Building time came slowly with my first solo on 4/1/1986. I passed my Private Pilot Practical exam on 9/9/1987 two days after my 27th birthday.
We rented planes and I was working on my Instrument rating, flying at Oxford Airport doing a trade off with the flight school writing them a point of sale application for their computer systems in exchange for money on account to rent their airplanes and pay instructors with. The owner of the flight school reneged on our deal once the system was delivered and it was time to start doing the flying. It was at that point I vowed to Judy I would never kiss anyone’s ass again to fly. I started looking at trade-a-plane and decided on a Grumman Tiger. We purchased a 1977 Grumman Tiger AA5B in April 1989 2 months after my deal fell through.
I flew commercial to Orlando with my instructor Dan to pick up the plane which I purchased from a broker in Ocala. A friend from High School picked us up @MCO and drove us to Ocala so we could pick up the Tiger and fly it back to Danbury.
We flew the tiger home over two days since it had some issues with pitch trim that we had to stop in Keystone Heights Florida for better than a half day having them fix it.
28331 was in reasonably good shape but had poor radios and an engine that needed a top overhaul and all new hoses at our first annual. It had a new paint job but required a new oil cooler, windshield, brake cylinders, prior to that and we were crushed by the maintenance and tie down as well as the loan payment. Nonetheless we flew ‘Tigra’ 125 times in the 21 months she was ‘ours’ including a trip to Detroit Metro in 1989 and Sun and Fun in 1990
The Tiger was sold in January of 1991 to a guy based out of Stowe Mass who still owns it today. She now lives in Florida.
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