What happened to the Liberty's

[177Pilot]

Where have all the Liberty's gone?
I've been interested in OBA for a long time and just recently noticed that the advertisements no longer feature the new Liberty aircraft. I called OBA but don't really get an answer. Anyone who has flown them a OBA may know the reason they disappeared from the flight school.

[Shunter]

Weren't they all grounded after people kept crashing them, snapping nose legs off etc.. ?

(a fellow 177 pilot, you are commended on your excellent taste).

[doctordoom]

To many mishaps with them, they are not a good plane for training students. You cant beat the good old 150/152 they saved OBA's bacon anyway best not say to much more befor I get banned from Pprune for talking about OBA :ugh:

[worldpilot]

Wait a minute, doctordoom. I'm not quite sure if you statement " To many mishaps with them, they are not a good plane for training students" is applicable.:= Does it mean that there're no FTOs out there using the Libertys for flight training?:{ I'm sure there are.

Make sure you're ascertain by facts before discrediting the Libertys.:ok:

WP

[doctordoom]

They are not a good plane to teach the craft of flying on, the are not a forgiving plane, I have seen the out come of 2 serious liberty crashes and lots of minor mishaps that would never have happened with a c150 or a warrior, do you think siting on a plastic fuel tank with two matchstick main landing gear and toothpick nose wheel is a good idea . In my opinion good ridins to bad rubish they are a pile of :mad:

[coodem]

I trained at OBA with the cessna's, a year later I went back and flew around 30 hours in the liberty.

In my opinion it does not make an ideal trainer, I had no problems flying it, but had 150 hours TT at the time, and had done a few hours in the Diamond Katana, which I found had similar handling characteristics. I think it makes a nice VFR tourer,

But as a trainer, its too sensitive, too easy to be tempted to push the nose down when landing, thats where the problems start. The nose gear just can't take any abuse.

[CocoBongos]

I flew the Liberty XL2 about 18 months ago on a demo flight with a Liberty Pilot.

I found the aircraft very difficult to flare for landing, the pitch control was very sensitive. The aircraft also literally "jumped" into the air on take off followed by a significant reduction in IAS.

When attempting small control inputs, the control stick seemed to be "stuck" in position but when harder force was applied it suddenly moved causing an excessive control inputs.

I had great difficulty in setting the correct attitude for the flare and touch down. The aircraft either pitched up too much, ("ballooned"), or pitched down too much, ("wheelbarrow", with inevitable nose wheel contact first together with the well known consequences), unless you were very quick to correct.

I found the aircraft very difficult to trim for straight and level flight, constantly pitching up or down and requiring to be re-trimmed again and again.

The Liberty XL2 is "close coupled" in pitch, (i.e. short distance from the lateral axis to the stabilator), therefore any issues that relate to pitch sensitivity are greatly amplified when compared to the couple on say a C150/2, C177, (incidentally a lovely aircraft with a stabilator!) or the Pipers.

During my flight in the XL2, I noticed the Liberty pilot closely guarding the control stick, especially on landing and take off. There was probably a reason for this, draw your own conclusions?

Liberty promote the XL2 as an ideal training aircraft, (primarily because of its low operational cost for the schools and clubs), but for the inexperienced student or newly qualified pilot it may well present challenges beyond their skill level that will likely negate any cost savings operating the XL2 versus the Cessna and Piper aircraft.

[doctordoom]

The amount of prop strikes the xl2 has sufferd at OBA is unreal. I think it has major flaws in its design, the short wings and all moving tailplane are not a great mix for starters, the finger brakes and castor nosewheel are another bad move. I think if Liberty ironed out the problems it would be a great plane, but not for students.

[ccm]

I got my PPL in the XL2 at OBA...

While I think it is a nice aircraft to fly it is definitely not the easiest plane to land due to its very sensitive pitch control. Its nose wheel is also definitely a problem as many have snapped off.

I'd recommend the good old Cessna 15x to anyone looking to do a PPL (which OBA have returned to after grounding their own XL2s).

[177Pilot]

Yes, I think the Cessna's are much better for training, but OBA's are 30 to 40 years old. For the price the value is not there. I'm looking for a FTO that has a newer fleet.

[doctordoom]

You better get used to fling old plane's not many school's in the U.S have new fleet's you could alway's try some of the school's in Canada

[fantom]

So, we have "Liberty's"; "Cessna's" and "fleet's".

Does no-one learn English punctuation these days? Believe me, it's important.

f

Oh, I just spotted "school's".

[student88]

Theyre lots off spelling and grammatical mistakes in these forum's - you just have 2 get uzed to it!

It is rather annoying, don't you think? :p

S88:ok: