...But do they know what they are missing if they have only ever flown a spam can?
It was the handling of a spam can that I cited as appalling, not the spam can generally. They are indeed very practical aeroplanes, far more practical than a Chippy. Please don't bend my comments to fit your description of them as 'elitist'.
Maybe some pilots just don't care about nice handling; maybe as long as they are flying, they are happy. But I suspect I'm not alone in being seriously discontented with the poor handling of the likes of C150s and PA28s. If I had not discovered good handling, handling that I had dreamed of before learning to fly, I'd have walked away from flying in a matter of months of qualifying instead of enjoying 3 and a half decades of aviation fun. Who wants to fly the equivalent of a 1950s Vauxhall Victor when a Lotus 7 can be enjoyed instead? Of course, you can't take the family on holiday in the Lotus, but that's not the point.
As Richard Bach in his wonderful book 'A Gift of Wings' put it: 'Maybe, as we pushed the high winged cabin into the sky, we thought "this isn't how I thought it would be. But if it's flying, I guess it will have to do".
That was me in the school's C150s.
Flying with a friend in a rented PA28 (I had flown his more interesting aeroplane to another field for maintenance, and he was giving me a lift back to base) he offered me the controls; "no thanks" I replied "I'm quite happy just admiring the view". "I know what you mean", he replied. "I think there may be a spitoon somewhere in the back".
