The two clubs I'm interested in at this point are
http://www.tssflyingclub.org and
http://octopusflyingclub.com/octopus/ - Even if I end up buying it would be nice to have some time a variety of airplanes to form an opinion. It is should be noted our poster that spilled the beans (Roof) not only bought me a beer afterwards but has already been pushing his BIL to sell me on Moony's like he has.
I can totally see the value of belonging to a club. When they work, they're great. When they don't... well, I lost almost $10K in investment when the local club went bankrupt. That's not a common flying club story, but it does happen!
But if you can limit your membership costs (if you have the option of not buying into the capital assets of the club, i.e. the airplanes) it's a decent way to go for a couple of years. I don't personally subscribe to the idea that you will learn anything of value by bouncing around from one airplane to another... the "exposure" to different platforms doesn't really give you anything of value, and you lose a lot of valuable learning time adjusting and re-adjusting to the different controls and flight characteristics. In my experience, and a lot of other pilots agree, if you can get into one aircraft and fly the s h i t out of it, you'll build and retain skills much more efficiently. So if you go with the club with the Cessna 172, 182, and 182 RG plus others, try to stay in either the 172 or the 182; ditto with the Pipers.
Once you get up to NH, your options will open up nicely. At that point you might just skip buying the 172 trainer and buy a REAL airplane, like that Mooney. Interesting choice! Not an airplane for noobs, as you probably know. Mooneys haven't killed as many people as Bonanzas, but that's mostly because Beech has built a LOT more Bonanzas. (Not entirely... the Mooney passenger compartment cage is state-of-the-art.) I believe enough in the Mooney mission that I'm planning to purchase a used Mooney myself, hopefully this year but more likely next.
I've only got 2 hours total time in one Mooneys, and 2 hours in Bonanzas, but that's enough for me to be able to appreciate the basics of the airframes. Most of what I'll need to know about flying a Mooney will be learned when I buy my own Mooney and start building hours. I've got a relationship with a couple Mooney guys, and my plan is to get a minimum of 10 hours with an instructor in the first month I own the airplane, interspersed with roughly 10 hours of solo time, before I start taking it out for recreation and business travel.
Anyways, good luck and good flying, amigo!
