Arne
Over the period we have had dealings with about 15 aircraft types and the Sport Cruiser was the only aircraft type that had multiple serious problems across the five or six aircraft that I had a hand in maintenance.
Fortunately I don’t have much to do with these very light under built types at the moment but experience has left me very suspicious of anything that is held together by pop rivets and has a very low empty weight.
Bathman wrote:
I’m with A and C. It won’t be robust enough. Why o why cant someone produce an airframe as strong as a C152 with a rotax engine in it.
Well, someone does. I have recently flown a 288kg (empty) Z602, all aluminum, with Rotax 100hp. Solid landing gear, aviation standard workmanship, basic safety features (excellent visibility, wing tanks, toe brakes, steerable NG, etc.), +/- 6g tested, and more space than the competitors – good for anybody as tall as 1.95. What I don’t know is whether she is approved for training (and by whom).
I have also flown an Evector not so long ago. It’s like night and day. At least if you are taller or larger (as many youngsters are nowadays).
And yes I do understand, everybody has his or her own opinion. So please take my opinion with a grain of salt.
I can’t personally imagine the Zenair derived aircraft (Z-602 etc) holding up for several decades in commercial training service, but along similar lines (trainers derived from existing designs) it seems to me the elephant in the room would be the potential as a trainer for a factory built derivation of the Vans RV-9A, which is pretty tough overall but I think would need a reinforced nose gear. Same O-235 engine as the C152, docile handling but with much greater performance that would better transition somebody into a Cirrus or whatever. Despite at least one air force (Nigeria) already having implemented this idea, the issue is civilian certification cost – and it could not be LSA certified because of the weight and performance.
It might also be good to educate the students that planes aren’t cars and you cant stomp all over them and expect them to survive, but probably that would fail for commercial training as the students are mostly looking to airline jobs and I think they have little respect for light aircraft. Most of them would probably prefer to fly the biggest, heaviest thing they can, as soon as possible.
Mostly in my area where there are so many European and Asian students and so many hours flown, they use C172s. The local LSA based FBO went out of business some years ago after having a number of aircraft wrecked due to hard student landings. Meanwhile I heard one of the C152s that I once flew for training (in 2003) on the radio the other day. It had 6000 hrs and was worth $20K then, it probably has a lot more now and is still worth that much or more.
Silvaire wrote:
I can’t personally imagine the Zenair derived aircraft (Z-602 etc) holding up for several decades in commercial training service,
I am curious, what is it exactly that you cannot imagine holding up ? If we exclude engine, prop, and the soft stuff like seats, etc which is easy to replace. Are you worried about the strength of the fuselage, the undercarriage, other ? What I have seen is sure lighter than a 152, but flimsy no.
The other question is of course age and cost. A refurbished 8000 hours 152 (which I like) has seen some metal fatigue in her life which doesn’t get fixed with some new paint and a new engine. And a Vans (which I like a lot) is still more expensive and both burn Avgas. I don’t think this is what Bathman was asking for.
Yes, thin gauge metal that is strong enough to take the structural and aerodynamic flight loads is not necessarily strong enough for hard to predict abuse. I cannot imagine almost any lightweight aircraft holding up to being kicked, slammed, driven off the runway and generally abused by uncaring, incompetent and/or idiotic transient users for decades. That is the life of a training aircraft in the real world.
The exception might be something like an Aeronca Champ, but that one sacrifices almost all of its performance to be durable… I don’t think that’s what prospective students want to fly either.
I don’t think you can have your cake and eat it too. It’s very difficult to make a plane which has good performance, low fuel burn and is simultaneously durable under abuse. I once had the same challenge in designing lightweight Army equipment for use in the field – you can design to a written spec without issue but the design process in relation to withstanding abuse is mainly empirical and initially qualified by test. Even when the design is basically good, people and circumstances will still conspire to break the thing and further development will be based on long term experience, generally over decades unless the design is based on a similar prior version.
By the way, the lightweight Army equipment I mention was never fielded because it was basically impossible to make it simultaneously light and tough enough.
I know nothing about this aircraft but I wonder about the general point about fragility.
If it is that fragile, surely a lot of them must be getting bent in private ownership because a) people have to learn somehow b) most private owners fly too rarely to be really current.
I also feel that the training business is happy to run planes in a much worse condition than most private owners (who paid up tens of k upwards) would settle for. So the claimed durability of say a C152 might actually be because the operators run them further into the ground before they fix them. One shagged C152 I know of was costing 8k on every Annual… there was a reason for that, obviously.
Peter wrote:
If it is that fragile, surely a lot of them must be getting bent in private ownership because a) people have to learn somehow b) most private owners fly too rarely to be really current.
I think private owners are vastly more careful with their property and fly a lot due to low cost per additional hour.
“How do you — and @A_and_C — know that?”
I own a derivative of the Sportster. The rotax engine is great and has done over 5000 hours on nothing but routine maintenance. As for the airframe well it’s on its 3rd nose wheel and firewall.
I could also make similar comments about the AT3, P2006 and sportcruiser.
I do here the aquilia 210 is better built and up to the job. But I have no experience of it.
I also wonder about the DA20 but I’ve never flown one or know a maintainance company that’s worked in one. But I suspect they will be well built.
Might struggle out of 600 meters of muddy grass this time of year mind.
It has a lot to do with the instructors IMO. Being used to students just slamming the aircraft to the ground as you can do in a C-152/172, you start to think this is normal and think nothing of it. You have to think different in a lighter built plane.
Truer words are seldom said, LeSving…
