Buying airplane? Issues?

[sunlight]

We've been seriously considering buying an airplane in the next year or so. I was completely unaware that you could finance a used airplane, which has been our biggest hurdle. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what we can afford, but our friends in similar financial situations are buying Bonanza's and the like, so I am thinking a 172 won't be much of an issue.

So really, I'm just wanting to pick people's brain's and find out what kind of issues they've run into in the buying process. Any big gotchas, financial or otherwise?

 

[Jim Logajan]

With regard to engine power choices:

For the same airframe, speed increases by the cube root of engine power, so for example going from 150 HP to 180 HP (a 20% increase in HP) will provide only a ~6% increase in speed. Roughly speaking, more power gets you much better climb rate and higher altitude operations than it does cruise speed. For better cruise speed, look for airframes that are inherently efficient, drag-wise.