Originally Posted by IO540
They have a crap elevator trim, crap seals around the "hatch" (so they fill up with water during rain) and tend to have leaky filler caps so you get loads of water in the tanks.
It depends on the specific aircraft, I've never had to drain more than few drops of water from Tomahawk's tanks. As far as elevator trim goes, I agree, it's not perfect - but training aircraft in my opinion shouldn't be: training aircraft should teach student pilot how to fly, not how to make it as simple as possible. One could simply install a two-axis autopilot and do all cross-country flights during PPL with AP engaged - I'm sure you would gain lots of experience this way... I know that real-world flying after PPL is different and you can use GPS as a primary means for navigation and lots of other stuff, but student pilot should how to fly and navigate with and without GPS. Transferring this to elevator trim, one should be able to fly straight and level in any aircraft, despite its elevator trim system isn't the best out there - besides, the trim system in PA38 isn't that horrible, it just requires a bit more frequent retrimming than C172, but that surely doesn't mean that one hand must be on the trim wheel during cruise
I have to agree with mad_jock, PA38 is a great aircraft that will ease the transition to any other aircraft, since the aircraft doesn't "fly by itself", comparing to for ex. C172. One of its downsides is speed, which reduces the workload of a student on cross-country flights - but truth be told, C152 isn't any better.
Originally Posted by foxmoth
Pa38 has better vision out of the cockpit, but poor for teaching trimming as it does not have the trim changes due to the T-tail (good when you have learn't but IMHO, bad on a trainer) both have AWFUL control response.
I always thought the trimming "problem" on Tomahawk is due to being a spring-type in contrast to C172's trim tab system. I am ready to be proven wrong of course
