I’ve been looking for a new plane for many months. It took me a while because at first, I really didn’t know what I was looking for. I had some general criteria: I wanted something that was suited for cross-country flying, had to be at least amateur built so I could accumulate hours, need lights and Mode C, and had to be cheap… really cheap.

At first, I was all over the map. Cessna 150s are plentiful and not too expensive, but once they’re full of fuel, they’re not really a two-person airplane. I also found that the $20K Cessna 150s aren’t such great bargains. Thinking in the $20K range left me with other options such as Taylorcraft, but I also realized that any airplane without electrics wasn’t going to be a good cross-country airplane.

At this point, I thought about partnering with someone. Wilf has been a great partner over the last five years and has only had the airplane when I wanted it…never. I’m not completely sure Wilf remembers where it’s parked, but it’s there if he wants to fly it. I decided that eventually I would partner with someone, but for now, I wanted the airplane at my discretion in case I ever felt the need to get away.

I kept coming back to the Zenair 601. I’ve always liked the plane; they’re generally not too expensive, and they’re fairly common. Unfortunately, many of them are registered as AULA’s (which I don’t want) or weren’t conveniently located. This did lead me to the Zenair CH-200/250/300 series, which is the big brother to the 601.

After researching these and talking to people who had them for sale, I decided to arrange flights to see a couple of them. According to the Transport Canada database, there are three of these in Springbank, but the addresses on file aren’t accurate, and I couldn’t locate the owners. In the meantime, I got a chance to fly Wade Miller’s C-140. It’s a really nice plane with an upgrade to a Continental O-200, new radio, recent refinishing, and it was local. It was certainly worthy of serious consideration at the time.

I finally got a nice day to go to Denver after US Thanksgiving and flew a CH-250 there. It was a trike with a Lycoming O-290, and I’d heard good things about it. Construction-wise, it was flawless, with unusual extras such as flush riveting. Doug, the current owner, had installed new radios, an external oil filter, and panel lighting. It had the centre stick like the Merlins, with the throttles at the side of the panel which go up and down instead of in and out.

A few weeks later, I got out to Salmon Arm to see a taildragger Zenair CH-250 there. It has a Lycoming O-320, was well built, and after test flying it, I found it was quite fast. It’s a bit over-propped for our altitude and a grass strip, but that’s easily remedied. (As it turned out, this was something I’d have to take care of sooner rather than later). After thinking about it for a couple of days, we agreed on a price, and I sent a deposit. The owner was able to deliver it on December 17th.

I haven’t had a chance to fly it yet other than the orientation flights by the owner, but I think I’ll be happy with it. It’s not a bad-looking plane, handles well, and should be a good cross-country airplane. It’s not as roomy as an RV-9, but at half the price, I can be flexible in my expectations.

I’ve learned a lot through the process, and I found it a lot harder than I expected to find the right plane. I had set my price expectations too low based on ads I had seen. Once I got close-up pictures of potential planes or saw them firsthand, I realized that I wouldn’t be happy with a plane that looked tired or was going to need TLC to be reliable. After a few months, I accepted that $30K was a more realistic target for something that had everything I was looking for.

I tend to overanalyze things, and I was constantly looking for what was the best value for the dollar. Eventually, I changed my thinking to finding the plane that I might want and accepting that this was the price for that airplane. Unlike cars or Cessna 150s, where there’s a lot of them to compare and get a reasonable price, homebuilts don’t always follow the same commodity pricing.

If I was going to do this again, I’d have more realistic expectations. I spent too long looking for that fantastic deal and missed some good opportunities. I’d stay away from US airplanes unless it’s a one-of-a-kind or an exceptional deal. I’d also look close to home as it is difficult to arrange to see a plane on a day that’s a good flying day, and everyone can be away from work.

One final comment is insurance. I knew that with only 230 hours and no recent taildragger time, there would be some limits or additional requirements for me to get insurance on this airplane before I bought it. I decided to go ahead, knowing that I was buying this airplane and would be putting several hundred hours on it, and that this was really a short-term problem that I only had to take care of once.

Based on some references, I chose Park Aviation as a broker to find me a good package; however, they came back with nothing. Not even any suggestions, just uninsurable. After a few more emails, including one to the brokerage owner, the only thing they offered was that obtaining 20 hours of taildragger time might help. A broker makes 20-25% on the policy, so there was some incentive for them to try a little harder.

My next action was to submit an online form with Marsh to see what they might come up with. Almost immediately, I got a follow-up phone call to clarify a few items and got a quote in less than 24 hours. The price was much better than I expected (around $1500), and the only requirement was 10 hours with an instructor, which I had planned to do anyway.

It’s going to be a treat to go somewhere at more than 65 mph and have fewer reasons to be stuck at an airport inside an aluminum tube when I’m not able to drive.