RST Engineering wrote:

Having said that, you don't need a $100K Super Bugsmasher as your first
airplane. There are tens of thousands of elderly 150s, 172s, Cherokees, and
the like that may not have the sex appeal of a 200 knot bent-gear aircraft,
but they will not eat your pocketbook for lunch either.


I must say that I think you hit the nail on the head... My mistake was
getting the Super Bug Smasher as my first plane. Although I could easily
afford it, I found that I wasn't flying enough to justify the cost.

For my life situation I chose to get out of the ownership hassles (and
there are many) and persue other interests. Flying is a hobby of
extremes. At one end is the beauty and excitement of the flying
experience itself. At the other end is the extreme expense and endless
red-tape involved in even the simplest of repairs or upgrades.

And of course after you fork over many AMU's on a repair or upgrade you
hear the horror stories of some inept A & P that ****s up your plane and
there isn't a damn thing you can do about it, except pay the bill to fix
it that is.