Originally Posted by
RTN11
It's a shame, since the PA38 is in theory the perfect training aircraft, and I as far as I know the only civilian aircraft truely designed for the purpose of basic training. I wonder how many are still flying in the UK?
A perfect example of great intentions poorly executed. When Piper started developing the Pa 38 they consulted widely with working instructors and flight schools and stated that they wanted to indeed build the perfect training aircraft.
Then the marketing department insisted on the stupid T -tail and the accountants kept on demanding the engineers make it cheaper and the result turned out to be poor flying qualities, dozens of AD's, such bad build quality that 6 months from new the aircraft looked like it had spent years being abused in some African air force, and ultimately unviable economics for the flying schools that believed the hype.
Every school that used Pa 38's in Canada has now disposed of their fleet and almost all went back to the C 152.