ORIGINAL: highhorse
KC, valid points of course.
Remember, though, that tires are cheap (even if flying from pavement) compared to the cost of a new engine when he trades up to the Elan or some other future airframe.
And plenty of folks find the idle thrust of the 80 quite managable on the intro.
we'll just have to agree to disagree, a P-80 is about one of the worse engine choices, especially for anyone learning, it has the absolute worst spool times of all turbines. I've seen even experiences pilots screw up due to the lag. with the P-70 or Wren 54 SS after he gets tired of poking around the skies he can upgrade to a Flash, BARF, Tam A4 or F-16, SkyMaster Gripen or F-16 or F-86, FEJ F-16 or Rafale and quiet the number of other airframes and the P-60 and Super Bee fit most of the aforementioned airframes and fly them quiet nicely. honestly i didn't see where he was gonna upgrade from the Baby Boomer to the Elan and then to the XL, get real how many people really do that????
as for as the tires go, the ones on my Baby Boomer are just a bit over 30 bucks a set and i really don't wanna be replacing them every other weekend, YMMV.