In rec.aviation.owning Jon Kraus wrote:
: I am looking into purchasing my own plane... I think that I am pretty
: aware of the costs (as much as a non-owner can be). I would like to
: hear from those of you who have had a good experience with a plane
: purchase. I have the bad experience posts also. My guess is that the
: good will outweigh the bad by a long shot (or at least I am hoping so)
: Thanks !!

Jon, I had an extremely good experience buying my airplane. It was located
completely across the country. I flew out, looked at it, had a quick prebuy
done (2 hours of labor from a mechanic*), and agreed to buy it. It was exactly
as advertised by the seller. I have flown the airplane 600 hours in the last
4 years, and I have had no significant surprises or unexpected repairs. I
try to be pro-active in maintenance instead of presenting a huge list of
broken items at an annual, I have those items repaired as needed. I make
every attempt to keep the plane in top condition, which often doesn't need
large sums of money - I keep the engine bay & belly clean which makes small
oil drips easy to find before they become big problems, etc.

* I believe that it's possible to do the entire visual inspection part of
an annual inspection on a Cherokee in less than 2 hours if the inspection
plates are off, and I took those off for this inspection. I had the mechanic
concentrate on areas of corrosion (none), condition of flight controls (good)
cables (good) and bearings (good), and engine condition (compression good,
no metals found in oil filter or screen).

--
Aaron Coolidge (N9376J)