David,
Welcome here. What airline... sounds like UAL, who else operates 37s 75s and 320s? I retired from them a few years ago. Miss the flying and folks but not the BS.

The 73 V35B is a GREAT plane. Probably a fairly light one (later ones were heavier, and really not much difference, otherwise). And the 73 had a lot of the improvements that were available. Good to see you here.

Welcome David!

Hi All...My name is Chris Ely and I am new to aviation but God willing will have my VFR PP license by March 2010...I have a beautiful and loving Wife and four wonderfully crazy kids. I work 6 months out of the year in Southeast Asia and have around 2,880 hrs in a 777 (onboard as passenger) ..I am absolutely in love with flying and have been since an early age...Just not sure why have have waited this long to get into it...Oh Yea! Its called a career...I Have been flying with a friend in his 1964 Mooney M20K (have flown it about 10 hrs TT)..Hope that Models right or i'm sure someone will correct me ...Have been extensively collecting data on purchaseing an airplane and can't quite decide what would be the best fit....I will be able to spend around 100k for my first dip into the aviation world and still afford to eat some beans at night! I have a family of 6 and would eventually enjoy taking them along on glorious aerial adventures (not manuevers)....but not sure if first plane should be a 6 seat beast or not? I have been torn whether to purchase a nicely equiped F or B33 Debonair or a slightly lesser equiped A36...4 seater vs. 6 seater...I'm sure a long time debate! I'm sure you have all experienced the same situ in your aviation journey...Looks like a great time to buy an airplane so any advice when it comes to this topic would be very much appreciated! Enjoy reading topics...Much learning I have to do!


Chris Ely
Franklin, Texas

Hello,

my name is Ides Vanneuville and this is my first post on this site though I signed up already a while ago.
A couple of months ago I purchased a 58P (traded in my Piper Arrow during that deal which I flew for the last 9 years) and most of the time was spent on getting it from the German registry to the FAA. D-IGBH is now N925VV!
I'm a +800 hours private pilot and recently added MEI to my license Most of my flying is in Europe as I live in Belgium.

I will post some pictures of the aircraft very soon!

As this is my first Beech (and twin) expect some extra postings from me over the next couple of weeks

Thanks,

Ides

Welcome Ides

Good choice. If you'd like it washed and polished just drop by BT Member Yves Soete's hangar. He lusts for what you have. That at least ought to be good for a wash job, or golf outing. or castle hopping!

Haha, welcome Ides! Yves, BeechTalk's honorary Belgian ambassador, is going to go ballistic when he sees your post... I can hardly wait!

@ Carneal's post


Welcome Ides! - post pics please!

Hello, everyone,

I'm a 30-year old Lithuanian lawyer/translator and a non-pilot-yet aviation enthusiast. I plan to actively get into GA flying in about a decade when I see myself financially and time-wise fit for that. I love any kind of flying since the very childhood. Currently, I occasionally right-seat-fly with and talk a lot to various private pilots (have already seen most of my small country from above and been to half of its 27 airfields), read a lot and have thus been on this gorgeous forum for more than a year before I registered. For me, it was definitely the richest single source of first-hand aviation information I've ever found.

The forum's international contingent (with Yves in the lead) is great. I did not notice any members from Lithuania yet (although Jurskis and Dagys are completely Lithuanian last names and I'm gonna come back to them on their origin), so I decided to put some facts to the board on the Lithuanian GA.

Lithuanian GA is very different from what I see here in the U.S. in terms of missions, fleet, annual hours flown etc. The country is small, population 3,500,000<, 210 miles west to east, 150 miles south to north. Anything beyond that is an international flight. There are more members on this forum than PPL holders in Lithuania. The Lithuanian GA community is cosy, very friendly and everyone knows everyone. Group flights (3-6 aircraft) within the country and abroad are popular. 200-300 registered privately flown aircraft, but only a part of them are actually flown in Lithuania.

The country is dominated by LSAs (around 30< factory made, which enjoy tremendous and ever growing popularity), homebuilts (countless) and 172s (15<), a bunch of pipers, mooneys, robins, some others and that is pretty much it if you don't want to fly to Germany every time you want to have a part replaced or have a 100/50 hour inspection. There is a Musketeer of the 60s, and I knew of one owner flying a Baron 55 in 2000 but don't know whether he still keeps the plane. Beech products somehow do not seem to be popular here. The most prominent piston twin ever privately owned in the country was a Diamond Twin Star until it sadly crashed due to a misunderstanding between the ground controller and the pilot (wing was cut off shortly after take-off by a nearby parachuting glider tow, total immediate fire, the pilot did not even have time to deploy the BRS parachute).

A typical mission is a nice summer evening VFR flight in the local area, recreational VFR flights abroad with or without flight following are increasingly popular, too, but private IFR flying is uncommon, even in international flights in occasional-to-frequent IMC. Owner-flown business trips are rare, there are only few people who regularly make them. One third to a half of the private pilots do not speak English which legally prevents them from leaving Lithuania in their aircraft without an English-capable co-pilot. On the other hand, there even are people whose only stimulus to learn English was to be able to fly their airplanes abroad.

Most airfields are day-VFR, grass, runway 150-250 feet, only several longer than that. There are 30< 100-150 feet off-airfield strips and there is a yet-in-development but already-in-use fly-in home district with a considerably longer runway (one of the three such places in Europe, founder has visited Travolta's place in the U.S. before).

Gliding is popular in Lithuania (several European championships held so far). Aerobatics has an old tradition, too, but that would already be an off-topic in this thread.

So much for now, more info with Lithuanian insights to come in other threads I will be contributing to later. Questions highly welcome! Happy flying to everyone!

Wellcome Darius. Very interesting post.

Darius, I'd like to compliment you on your mastery of the English language.

Your grammar and spelling are better than the average BeechTalk poster!!

Welcome, and we wish to here more from you in the near future.

Keith Griggs

Wow Darius, welcome!

I'm going to back up and delete my pitiful introduction post now given that you've gone and written the definitive one on the board. Well done!

Hi Darius,

I started flying a few months before my 40th birthday and bought my Debonair just a couple weeks prior to my birthday. Flew VFR for 8 years, then got an instrument rating around my 48th birthday. I figure I have a few more good years before I put every available upgrade on my Debbie and then I'll probably lose my medical. In other words, "what are you waiting for?" The time to get started is now.

I see that I incorrectly converted meters to feet in my post when I referred to the runway length (we here count it in meters). Just multiply the numbers by 10 and you'll get ir right.

Sorry.

Darius:

You got it right, our friend Chester Jurskis does claim his Lithuanian heritage, though we are working on making him a pure Texan.