Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am joining your forum today for purely selfish reasons .

If I am invited to remain and can help out in the future, rest assured that I will pay back with interest.

My 1300 hr background is all Experimental; Corbin Jr Ace, Midget Mustang, Mustang ll, a couple of Cassutts and a Pietenpol.

I am a heavy equipment mechanic of 34 years and have rebuilt and maintained all of my aircraft and helped others with theirs.

In December, I started instrument training but stopped when I realized that I would not realistically be able to make my Mustang ll into an instrument platform.

I have been talking to a friend, who owns two Bonanzas, about purchasing one of his. It is a 1956 G35 N4619D, E225.

The mission;
Instrument trainer/platform
Commercial License (Just because)
Long cross countries for visiting; two up
Two hour flights each way, with friends; four up
Super long cross countries, aux fuel, Hawaii; solo

The budget;
Blue collar

Spousal support;
A person couldn’t ask for better

I have not purchased this ship yet and I have a bunch of questions before I do so. (Yep, that’s the selfish part). Can I make this dream work and still eat? That all depends on your answers.

I will post the questions in the appropriate forum.

Tim

Tim,

Welcome to BT. I don't know anything about the E series engines but there are lots on BT who do. I'm sure you will find quite a bit of help here. It sounds like you have flown some pretty cool planes that you built yourself!

Tim,
Welcome to BT.

Forget the food.

Buy the plane.

Welcome Tim,

With Dolly Parton tip tanks and a relief tube, anything is possible.

Welcome: haven't heard anything from Wenatchie for a long time I spent my early high school years in Sunnyside.

Sure, you can make it work. Maintenance is a major expense item, and if you can do your own it will eliminate a lot of that. Parts will still cost you a bundle, but there are a lot of these in the salvage yards.

And you certainly don't need a glass panel. Those old King and Collins radios seem to last forever.

Adam,

Thanks for the compliment but I may have misled in my original post, I only rebuilt and repaired these ships, I do not have the sticktoitiveness to build that many aircraft from the ground up. I envy those who do.

Tim

A success factor in owning E powered airplanes is being informed
on all aspects of taking care of the engine and prop. Lew Gage is
the starting and finishing point.

Most are not up to that large challenge. Sounds like you would be.

First step would be to figure out if this is a good one. Figure out
what the status of the prop is. Wrong answer there can exceed
value of airplane.

Bill Hale

I have just read both the Gage and Colvin books cover to cover however do not profess to have garnered every nuance from either.

The challenge, therein lies the rub. I know I can do the work, but can I afford to do so. Then there is the amount of work and reliability. I know from past experience that there are more hours fixing than flying but what I am reading leads me to believe the ratio may be even farther out of proportion than what I am accustomed to with my expereimental/simple aircraft. At my age I am interested in more interesting challenges than seeing if I can keep a mechanical device in tune.

The prop is a Hartzel that had the updated clamps that make it a no AD assy. It also has the same 10 hrs since it was updated.

Tim.