I am wanting to get my certificate and I've heard one way to reduce cost is to buy your own ride. A local A&P has a 140 for sale. He lost his certificate due to bad eyesight. The thing is immaculate and he wants $35000 for it. It has steam gauges and he said putting an ADSB-out would be simple, putting the navigation light replacement on it.
Mid time engine would last a long time.

If it fucks, floats, or flies...it's cheaper to rent than own!

Buying an airplane in order to 'Save Money'...?  



Don't forget MX costs, Insurance, blah blah blah...

No way I would recommend 'buying a plane to get a certificate'.  Not the stupidest thing I've heard, but pretty close.

That's actually a great idea. The Cherokee 140 is pretty fucking anemic and hopefully it's been upgraded to at least 160HP. $35k sounds a bit steep unless it's mechanically perfect.

I would recommend getting something a bit more capable. Keep in mind aircraft financing requires 15-20% down and interest rates are around 4% for 20 year loans. It is absolutely cheaper to buy a decent airplane and build hours in it than it is to rent if you're going to be flying more than a few hours a month.

Not necessarily. If you buy one, fly the shit out of it for 50 or 100 hours, then sell it for what you paid for it, it can be cheaper. You are gambling you can get it done before the annual, that nothing breaks, and that the 100 hour inspection, if you fly it that far, will be relatively inexpensive. And you need to commit to selling it, lest you become an aircraft owner "for real".

You need to figure it as follows:

- cost of money (loan interest or loss of interest on the principal)
- gas
- oil
- tie down/hangarage
- registration
- insurance

Insurance is, by far, the 800lb gorilla. It will easily be the bulk of expenses. This assumes, however, that you can get a good rate on insurance. I have no idea what insurance costs for a student pilot owned aircraft are these days. For $35K you may want to self-insure the hull and only carry liability.

Step one, before you do anything else, is to get insurance quotes. That will make your decision for you, one way or the other. Step two is to see if the current owner will throw in an annual inspection as part of the sale so you are starting the one year clock fresh, and to uncover any lingering maintenance issues you don't want to inherit.

On the other hand, there is nothing like owning your own aircraft (good and bad ). The first time you want to keep the thing overnight somewhere and the school says "Sure, but it's a four hour minimum per day on the rental if you take it overnight" is when that itch starts.

OP,,,I bought a Cessna 150 with a torn down engine when I began my quest. After having my AP put it all back together and flying it for 43 hours to get my PPL I sold it and pocketed about $1500 IIRC. Best plan for us by far. I flew it almost every day until I got my ticket. This is a good solid workable plan with lots of benefits. MY plane was always ready as opposed to "its in the shop". I never spent a nickel on a rental plane. IIRC the total spent on an instructor was only about 20 hours or so with the rest of my time being solo. This was in the mid-80s' and the rate for an instructor was such that I learned to fly for essentially free. It worked for me and I went on to accumulate over 3000 hours and an instrument ticket before I quit flying. Do it and never look back. Even if you have to borrow the money for the plane what's a few hundred dollars in interest over a couple of months????

140's are cheap ( for an airplane), slow, ugly, and boring. Perfect trainer IMO. Probably easy to resell when the time comes unless you want top dollar, in which case you'll own it until you get sick of it ( about 2 months after you get your ticket). Not a bad idea but I think you can do better on price.

If you move forward, get an A&P other than the current owner to go through the log books first.

Sometimes A&P owned planes are perfect. Sometimes they are terrible.

Maybe something better for later on. Something with some range and carry capacity.
I used to drool over Cessnas. High wing for sightseeing and landing at the beach. Lots of great fishing spots on the coast that are hard to reach by land vehicle.
Now I'm more inclined to buy a Piper. I eventually want get the complex endorsement for over 200 hp and retractable gear. I also want carry capacity.
If the local A&P didn't own this one I wouldn't have given it a thought.

Modern designs and newer airframes are so costly. Hell, it is all going out of sight. General aviation was envisioned to replace cars as long range conveyance. Lawyers have made that all but impossible.

$35k for a 140 is too much money unless it’s in mint condition.

I bought two planes to learn to fly and it turned out great. I got all my ratings, IFR-CFII in my airplanes, my brother got PVT-COM in them. We saved a ton of money on flight training and did it at our pace.  I also earned my A&P on them.

The best advice I can give you is that the day you buy the plane you need to be ready to plunk down $5000 on day one to fix stuff. On top of that, you need a maintenance kitty with at least $20k in it to cover an overhaul.

Not trying to nit pick, but he wouldn't need a 100 hour inspection if he was the owner of the plane.

I'm taking the plunge on my private certification. My physical is on the fifth. The flying school is interested in the 140 if I decide to buy it.

This thread is of interest to me as well. My adult son and I are currently waiting on pre buy to complete our purchase of a 172 to learn and build time on. For us it just makes sense to go this route. Looking down the road the Cessna should be easy to sell when/if we move up in performance.

A glance at Trade-A-Plane suggests that's actually a pretty good deal right now.  I say go for it.  Ownership is awesome, if you understand the costs.  I put value on my time, availability, flexibility, so ownership is a no-brainer for us.  At that cost it's probably affordable as a single owner - my 2nd plane was a 172 at about that price, and ownership by myself wasn't bad at all, and we use our airplane.  In a 182 with a partner now, but may go alone on it in the future.  Had a 150 right after getting my PPL to build time - it was great.  F having to schedule, not being free to take it when and where and for however long, etc.

Do it.