Primary Trainer
Davidcoe77
The Cessna 150 was very definately designed to be an ab-initio trainer. Cessna uniquely created a loyalty philosophy. The aeroplane range of say the C150 - C210 was designed to allow a natural progression of control ergonomics including a custom comms/nav pack (which was never all that good). Cessna also created a network of Cessna Pilot Centres. If you became a Cessna centre then you could also be a dealer for Cessna aeroplanes and sell to your students on qualifying. Cessna supplied a full training pack which included Cessna text books and equipment. They even supplied a self briefing 35mm slide films and audio tapes covering all exam subjects. The idea was that should you learn, say, in the C150 (later C152) at a Cessna Pilot Centre you would become a Cessna person and move on to the C172 and upwards but hopefully remain with Cessna.
Piper had the Cherokee 140 but it is very expensive to operate in comparison with the C150. Piper did indeed survey flying clubs in designing the PA38 in an attenpt to outwit Cessna who were dominating the training market. The PA38 can hardly be called a 'cheap aeroplane' for it is well made and sturdy.
Unfortuanately though Piper made gross errors. The high tail-plane remained out of the propellor slipstream and it was impossible to raise the nose until sufficient airspeed was achieved. The nose wheel as with the larger Pipers remained fixed to the rudder pedals and therefore it was uncommon when applying rudder during the early part of a cross-wind take-off and after landing not to have the nose wheel vibrating sideways along the runway creating substantial nose gear assembly maintenance. This also meant that the crosswind component was inferior to the Cessna. The claimed climb performance was often not achieved and the CAA issued a write down in the climb performance. The trim system is indeed awfull. The final nail in the coffin was perhaps the spin characteristics which until they were understood tragically killed a few in the states and many instructors world wide refused to spin them. Later of course mandatory spinning was removed from the syllabus.