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Old 31st Dec 2010, 08:57
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geordiejet
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Newcastle
Age: 39
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I flew them at the large Florida based school who did have them for a short while. Great visibility but shocking initial climbout which wasn't the greatest when you were flying from an airport with large trees at the end of every runway and a 2000 ft density altitude. The C150 seemed to perform better on the initial climb out.

It was great for cross country flights due to the vis but I felt the FADEC took away a lot of the learning processes involved in getting to grips with carb heat and mixture.

The problems from what I've heard (purely anecdotal) are due to the landing gear strength. The stick control system is a lot more fiddlier than your traditional control column and it was sometimes difficult to get back to earth without a rather large bump.

If you check on NTSB.gov and look at the incidents at KOMN, three of the entries in the last 5 years involved said aircraft type, two of them list improper go around technique as a probable cause and one of them due to a hard landing. The aircraft was withdrawn soon after the third incident.

So in all, good as a tourer but personally it is my opinion that there are better training aircraft out there.
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