This is the 2nd plane that I bought with my friend. The first plane had worked out very well doing a lease-back, so we decided to try it with a 2nd plane. This one was a complex plane with retractable gear and variable prop (very technical, I know).
This plane required another special rating, which I got on a fun trip from Chicago down to the Florida Keys. One of my pilot friends was also a Certified Flight Instructor. I needed 25 hours in a complex aircraft for my rating, and I had about 18 hours. I had a business meeting in Florida coming up, and when I mentioned it to him, he jumped on it. I flew him and his girlfriend down for free, and by the time I dropped him off in Marathon Key, I had enough hours for him to sign off on my rating. I flew on to Key West, had my meeting for a few days and picked him and his girlfriend up on the way back. Another win/win situation.
The nice thing about this plane was that it was about 50% faster than the first Piper Warrior we had. It was a great instrument platform and was a lot of fun to fly. I took it on a lot of longer flights and really enjoyed the plane.
After we bought this plane, the lease-back hours started dropping on both planes. Not as many people had the ability to fly the high performance plane, and this plane wasn’t doing very well on lease-back. My partner and I ended up selling both planes and dissolved the partnership about 1 1/2 years after we bought this plane. It worked out very well while we had it, and I’ll never look back on it with anything other than a smile.
