On 2007-07-13, Tina wrote:

You may want to reconsider the type airplane you'd like -- there's a
huge difference in ease of flying between something like a 172 and a
Columbia, and that really matters for pilots who don't have a lot of
experience and are not likely to fly 100 plus hours a year.

I'm not committed to anything yet, and I am also considering other
(entry level) planes. The Columbia is really enticing because of the
side stick and the speed. It's too bad I won't really know how
difficult it is to fly until I show up to buy one and take a test
flight.

Ideally I would have access to a school with a Columbia as a trainer -
which seems to be non-existent. Anyone know of any such schools in
North America? Or perhaps a club with a Columbia and a CFI that flies
it?

What may work best for you is to form a partnership with one or two
others and jointly own the airplane. The fixed costs, like
insurance, get spread, and if the airplane gets used 200 or 300
hours a year its availability will not be an important issue,
either. 200 hours a year is about 4 hours a week -- one or two days
a week at most.

I believe you're right.. but I'm a road warrior so I would have to
have full ownership. Though renting it out would probably be
practical, particularly in my current local area where 35 club members
share a single plane.

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