Club Homepage Forums Classified Ads Buy & Sell - Airplanes Only New Member - Need advice on 150 Purchase

Whoop!!!! Another Triple-Tree attendee!!!!!

Welcome to the club! I fly out of KPGV Greenville NC, but got my pilot's license while living in Anderson, SC in the early 80's. Western NC/SC is beautiful flying county. I am no expert on buying planes, but I would suggest looking at several planes before settling on one.

Just one question, How does someone living in Tiger country get by calling themselves Tarheel?

Proud Tar Heel grad. Bleed Carolina Blue wherever I may currently live.

That's ok. We welcome everyone. NCSU class of 79. Duke vs UNC tonight. Guess I will pull for UNC since there is no way I could ever pull for Duke.

My brother-in-law is a State grad, so no hard feelings about that

Losing to the school in Durham again...that's a different story. Sigh. I've been saying for a while that it's time for a coaching change. Same mistakes, different day/year. Rinse, repeat

Tar Heel - FWIW if you are interested in numbers my 152 costs me about 700 a month to own flying it almost 100 hours per year. I budget as follows

Hangar 250/month or 3k year
Gas 5.5gph X $4.5 X 100 = 2475
Insurance 650/year
Mx - 2000

Total - 8125 or 677 or about $700 per month rounded up.

As for the 2k Mx above, some years I've been below and some above, like 2013 when I replaced the mags. I don't budget for eng reserve because I have the money set aside already for when the time comes.

I overnighted in RDU last night - hiding out the snow up north. Watched the local 11pm news. Thought the news guy was going to cry over the NC state - FSU game results.

Speaking of RDU. There is a 150 tied down on the north ramp. 23R/5L side of the field. Anyone know if it's owned by a club member?

I'm a PA kid but I did lived in Gastonia, NC for 2 years (08-2010) when I was based in KCLT. If it wasn't for my family being in Bucks County, PA I'd be based in KCLT living around lake Norman and basing the 152 in Denver or Lincolnton NC. I rented a 152 out of Lincolnton when I lived down there.

Thanks for the info! Looks like it's going to come down to how much I can budget for an overhaul in 300 hour timeframe to be safe

Just because your engine hit TBO doesn't mean it needs an overhaul. Many engines run for hundreds of hours past TBO. It all kind of depends on the history of the engine and some voodoo that no one can figure out.

I'm no mechanic but I've been around aircraft my whole life. I've seen engines flown right need work at half TBO and straight up abused engines run a long time over TBO and everything in between.

But yes it's always good to have cash inthe bank when playing with aircraft.

I wonder about how long it will take to put 300 hours on the airplane. I am a fairly active flyer and I put about 70 hours on Delmar last year. All of my flying is local (50 miles) so I don't put up big numbers each flight.

As an Oil Additive Plant worker, I believe the TBO times should be reviewed on these engines. Oil is just that much better than it was when these planes were built and we are so much better informed in the correct operation of these engines.

I remember automobiles needed engines rebuilt at 70K miles or less. Now... 250k miles is not uncommon.

I am a proponent of "condition based maintenance." Work on it when you have a verifiable issue.

Understood, and I'm hoping it would go a while beyond 1800. Just trying to build in a safety margin so if I had to do so earlier than I hoped, I'd have the money set aside. Last thing I want is to invest in a plane and not have a good safety margin built in