New Airplanes

N46ME is the second new aircraft I have purchased. The first was a Mooney Ovation in 1998. The other two aircraft I have owned were used when I bought them.
For those accustomed to buying cars and not aircraft the interesting difference to note is that while automobiles are mass produced and pretty much each instance of a given model is identical, airplanes are essentially hand made one piece and one plane at a time. This means two things for the buyer: First, your airplane will be different from any other similar airplane in many little ways. Secondly, and most importantly, you will have many kinks to work out with the new airplane. On the Ovation it took me about a year of fixing and fiddling to get the plane just right with all the bugs worked out. I have had the Meridian for 6 weeks now and there are already 10 things on the list that will need to be fixed at the 50-hour inspection (this doesn't count the paint flaws nor the oil leak the propeller had when I picked the aircraft up from the factory). I expect that for the first 100 to 200 hours (probably about a year of flying for this plane) I will be coming up with many small things that need to be taken care of.
In talking to the manufacturer’s customer service rep when I picked up my craft the issue of working the bugs out came up. N46ME had 6 hours on it when I picked it up which is about normal. I would like to have them put at least 25 hours and preferably 50 hours in a variety of flight conditions, including at least a continuous 2 hours at the maximum operating altitude at maximum speed. He felt that most owners wouldn't like that much time on the new plane and I think he also felt that the manufacturer couldn't afford to do that.
The nice thing is that from talking to the other Meridian owners, once they get beyond this phase the aircraft is very reliable and mostly trouble free. Since I have been around airplanes for awhile I have come to accept all this as just being the way the industry works.
The ironic thing in all this is that the Meridian costs about 25 times what a Lexus LX-470 costs so you might expect that it would have similar, if not much higher, quality levels. I wonder if the jet buyers go through the same thing?
(p.s. you will never read about this in any of those glossy flying magazines. I suggested to an author friend of mine that he write an article honestly documenting the new plane buying experience (the good and the bad). He said nobody would publish it because they don't want to piss off any of the manufacturers since they pay for the magazine through their advertising. Understandable I suppose but just factor that in when you read some glowing article about some neat new aircraft that never mentions the flaws and gotchas. Which reminds me, maybe I should do a blog about landing a Mooney Ovation, now there is something you have never read an honest article about and no Mooney salesman will tell you about...)
Just to close on the right note: I love flying and I really love my new Meridian. The more I fly it the more I like it.

First post

I ran across a few folks blogging about their Piper Meridians so I thought I would start doing the same.
I took delivery on May 3rd, 2005 and am currently building hours to make the insurance company feel happy about letting me fly solo.
A funny non aviation related thing. It is forecast to get to 75 degrees F here in Seattle today and all the talk is about how hot it is going to be today. Folks from Phoenix must find that amusing.
Speaking of which, one (of many) thing I like about the Meridian compared to the mirage is that the airconditioner vents are much better placed and the airconditioner seems more powerful. It is much more comfortable now to be on the ground waiting than compared to the Mirage. A small thing but it just makes the travel that much more comfortable.

gene