Mooney for a student pilot, bad idea?
I am in my private pilot syllabus and renting a run down 152 at the local flight school. It is a ton of fun but I know I want to own my own plane long term for cross country stuff so I might as well buy early and use it during training too. I have been shopping for 172s but I have fallen in love with a Mooney M20c ranger that popped up for sale the other day-
Does anyone here have any experience with one of these? I'm going in 50/50 with a buddy but I had a couple of concerns about buying a Mooney...
- Is it going to be too much plane for a new guy? 180 hp really nice interior/exterior... I don't want to mess it up
- Is it tough to find parts/A&P ?
The second one is really the main question- I know I'll grow into it as I fly more but I just wanted to make sure that I'm not going to have trouble finding someone to do annuals and stuff. I'm in a pretty populated area with a ton of airports so really I shouldn't have too much trouble finding mechanics but honestly I am pretty dumb when it comes to GA... I'm used to the military where you can get a million dollar part with 3 mouse clicks.
happy flying
edit: Thanks everyone for the info, I spoke with my mentor and the mooney owner and I decided two things. 1) I want the Mooney even more now 2) It isn't the right time- down the road I think I'll be looking at one but for now I'll be much better off with something more basic. On another note- if anyone is selling a 172 with a basic ifr set up...