PlayTheOdds
Veteran
If you are the proud new owner of a Beech Bonanza, congratulations. A very wonderful aircraft that will serve you well. Now enjoy your plane and fly it and if you happen to be one of those who just has to go to a Bonanza Clinic, go have fun and enjoy yourself. Now here is the clincher, when they inspect your 30, 40, 50 year old airplane...take the discrepancies with a grain of salt oor two. If you enjoyed your flight there...enjoy your flight back home. OK! If your plane flew fine there it will fly fine home even if they tell you your ailerons are out of rig. If it flew straight and level there it will fly straight and level back home. After you get home from your nice trip I will look at your plane. Then I will more than likely tell you it is fine and not worry about it. At that point you need to be thankful and go home. You just got good free advice. Now if you insist that I rig them, I will and I will inform you that after your next flight I will charge you again to put it back the way it was, for it will be at your request. Then we can talk about rigging the wing. Which every owner, thus far, has opted not to do after deciding that it was flying just fine the way it was. Retract systems! There are a bunch of them out there flying that are out of rig and just wore out. It is a well designd system and will continue to operate just fine till you can bring it to me. Enjoy your time at the clinic and your flight home. On average you will spend about 5,500.00 on parts and labor bringing it up to par. Pre-buys people! The best 900.00 you will ever spend. Chances are you will earn it back just for insisting the shimmy dampner be taken apart and inspected if it requires servicing. Jack the aircraft. Jack the aircraft jack the aircraft and do a complete annual inspection on the landing gear. If you are spending two fifty or four hundred dollars on a prebuy you are wasting your money because this is not being done. It takes two mechs four to five hours to do a proper prebuy and if they say they can do it quicker they are lying. That landing gear is going to cost you money if not inspected because chances are it is wore out it will still go up and down but your first annual is going to be costly. You will be told that the annual is around 18 to 22 hundred dollars. I can pretty much assure you without a pre-buy inspection you can expect 5 to 8 thousand. Otherwise enjoy your Bonanza. It is an extremely well built aircraft.
