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Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 20:04:34 -0600
From: Snowbird <snbird@ibm.net>
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Subject: Re: Buying instead of Renting??
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Ron Natalie wrote:

> The advantages of purchase aren't just monetary.   Your
> Cardinal and 150 are sitting there waiting for you as
> my Navion is.  I can't rent a Navion anywhere (and Cardinals
> are not the most popular rental ship either).  I can
> leave my charts and headphones in it.

My charts and my headphones fit nicely in my flight bag; I'm
always taking them home to keep the foam in the earpieces
flexible and to study the approach plates anyhow.

One comment I've missed (if twas made) on the rent-vs-own
equation is maintenance.  Like most issues, there's a plus
side and a minus side here.

I can tell you almost to the minute when we started thinking
about buying a plane.  It wasn't when we found ourselves IMC
over a region of unexpectedly fogged-in airports, and the
cockpit started filling with smoke and the smell of burning.
It was after we landed, and took the transponder which proved
the cause of the problem to a shop, and found out this was a
known problem and the plane's operators hadn't troubled to 
comply with the service bulletin to fix the problem.  And this
was an FBO with a generally good maintenance rep!  We decided the 
next time an SB wasn't complied with, we wanted to know about it, 
and look in a mirror to know who to blame.  

The up side of owner maint. is, the owner sets the standards.
If I don't want to fly a plane where the DG precesses 10 deg
in 15 minutes I can pull the thing and send it for overhaul
any time I want.  If I want to comply with service bulletins which
aren't mandatory I pick up the phone and call my mechanic.  Every 
time the cowl comes off my plane I start at the firewall and look,
touch, and smell my way around the engine looking for things which
aren't right.  I can't go out and buy the stormscope and the Shadin
I'd love to have, but if something is broken and I want it fixed,
I fix it.

And unless your situation is very unusual, you just can't do
that with a rented plane, maybe not even with a partnership.

The down side is, it's hard to both own *and rent* planes.  So
when my plane is down for maintenance, I don't fly.  If a 
piece of avionics or equipment is broken, I don't get to use
it until it's fixed.   It's a little frustrating trying to
finish my instrument rating around the maintenance, and it
might be even more frustrating trying to finish a PPL.

Snowbird


