I started learning to fly in late '04, finished my PPL check ride about 10 months later (after a month of delays due to weather, etc). I flew 172's through a local flying club.
Moved up to the club's Arrows in hopes of getting more useful load and a bit more room (and learning to fly retractable gear). I'm tall enough that the person sitting behind me has literally a hand's width of room for their legs in the Arrow. That wouldn't work for flying the family anywhere!
Put in some time in the club's 182 - again hoping for room & useful load (and learned high performance as a side effect). Worked fine except the only 182 in the club was butt-ugly inside (makes passengers nervous when the interior looks ratty - why should they believe the engine, etc has been kept up any better than the obviously-lacking interior?).
Worse, that 182 had huge (88 gallon?) fuel capacity that the owner insisted on keeping full between renters. Great, no available useful load for a family of four plus luggage unless I dump fuel on the ground or flew a couple hours solo just before taking the family anywhere (neither were reasonable choices).
Then, somebody scrunched the nose gear on that 182 which took it out of commission for many months. That's about the time I went looking for something that I wouldn't have to share and that would fit my family.
A buddy with tons of hours in Bonanzas took me up in one and gave me a little time on the controls. Compared to everything else I'd flown, it felt incredible! Smooth, light, responsive! And incredible leg room in the second row.
I shopped everywhere for months trying to learn what to watch out for and figuring out what I wanted. Eventually found pretty much everything I was looking for and settled on a decent price. It had everything I wanted for a price below the fixer-uppers I had also explored.
I started lurking here, as well as various other plane/type boards, while trying to figure out what plane would be right for me.
All along, I was hoping to tag along to ferry my plane home once I found it - only to discover that the plane that matched my wish-list was in a hangar a whopping 5 and a half miles away from the airport I fly out of.
My plane spent more than 20 years with the prior owner. He flew the heck out of it but took very good care of it. He's also one of the BPPP instructors (or was back then and last time I checked).
He hit one of those magic ages where you reflect on what you're doing and decided he wanted to fly a twin while still young enough to do so. Sold me his Bo' and moved to a Baron.
I've had it for about three years now and have put a couple hundred hours on it. I don't get to fly as much as I'd like (life, work, kids, etc all compete for time) but I enjoy the time that I get.
Just finished my instrument rating in late March. Taking Kevin C. down to Lake Havasu to pick up his new (to him) A36 was my first post-checkride instrument flight. Logged almost seven hours on the round trip!
OK, I'll shut up now and if anybody's still awake, here's a picture I took the first day I had the keys to my Bo' (it's in a hangar these days, but had to spend a few months in a tie-down until a hangar opened up).
It's a 1973 V-35B with modern avionics (530W, JPI EDM 700, KX-155, STEC-60, etc), just under 4,000 hours on the airframe. Mid-life engine.
Soon hopefully.
