Thinking out loud

Ok ... I went to see a plane I could possibly buy at Central Jersey Airport.

Here's the general impression I got.

It's a nice plane, well maintained (for what I could see of it and I am far
from an expert).

Made generally a good impression on me.

It's a Grumman AA1A, 2 seater, red, fast and jittery. You barely touch the
controls to roll it or pitch it. Forget the rudder: one small touch and this
thing is yawing like crazy.

We had a good crosswind on landing and the owner barely acknoledged it. Very
insensitive to crosswinds (which is good).

Today it was hot and muggy. It took us 2/3s of the runway to take off.
Consider that both of us were 210 pounds. Plus a few knick-knacks in a box
in the rear. We are talking about 430 pounds of load with half tanks on a
hot and muggy day.

Tanks hold 24 gallons (take or leave a gallon).

Overall I was pleasantly impressed cause I really had my doubts we were
going to lift off the ground with so many concentrated burgers and fries in
the cockpit.

Plane took off nice and spiffy and gained altitude a bit slowly but without
much esitation.

Once we got going ... we were going. The thing climbs ... and turns and
manouvers nice and quick.

He had me fly it for a while and I can see how that little two seater could
grow on me.

My feelings?

Positive overall. I am not going to lie to myself: the plane is limited.
Short range (24 gallons, at 6 gph buy you 4 hours = 400 nm with no head
wind).

It generally performs (speed wise) slightly better than a 172.

Short and stubby wings make for a fast plane, fast to roll and fast to stall
especially when heavy. The owner approached at 80 knots and let the plane
slow down over the runway... took us about 2/3s of the runway to land.

I could land a cessna in a lot shorter amount of runway than that ... I
could take off with it too.

It's obviously not a trainer and it never was.

It's also a very simple plane. It has the basic 6 pack, plus 1 VOR,
transponder (Mode C) and radio panel. Electronics look the newest I have
ever seen. Nice, shiny and crisp looking. Better than some of that crap I
have seen on the school rentals.

The guy claims he flew it to Florida in one day ... I wouldn't have reason
to doubt that.

The good thing about this plane is that it's simple, unpretentious, easy and
cheap to maintain (or so it seems).

My reasoning is this:

I know NOTHING about aviation. The only thing I have is a license with 67
hours on it. It's NOTHING. It's not worth the paper it's on.

I can't land a plane. I can just put it on the ground without totalling it.

I need hours. I need flight experience. I need to fly a lot and in order to
do that I need a plane I can afford to fly a lot. This little sturdy plane
looks like it's easy to maintain and fun to fly (oh boy wasn't it fun ... it
handled like race car).

I also know nothing about maintaining a plane. Can I afford a Skylane?
possibly .. but then what? It would cost a lot to buy, it would cost a lot
to maintain, I wouldnt' be able to fly it as much and I would spend more
time taking care of it than flying it....

I need a simple plane to start. Something cheap I can easily take care of
(from a budget perspective) and if I screw up my monthly allocations of
money or if something breaks on the plane I can get it fixed by cutting back
a bit on other "pleasures" and still be able to fly the plane.

My reasoning is that it's better if I start my owner's experience by owning
a plane that is easy to own and that I can fly a lot ... and doesn't cost me
too much, even if it's limited in range and weight carrying ability.

Get my experience (both flight and ownership experience) up to par and in a
few years move to something more beefy, like a Piper 180 or a Skylane.

I really know nothing about ownership of a plane right now. I talk a lot but
I know nothing. I need to SEE the budget flow. I need to experience the
needs of the plane, and I need to hit snags here and there so that i know
what i am going to get myself into when I finally get to own something more
complex

It just felt so simple and pure fun to fly this thing ... pulling back that
canopy and feeling the air rushing over you at 100 knots ... breathing the
air from 1300 feet ... straight from outside.

It felt like pure physical flight. Fancy technology had nothing to do with
it. Just metal wings, nice noisy engine and the rush of the air.

Am I talking myself into buying this plane?

--
Marco Rispoli - NJ, USA / PP-ASEL
My On-line pilot community - http://www.thepilotlounge.com

Marco Rispoli wrote:

Marco,

Take my opinion for what its worth, as I only been in a Grunman 2 times.

It's a Grumman AA1A, 2 seater, red, fast and jittery. You barely touch the
controls to roll it or pitch it. Forget the rudder: one small touch and this
thing is yawing like crazy.

Agree with this. It's like power steering compared to my Sundowner or
Cessna's I have trained in.

Today it was hot and muggy. It took us 2/3s of the runway to take off.
Consider that both of us were 210 pounds. Plus a few knick-knacks in a box
in the rear. We are talking about 430 pounds of load with half tanks on a
hot and muggy day.

Yep, been there though maybe not so hot day. It took a lot of runway to
take off (4,400 runway and we were just leaving the ground just around
mid field) and the climb rate was rather anemic at 300 feet per minute
on a 70 degree day. I weigh 190 and the pilot weighed I would estimate
175 or so.

Short and stubby wings make for a fast plane, fast to roll and fast to stall
especially when heavy. The owner approached at 80 knots and let the plane
slow down over the runway... took us about 2/3s of the runway to land.

Are you sure it was 80 knots or 80 mph? The pilot I went with came in
had an approach speed of about 80 mph per markings on his ASI. Sounds
like your pilot came in hot for a Grunman if he used 2/3's of what I am
assuming a rather lengthy runway???

Grunmans drop like a brick. I was amazed how tight a pattern the pilot
I was with flew on the approach to the airport. We were just abeam the
numbers, when maybe 10 seconds later, he turned base and then final. I
was thinking to myself, I would be amazed if we made contact with the
ground at mid field, but he put it just past the numbers on landing.

I also know nothing about maintaining a plane. Can I afford a Skylane?
possibly .. but then what? It would cost a lot to buy, it would cost a lot
to maintain, I wouldnt' be able to fly it as much and I would spend more
time taking care of it than flying it....

Cessna parts are more common the Grunman. I'd suspect it may be more
expensive to maintain a Grunman, but I have nothing statistical to back
up this statement.

My reasoning is that it's better if I start my owner's experience by owning
a plane that is easy to own and that I can fly a lot ... and doesn't cost me
too much, even if it's limited in range and weight carrying ability.

If range is important to you, and you are talking very limited range
with 1/2 tanks as you described above, run from the airplane. 430
pounds of meat in the cockpit with 1/2 tanks only give you 1 1/2 hour
flying time (allowing for 1/2 hour "reserve" required for VFR flight. I
get 5 hours range in my Sundowner, but I have not tried going that far.
My bladder was ready to burst after a 4 hour non stop flight from MBO to
DAB.

Get my experience (both flight and ownership experience) up to par and in a
few years move to something more beefy, like a Piper 180 or a Skylane.

Why not look into a 4 place plane from jump start. It may cost you a
little more in the beginning, but you do get more payload and endurance.
Shop around, talk to your airport folks. Then come back if you really
like the Grunman.

I have a Sundowner, and absolutely love it. It is not a speed demon (I
plan for 110 knots) but it gets me places in confort. I have had
problems with it, but that is part of ownership.

Nothing like ownership.... going to the airport, no scheduling
conflicts, and I fly when I want to fly (which I try to do twice a
week).

Hope this helps.

Allen

Here' the specs on the Yankee:

http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/cont...antrainer.html

As you can see, with two 210-pounders in there, 24 gallons of fuel,
and some crap in the back, you were close to 100 pounds over gross.
This impacted your takeoff and landing runs.

The reason he approached at 80 (mph I assume because that's what the
airspeed indicator that came with the plane was calibrated in) is
because at any slower speed the plane will mush and you will not be
able to achieve a positive rate of climb. If you do not have room to
dive and acquire more airspeed you will impact the ground at some
considerable combination of forward and downward velocity. The wing
was modified on the AA1B to reduce this tendency.

That was with the stock 108-hp Lycoming. I don't know what that
situation is like with one of the STC'd larger-engine upgrades.

The handlling isn't twitchy; it's what an airplane is supposed to feel
like. It's a wonderful plane, fast and delightful to fly. I loved
them when I could rent them.

But based on the loading, unless this guy had a bigger engine than the
stock engine, I'd assume he can't be trusted to have maintained the
plane properly.

Your idea's ok, but lose this bozo.

Don

"Don Tuite" wrote in message
...
Here' the specs on the Yankee:

http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/cont...antrainer.html


Thank you so much for this link!!! I have been looking for this all over the
place!

700 feet for takeoff?? humm.... the plane felt a lot slower to leave the
runway than that ...

I think that I need to lose a few pounds... and work on my weight and
balance ....

But based on the loading, unless this guy had a bigger engine than the
stock engine, I'd assume he can't be trusted to have maintained the
plane properly.

Your idea's ok, but lose this bozo.

Don

Why do you say that if you don't mind me asking?

I could be wrong of course, but he looked like he paid much attention to
detail ... he looked like he know what he was doing ...

--
Marco Rispoli - NJ, USA / PP-ASEL
My On-line pilot community - http://www.thepilotlounge.com

Marco Rispoli wrote:

700 feet for takeoff?? humm.... the plane felt a lot slower to leave the
runway than that ...

That's at max gross. If you were 100 pounds over, then you probably used about 2/3 of
the runway there.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

On Mon, 03 May 2004 15:32:05 GMT, "Marco Rispoli"
wrote:


Your idea's ok, but lose this bozo.


Why do you say that if you don't mind me asking?

Because if I understood you correctly, he tried to kill you. Go back
to the part of my first message about being grossly over-gross.

Don

"Don Tuite" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 03 May 2004 15:32:05 GMT, "Marco Rispoli"
wrote:


Your idea's ok, but lose this bozo.


Why do you say that if you don't mind me asking?

Because if I understood you correctly, he tried to kill you. Go back
to the part of my first message about being grossly over-gross.

Don

ah ... I see what you are referring to.

To be honest I didn't feel that I was in any danger. It might have been a
bit cavalier of him to do that but I think this guy has enough hours in that
plane to know the limitations and abilities of the machine pretty darn good.

Overgross? yes possibly but to be honest ... I don't know for sure. I just
guess-timated.

My guess is that given the high humidity and temperature the plane was
suffering.

The runway is fairly long over at Central Jersey. Plenty of space to decide
that the plane won't lift off. Plenty of runway to stop IMO.

Would I have done it if I was him? No ... borderline over gross and possibly
over gross, even by a pound is a big NO NO for me.

But I have only 65 hours ... he's got one hell of a lot more.

--
Marco Rispoli - NJ, USA / PP-ASEL
My On-line pilot community - http://www.thepilotlounge.com

Don Tuite wrote in
:

On Mon, 03 May 2004 15:32:05 GMT, "Marco Rispoli"
wrote:


Your idea's ok, but lose this bozo.


Why do you say that if you don't mind me asking?

Because if I understood you correctly, he tried to kill you. Go back
to the part of my first message about being grossly over-gross.

Don

Go back to the original post, he indicated HALF fuel, so pretty close to
gross but not 100 over.....

--
ET


"A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools."---- Douglas Adams

Marco Rispoli wrote:

700 feet for takeoff?? humm.... the plane felt a lot slower to leave the
runway than that ...

Dunno if it's standard practice, but Maule's takeoff performance figures are
determined with half tanks, no baggage, and one 170 pound person on board. Perhaps
Grumman's are also.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

Don Tuite wrote:

Here' the specs on the Yankee:

http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/cont...antrainer.html

As you can see, with two 210-pounders in there, 24 gallons of fuel,
and some crap in the back, you were close to 100 pounds over gross.

He said half tanks. That brings it down quite a bit.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.