Owning?

Probably like all (most?) renters, I've been toying around with the idea of purchasing a plane of my own... Of course not a brand new one, because I can't afford that - but with a couple of people, I figure I could probably get a nice mid- to late-1970's Arrow. Certainly not the fastest plane out there, but it gets you from Point A to Point B in a reasonable amount of time, and it has good payload, too. And the maintenance on it supposedly won't break your pocketbook. But, I seem to be having trouble finding enough partners who are willing to take the plunge.

But then again, I'm confronted with those who are skeptical about owning because of maintenance... And looking back at it, I've had quite a number of problems with rental airplanes:

• Nosewheel steering bungee broken on a Cessna 177RG; had to get towed back to the ramp from the taxiway (too bad I didn't have a digital camera back then, because that was probably the only opportunity to get out of the airplane parked sideways on A4 taxiway right next to runway 16R-34L).
• An aborted takeoff due to a badly indicating tachometer.
• Attitude indicator not working correctly on my last trip to Hailey.
• Flight delays due to flat tires, leaking oleo struts, etc.
• A plane where the ADF needle never works quite right.
• COM2 going dead.

None of these problems were too serious, and all of them occurred at Paine Field where I'm based out of. Nonetheless, I'm thinking: what if these didn't occur at Paine? Milen was flying back from San Diego, and he had an alternator problem south of Medford, Oregon (can you say: "uh, exactly how long has that VOLTS light been on?") He made it to Medford, and he was delayed while waiting for a mechanic. But, it wasn't his plane, so all he had to do was call up the FBO, and they took care of the problem - even sending a mechanic down to fix it.

And, it's also good to mention that most of my flying is done outside of the normal Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm timeframe. Why does that matter? Try finding a mechanic on the field on Saturday or worse, Sunday.

Call me crazy, but even with all this, I still want to have an airplane of my own! :-)