I'm very fortunate and blessed to be in a position to upgrade to a bigger, faster, more complex airplane. I pulled the trigger last week on N5132P, a 1958 Comanche 180. She was featured on the cover story of the August 2008 issue of Comanche Flyer not long after the current paint was applied. That owner sold to someone in MN. He flew the airplane for 10 years, and I just acquired it and had it ferried to my home airport last week.
I've got four different instructors in my area with Comanche experience, a few of whom are known to the community. Upon the airplane's arrival my IA met us at the airport to commandeer the logs. He started looking through the maintenance records and I started looking at the airplane. He has found enough paperwork stuff and I've found enough squawks that we are going to do an annual inspection a month early before I start my checkout in it.
It has a recent Aussie stab horn installed. The fuel tank AD is due and there might be a little bit of a leak on the right bladder. There is no blue streaking or anything but there is a bit of pooled oily something on top of a couple of rivets on top of the wing that appeared to just show up after we parked it. Has about 160 hours and the 1000 hour portion of the landing gear AD is due. My IA has annualed/repaired/etc. quite a few of these in his repair station days, and is going line by line through the records to chart the AD compliances as I type this.....
All that said it's a really nice and capable airplane and I'm excited to make the leap from my 140/160. This will handle high/hot and mountain flying with much better margin than my Cherokee 140/160. My Cherokee is under contract already and pending an inspection this Saturday.
I've got four different instructors in my area with Comanche experience, a few of whom are known to the community. Upon the airplane's arrival my IA met us at the airport to commandeer the logs. He started looking through the maintenance records and I started looking at the airplane. He has found enough paperwork stuff and I've found enough squawks that we are going to do an annual inspection a month early before I start my checkout in it.
It has a recent Aussie stab horn installed. The fuel tank AD is due and there might be a little bit of a leak on the right bladder. There is no blue streaking or anything but there is a bit of pooled oily something on top of a couple of rivets on top of the wing that appeared to just show up after we parked it. Has about 160 hours and the 1000 hour portion of the landing gear AD is due. My IA has annualed/repaired/etc. quite a few of these in his repair station days, and is going line by line through the records to chart the AD compliances as I type this.....
All that said it's a really nice and capable airplane and I'm excited to make the leap from my 140/160. This will handle high/hot and mountain flying with much better margin than my Cherokee 140/160. My Cherokee is under contract already and pending an inspection this Saturday.
