[Stanley]

What is your intended use? My wife and I (total 300lbs) fly my AA5 Traveler with 160HP and cruise about 75% at 130mph around 5000ft and climb from sea level to 5000 easily at 600ft/min and 100-110mph. Best part is fuel consumption. Even though we have the smaller tanks (37ish gal usable) we can runup, takeoff, climb to 4-6K ft and travel easily 4hrs with VFR reserve. Obviously winds will play a factor. In my opinion, bang for the buck is AA5 with upgraded 160HP pistons if your use is like mine. If you are wanting to fly with 4 average size adults I think you gotta go with AA5A upgraded or AA5B. FYI, I paid 23K for my airworthy current annual 73 AA5 with 150HP. I am an A&P so I mitigated cost on upgrades which was 160HP pistons, all new interior, fuel cell reseal, respray, and avionics upgrade. I’ve since put another 25K in parts and materials. If you are not an A&P this would have added at least another 20K which would have put my aircraft way out of the market since you can pick up a pretty nice AA5B for 70-75K.

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