THE COST OF flying seems to go up with every year that passes, but there are ways to fly at no cost at all. 24 years ago I bought a one-third share in G-ARNZ, a Turbulent based on a farm strip in Hertfordshire. Because the aeroplane was dismantled for a wing recover, the price was modest, and when I sold my share two years later, I got more than I’d paid—the difference exactly equalled the cost of my flying over the period.

   A few years after ’NZ and I parted company, it was found to have some glue failures in the wing, the result of several winters under a leaking roof. As is often the case with elderly wooden aeroplanes, the deterioration was more extensive than anyone had imagined. It was some dozen years before ’NZ flew again. By this time it had been through several pairs of hands and had ended up once more with its first owner, the Tiger Club, now at Headcorn… which is where ’NZ and I met up again.

   There were some changes of detail, but most things were exactly as I remembered them from 22 years earlier. At first I felt uncomfortable, the controls unfamiliar, the seat over-hard, the open cockpit draughty, and my bottom much too close to the ground when taxying. But after three flights the years had slipped away and I felt at home again.

   The Druine Turbulent is a French, post-war design aimed at homebuilders, although ’NZ was made commercially, by a British firm, no less. In its glorious youth, Rollasons produced a batch of Turbulents for the Tiger Club and went on to manufacture the Condor, a two-seat derivative of the Turb.

   The Turb is simple to work on and yet robust, the kind of aeroplane that never wears out, so it keeps its value—around £6,000. Having said that, it’s as well to strip the fabric every eight years or so and make good the inevitable glue failures and other minor damage... but this is long-term maintenance; in the same way, a Turb’s Volkswagen motor will need a periodic top-end overhaul and occasional renewal of its bottom end. This is likely to be less traumatic than on a Lycoming or Continental because car engine parts are cheap. Furthermore, the twin Lucas magnetos were designed for tractors, so when a mag needs an overhaul you can take it to the nearest tractor repair company to fix (subject to your PFA inspector's approval, of course). The repair bill will be a fraction of the cost of having mags overhauled by an aviation-approved firm.

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