Addie's place on the web...

Just some stuff I want to share with you

We bought a plane!

Thursday 10 July 2025
FlyingOwning a plane

Yes, we did – really! We embarked on this journey in June 2024, and now, over a year later, on July 10th, 2025, we have finally reached our destination. In previous posts I’ve shared how this all started and how I moved from renting the PH-VTB to (partially) owning the F-GSBM.

Today is pickup time. This will probably be my last flight with the PH-VTB. Bas and I will fly to Lille, where the F-GSBM is waiting for us.

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Emotions, paperwork and unexpected detours

Tuesday 8 July 2025
FlyingOwning a plane

The last few weeks have been intense. While trying to agree on a pickup date for the plane in France, we found ourselves buried in paperwork - and slowly realizing that our French counterparts have a different understanding of the word “agreement” than we have.

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Let's make a deal!

Monday 19 May 2025
FlyingOwning a plane

Buying a plane isn’t just about finding the right aircraft. Once you’ve found “the one”, the real work begins: negotiations, paperwork, and a fair bit of uncertainty. Now that we have found a Robin that we like, it was time to try and actually buy it.

We have started negotiations with L’Union Aérienne Lille Roubaix Tourcoing (UALRT) to convince them to sell the F-GSBM to us. Next to price, we also had to come to an agreement on work to be done before handover. This was the first time we were negotiating with a French flying club - something completely new to all of us.

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Two more candidates

Thursday 1 May 2025
FlyingOwning a plane

Robin DR400s with a 180 hp engine don’t come up for sale often. So, when two showed up on PlaneCheck at the same time, we dropped everything, cleared our calendars, and set off on our next road trip.

We were lucky that we could plan to visit both planes on two consecutive days. Both are in France, but there’s 300 km between them. Let’s go!

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Road trip!

Thursday 20 March 2025
FlyingOwning a plane

We made up our minds and decided to start searching for “our” Robin DR400. Time to power on the computer and browse to PlaneCheck to find out what’s available out there. There were a few Robins that got our attention and we contacted the sellers for additional information; some didn’t bother to respond; others came with a short “it’s already sold” response. It’s clear that we need to act fast when a new plane is put up for sale!

Then Bas warned us: even when everything looks great on paper and on the website, once you stand next to the plane, you may find that you either love or hate it. We need to get on the road and start to visit some of these beauties.

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