would be my choice. Too bad there isn’t any 80/87 to feed them.
My grandfather owned 13 different planes in his lifetime. He passed almost a decade ago, but we still have his logbooks and through the magic of the internet are able to look them up. Some of those planes are no longer around, but it’s interesting to see where the others are.
Jamie,
What aircraft to acquire depends on your mission. From the aircraft that you’ve owned it looks like a simple , low performance aircraft is what you may want again.
What about a Cessna 175 ? It is similar in performance to a C172XP , but is shunned due to the geared engine, GO-300, and so the value is lower than a C172.
I fly a 1961, C175B and love it. With 175 hp, I get off the runway in 500 ft, climb at 1,100-1,200 fpm at 100 mph, and can cruise at 145 mph. With 52 gallons on board it has 5+ hrs of fuel plus reserve, and if you reduce the power to 2,800 rpm, it burns 7 gpm and still gets 125 mph.
If you are wanting a fast, sporty aircraft, the experimental RV-7 is an alternative. Some of my pilot friends fly RV-6, RV-7, RV-8 and RV-10…with an RV-14 under construction.
Glad to see someone else identify with the Skylark. Worked with Franklin 180 hp, Lyc 180 hp and TCM 195 hp. engines. It evolved into the T41 series aircraft and the 172XP. There are approvals to convert them. The issue with the 175 was the scary nature of the engine RPM that pilots hated to run the engine at 3100+ rpm. I worked at Cessna Wichita and seen the marketing failure of Cessna’ thought process. They should have used a tachometer to indicate propeller RPM much like the Titan 404 and 421’s Those engines turn 3400 RPM at the crank but much lower at the propeller. I never owned a 175 but flew them and met several people who loved them. Problem now is that there are few PMA parts and TCM will not support them.
CJ,
We can get new TCM cylinder kits for the go-300, which is not the same as the o-300; slightly higher compression. But I understand that gearbox parts are nil.
The engine red line is 2,900 below 10,000 ft, then 3,100 .
It will climb at 2,900 rpm at 100 mph all the way to 12,000 ft and still get 800-900 fpm.!
The issue that we corrected is that the baffling has to be perfect, seal all gaps, no matter how small. Otherwise the cylinder temps go over 400 degF .
The big design problem was the oil vernatherm….it doesn’t work. The oil will all go through the cooler all the time, resulting in very low oil temps, like 108 degF on an 80 deg day.
So, we tape off the upper tubes, up to 8 of the 10 when the oat is 60 degF.
That way we can get the oil to 160-180 degF range.
Our engine is way past tbo and still makes full power and oil use is 1qt per 6-7 hrs.
The only symptom is minimum oil pressure , but still in the green.
The only other operating issue is the forward cg. With 2 in the front seats, we have to have 50 lb of ballast in the baggage compartment, otherwise the cg is 3 in. forward of the limit.! Otherwise landing at Tahoe , we run out of up elevator.
Reading this reminds me of my plane’s current history. It has flown back and forth over a number of states with multiple owners. With less than 2500 hours since 1974, it must have been quite lonely much of the time. Since I acquired it, much has been done to “modernize” it’s avionics and also several stc upgrades. Will I ever get the money invested back out of it? No way! But I really enjoy flying it so I think I will just keep it for awhile. 🙂