I would not go into a equal partnership on a aircraft. Opinion ( heavily skewed ).

I am monogamous aviator.

Partnership is a path full of pitfalls and annoyances - NOT recommended.
AOPA - you are a member, right? If not, you should be - has a whole section about it and, to do it properly, it involves lawyers. That, in itself, should be warning enough.

Also, if you're looking to save hangar costs, consider getting something you can park outside. Many of the planes in Alaska never see a hangar.

To reiterate, your budget of under $30K rules out most of the planes being suggested here.

If your finances will not allow an outright purchase plus insurance, hangar or tie down rent, AND being able to diligently put aside money for scheduled maintenance (and a fair amount for unscheduled maintenance!), then I strongly suggest you just rent. (Be sure to get your own comprehensive renter's insurance policy that has low or no deductible.)

Tom

I was in your situation for most of the past year with similar criteria but required four seats. I narrowed my choices down to a stinson 108, pa 22/20, and c170A. All of these can be had for $30k or less. The stinson has lots of room and 800-1000 lbs useful load but burns a couple more gph than the pacer with same hp engine. The stinsons also have franklin engines which are harder to support than a lycoming or continental. The c170a is harder to find for <$30k but they are out there. For me the best option was the pa 22/20. Mine is a 59 with a 160 hp 0-320. It has 4 seats, 807 lb useful load, cruises at 134mph fire-walled but i plan for 120 with the power pulled back, 8.5 gph / 7 ish gph at 120 mph true at altitude. It also has a 100lb baggage compartment behind the back seat which can be quickly removed if you really need to haul some gear. There's one on barnstormers now that's ifr with very low time 0-320/150 and good avionics for $29k.

Max Torque wrote:Partnership is a path full of pitfalls and annoyances - NOT recommended.


Tom

This is a matter of opinion and obviously heavily dependent on how well you know/get along with the partners. My first 2 airplanes were in partnerships and both very good experiences. However, I knew both partners very well for many years. All involved were reasonable and level headed guys...key factors. Was a good way to make ownership more affordable. If done with the wrong people, it can be a path full of pitfalls and annoyances.

I do agree, that if possible, sole ownership is way better.

If done with the wrong people, it can be a path full of pitfalls and annoyances.

Ah, yes. The art of the understatement is still viable....

You could buy a crummy version of a lot of airplanes and get hammered by maintenance costs over the next few years.

Or you could just buy a Tri-Pacer in really good shape and fly it and have fun. The Pacer-i-fied version adds $10K to the price, so getting one of those in good shape will be a stretch, but a plain old milkstool will do everything you ask easily. And affordably.

Although definitely not the only way to achieve your goal, there is a long-established tradition in aircraft ownership (works on cars and boats too), where you can substitute time and elbow grease for money.

You can buy any number of Pacer, Tri-Pacer, and Stinson projects that need rebuild or repair for ten or twelve grand, and put in several thousand in repair/refurbish materials, and a bunch of your time, and come out with a freshly done bush-capable airplane for $30K.

If you are interested, you can scratch build the 701/750, and have a brand new purpose built bushplane. If you install used, standard, non-exotic instrumentation and a hand held radio, and buy a mid-time O-200 engine, you should be able to get it done for well under 30K.

There is a dollar value to your time, and if you value yourself at 20 or 30 dollars an hour and counted that toward the "cost" of your airplane, then you would come in way over 30K of course. But if you have plenty of time, and a lower-paying job, meaning the money out of your pocket on a daily basis is the limiting problem, then consider it. Scratchbuilding allows you to finance the airplane over a much longer period of time, with no interest, and the ability to not spend money at times where it is needed elsewhere.

You can also "scrounge", buy surplus materials, surplus aircraft hardware, etc and save a lot of money. Again this is not the "first class" way to do it, but I can assure you that MANY homebuilt airplanes have been done successfully this way. The scrounging becomes a hobby and passion of its own, and yes it takes time and energy in and of itself. But reading old copies of Sport Aviation (before it was dumbed down ) will give you many inspirational examples of this. A recent issue of SA about the classic Wittman Tailwind reported that you can still build this exceptionally capable airplane for 25K. The Tailwind is of course not a back country airplane... But the principle of a scratchbuilder being able to have a fast cross country sport plane at one third of the typical cost of other "quick build kit" builders will be as valid for a STOL airplane as it is for a Tailwind.

Also consider the value of your time at your normal "day job", and calculate whether the money you get paid to do your job is a lot more than the money you would save by building or repairing. Because another option ,of course, is to figure out whether you would be further ahead by taking out a bank loan for 30K to buy a flying airplane. If the loan payment including interest is something that your job allows you to pay off faster than the amount of time you would have been building, then you might own the airplane sooner... and the added benefit is that you have been flying the plane all the time you were paying off the loan.

The other poster was correct in that it definitely would be much easier to spend more than $30K to achieve this goal. However, if you cannot spend more than that, please do not let that become a barrier to keep you out of this sport. With extra effort and a little cleverness, you can do what you want to do.

We recently bought a new Aerotrek220 for my wife and she loves the airplane. I believe that it meets every one of your criteria except price. Pictured below is her airplane with its wings folded and parked under the wing of a C172 taildragger. Here is a link to the Forum thread on her new airplane: http://www.backcountrypilot.org/forum/m ... lane-13633.

.......where you can substitute time and elbow grease for money.......

Good advice/post, Flap.
I'll give you a Gold Star (and hope it is taken in the spirit it was obviously written in).

RWM wrote:

Max Torque wrote:Partnership is a path full of pitfalls and annoyances - NOT recommended.


Tom

This is a matter of opinion and obviously heavily dependent on how well you know/get along with the partners. My first 2 airplanes were in partnerships and both very good experiences. However, I knew both partners very well for many years. All involved were reasonable and level headed guys...key factors. Was a good way to make ownership more affordable. If done with the wrong people, it can be a path full of pitfalls and annoyances.

I do agree, that if possible, sole ownership is way better.

Unless you can do it with someone you are already friends with... I own my Savannah with a friend, and we couldn't be happier with the partnership. As at this point in my life it would be impossible to own something all by my self as the costs would essentially double. I would never do it with a stranger though.