Islander FUN
As an aside; when I speak to drivers that have been elevated to the higher flight levels (and very high with Concorde) they all look back to their BN2 days with a smile.
Not just because they were always 'solo'. but also because the nature of the operations gave them a great start in making decisions.
The Islander was in the same category as the C180/185 and the later Caravan in that it was fun to operate because of the nature of the tasks required.
The low speed handling was a great help when getting into limited strips in adverse conditions but I always thought the single engine performance was rather optimistic due to the load it was expected to carry. In practice (and especially in turbulent conditions) knocking a few hundred pounds off its Max permitted wt would ensure a positive single eng ROC, and therefore a reasonable safety margin. STOL aircraft are not always 'high flyers' but you never forget the experience of making it work for you. When operating off contaminated surfaces the pilot has to use judgement rather than (reading the numbers) and this is where the BN2 shows its mettle (its honest)
Last edited by POBJOY; 5th Nov 2017 at 19:02.