A & C, I was approached by an instructor today and she told me that in the last three months there have been nine (!) runway excursions due to this issue. eight ended with no drama, and it was only our -160 which ended up against the PAPI. And this was not just within our club, but across the Netherlands, and across a variety of maintenance organizations. New club policy is, apparently (I have not seen it in writing), to only allow one adult or two children in the back. Not two adults, even if that falls within the W&B envelope.
Like I said, I still consider it something that you need to know about, and apparently not enough pilots do. With the proper technique (either keeping the nose off the ground and using aerodynamic steering, or making sure there is sufficient weight on the nose wheel) it is a complete non-issue. But if you use a sloppy technique, maybe bred from flying PA28s or C172s, it may bite you so you need to be aware of this.
But apart from this I agree that it's a lovely aircraft to fly. I got 40 minutes in the Ecoflyer (with the 2.0 Thielert/Centurion) today again and it was a reminder of what this aircraft is really capable of. Quiet, comfortable, excellent view, really docile handling even in turbulence. Very slippery at cruise speeds, but with full flaps and speeds below 80 or so knots, very draggy, so very useful when you've got to fly short circuits due to other traffic.
Last edited by BackPacker; 8th Sep 2012 at 21:43.