Cessna 162 SkyCatcher

[er340790]

Has anyone actually ordered one of these, or know a Flying Club that has done so?

Been looking for a replacement for my 1976 (10+gal/hr) Cherokee. I know we're in the LSA category here, but biggest concern with the Cessna centres on the useable weight..... all 490 lbs of it. Cessna reckon they will sell 70% to Flight Training Establishments / Flying Clubs. (With a salad-dodging instructor and student and a couple of flight bags that should leave enough fuel for 2 or 3 circuits!)

Would be interested to hear any first-hand info from real-world purchasers.

[Duchess_Driver]

Never take my flight bag with me......another circuit anybody?

Seriously though - that's not much different to the available weight in some 152's / 150's that are already in use.

My usual ride MTOW 1670, empty 1206 giving a usable 464lbs.

Admit it's down on a cherrytree, but then you're giving up an extra seat as well.

[Brooklands]

Would be interested to hear any first-hand info from real-world purchasers.

I'm afraid you're going to have rather a long wait for real world purchasers, as I don't think that Cessna have actually started manufacturing them yet.

I believe that Wycombe Air Centre (who are a Cessna agent in the UK) have ten on order, although whether that's for private owners or school use I don't know.

Brooklands

[gasax]

Of all the LSAs available (and that must be over 80), the Cessna has the reputation and looks to be almost the most expensive.

If you're looking for an LSA it is probably one of the last to join the party and has nothing much going for it apart from the nameplate and a network of agents who don't seem to know much about customer service. Whilst many of the others don't have much of dealer network the majority can be serviced by most A&Ps with Rotax experience.

Start here and enjoy Listing of Special Light-Sport Aircraft (http://www.sportpilot.org/learn/slsa/)

[constantflya]

I believe the Skycatcher has now been released. Wycombe Air Centre is a Cessna Dealership and Agent in the UK. I believe they have between 10-15 on order from Cessna. When they will arrive I am not sure or when you can get them I am also unsure of. But they look really nice inside and out. Smart aircraft.

[flybymike]

I hope they have stopped spinning and crashing....

[znww5]

The Cessna web site only says they "expect deliveries before the year's end". Another press release dated September says that the first unit using production tooling was test flown in China.

[wsmempson]

QUOTE "I hope they have stopped spinning and crashing...."

I wonder how long it will take to shake off the unofficial name of "Cessna Groundcatcher" as a result of it's dramatic test history...? Rather like the Riley Pathfinder which, as a result of it's interesting handling, became known as the Riley Ditchfinder.:E

[IO540]

I am sure that Cessna will deliver a product which will do what it says on the label. They are normally pretty conservative. They are also not going bust anytime soon.

Whether it will be any good compared to the competition, I have no idea.

[Justiciar]

It is very difficult to see who this is going to appeal to, at least in Europe. An avgas burner with low useful load?? Perhaps some flying schools, but they would seem to be running against the number of LSA certified machines coming from eastern Europe running Rotax 912s and burning a few litres of mogas an hour! If you are a private buyer why would you go for certified as opposed to permit?

[IO540]

Can you ICAO-PPL train in an LSA?

Also, despite the steep decline in the IMCR numbers in recent years, IMHO schools will not want to lose the capability to fly IFR. Instrument training is a pretty lucrative business if you can get some. Even though most instrument training is done in actual VFR, the moment an instructor pops into a cloud and the student writes about it on some pilot forum, the school is going to be worried.

I see the LSA route will appeal to most owners, but not all because, currently, officially, getting out of the UK is not exactly simple, and some of the people spending this kind of money will want some instrument capability.

Especially if the IMCR survives and/or EASA introduces something like it elsewhere.

[boair1]

Why couldnt they make it equipped for IMC, it wouldnt cost them that much

[smarthawke]

The Groundcatcher is certainly an interesting project.

The original prototype had a Rotax 912 in the nose but then the Americans said they would prefer something proudly built in the USofA hence a lightened weight non-modern O-200 was put in and 25-50lbs of useful load was instantly thrown in the woods.

Arguably it looked prettier after it met the desert nose on. I note that the spin-fix tail (dorsal fin etc) doesn't appear to be on the first 'production' kit flown in China - wonder what the final look will be at the back end. How many sales did Cessna lose out on when they announced the manufacturing was to be done 'off-shore'?

Ab-initios climbing into it (and that's a laugh in itself trying to do that) won't know any better but the stick moves very unnaturally from side to side - bit like a car heater slider control.

It will sell because it's a Cessna. Will it be the best two seater/LSA on the market? Nope...

[IO540]

The original prototype had a Rotax 912 in the nose but then the Americans said they would prefer something proudly built in the USofA hence a lightened weight non-modern O-200 was put in and 25-50lbs of useful load was instantly thrown in the woods.

To be fair, Rotax did not achieve an exactly spotless reliability record in the USA, and you just can't do that over there and get away with it. I am talking of perception - the actual reliability data for the present product may well differ. Or, may not differ if used in the training market...

Will this plane be better than a clapped out 1970 C150 or C152? Can it be worse?

I am not in the market myself, obviously, but how would a school see it?

[ExSp33db1rd]

Look at the ALPI Aviation Pioneer -300, various variants.

www.alpiaviation.com (http://www.alpiaviation.com)

I have one of the early 'cooking standard' models, low wing, like the Cherokee, 2 'normal' adults, overnight gear ( male ! ) 4 hrs fuel, retractable gear, variable prop. ( not CSU ) 130 kts.

The Tecnam range are good too, also the Czech SportCruiser, but the ALPI looks and flies like a ' real' aeroplane.

The SportCruiser might now be my choice, but it is built for the U.S. LSA market of 600 Kg AUW, so is a bit restricted in our NZ 544 Kg environment.

Trouble with the Microlight / Rotax market in NZ is that it is largely populated by the engineering 'enthusiast' market, whereas there are plenty of opportunities to get Cessna, Piper, Lycoming work done, so the Skycatcher might have an edge if you just want to fly the beast and not pull it apart yourself.

[A and C]

Some of us look after our C152's and prevent them from becoming "clapped out" with regular maintenance.

The problem is the average prospecteve pilot thinks that aviation is tightly regulated and that all aircraft are maintaned to a satisfactory standard.
This results in the market being totaly price driven in a downwards direction.

The C162 won't do very well because the market just wants to fly the cheapest aircraft it can get it's hands on regardless of ant other issues.

[Mickey Kaye]

I don't have a problem with a market that is driven by price and thats the area that concerns me with the skycather. Ok you can save a few quid over the 150 cause its TBO is 2000 hours and it runs on MOGAS rather than AVGAS but I'm not convienced that offsets the 60 plus grand you have paid to buy the aircraft.

I really do hope that it is a success however as the present training fleet is too expensive to run. I'm also not convienced by most of the new "eastern european" stuff its too flimsy and so called designers don't seem to have any idea how to desin a training aircraft eg no toe brakes, wing storage panels WTF. At least on that front Cessna does at least have it right.

[smarthawke]

One thing Cessna didn't suss is that it's nice if you can see out - something that is certainly no better in the 162 than a 150/152.

At Oshkosh it was parked in front of a refurbished C150 and that fair towered over the 162...

[IO540]

Cessna may be banking on the replacement of the ageing C150/152 fleet, in the USA.

The purchase cost is less an issue than might appear, because a 30 year old plane has a massive operating cost, through airframe parts constantly going. One C150 I know about was costing the group £8000 on every Annual - that is 3 times what I pay on the TB20. With a new plane, you get some 10-15 years of very low "unscheuled maintenance" costs. This also translates to big benefits to a business operator - look how badly the Thielert downtime debacle has hit schools operating Diamonds. I know from my PPL training that planes going "tech" (the expression used when there is a bunch of people queuing up for a pleasure flight) are a major lesson cancellation factor.

The only way to operate the old metal profitably is to be a CAA LAME yourself, do your own maintenance, and regard the business profit as your salary for doing that job. Preferably, have more than one plane so you can buy stuff like gaskets in bulk, possibly from the USA.

The other way is to let it fall apart gradually, doing dodgy maintenance for as long as possible.

[BigEndBob]

Will Cessna start to push up the price of spares further for 152?

I'm sort of in the market for a 152, but have been told the running costs are high, so think i will continue to lease an aircraft because i have no control over what maintenance want to charge.

I've seen so many aircraft belonging to private owners come back from maintenance with hugh bills, half expecting the aircraft to come back with new paint jobs and completly new sets of bolts, tyres, wheels, etc only to find simple things like undercarriages not lubricated and door catches smeared in grease to give the impression some work as been done.

[Justiciar]

find simple things like undercarriages not lubricated and door catches smeared in grease to give the impression some work as been done.

Certified aircraft maintenance is a captive market with little real competition as the maintenance regime militates against swapping maintenance organisations and the private owner has little leverage to negotiate prices. So they can charge what they like and few owners are sufficiently knowledgeable to police the work they do (or often don't do).

The ethos in the Permit world is quite different. More owners do some maintenance and the relationship with the LAA engineer is far more personal and works on a huge degree of trust. Because the engineer is not supporting huge overheads the cost is so much less and of course parts without the paper trail cost a lot less.

The LSA process is something of a half way house with cheaper maintenance but still sufficiently regulated that it will permit the use of certified LSA for training (or so I understand, as the regulations are not yet in force).

This seems the way forward for much flight training. I think the risk is that as organisations invest in new fleets the capacity to do IMCR training will disappear. With the current uncertainties over the continued existance of the IMCR, who would base their purchasing decisions on the need or the wish to do IMC training? The problem for the FTOs is that they will have to either go the conventional certified aircraft route if they think they might want to train for the IMCR or make a business decision to abandon that area with all its uncertainties in favour of much cheaper operating costs for mainstream flight training using LSAs. I suspect that training organisations operating certified aircraft will become few and be those offering specialist training such as aeros or formation flying.

[EDMJ]

There is no "LSA" category in Europe yet. As far as I understand it, a number of light aircraft (e.g. variants of the Flight Design CT LS and Remos GX) have gained EASA Permits to Fly as an interim measure but these may not be used for commercial flight training. Almost all of the flashy, composite, Rotax powered designs gracing the pages of various periodicals at the moment are flying in Europe as microlights, which is a completely different kettle of fish.

A Cessna representative told me at the "Aero" trade fair in Friedrichshafen in Germany in April that the Skycatcher will be certified in Europe in the VLA category, and the process has already been started.

The question remains whether European flying schools are willing to pay in excess of €100k for a trainer which cannot use MOGAS when there are several established European designs around in the same price category which can (Katana, Aero VL-3, various Tecnam designs).

But then again I felt confident in another thread that Cessna would never, ever certify the Skycatcher in Europe... :\

[2hotwot]

An old flying instructor once told me that the reason he liked Cessnas and Pipers on a club fleet was that students and ppls allways seemed to manage to kick something in the aeroplane getting in and something else getting out. They also pushed and pulled in the wrong places and generally pulled things off wherever they could. In this old instructors view the modern breed of aeroplanes simply did not stand up to this constant abuse without breaking and becoming unserviceable, he believed that only the Cessna/Piper era aeroplanes stood up long enough for him to make a profit.
Now someone tell me the modern aircraft that can cope with the proclivities of flying club pilots!
Oh and is the 162 robust enough?

[EchoMike]

I find it difficult to comprehend that an annual inspection on a C150 would cost GBP 8000 unless someone is getting really, really screwed, big time.

We've had a fleet of as many as 15 of these things (and a few 152s), some of which have been around since 1991, and have been enthusiastically and regularly abused by legions of student pilots - and we have not seen anything like "major airfarme parts wearing out". Someone is getting hosed . . .

I'm also a technical advisor to the Cessna 150/152 club (since 1982), and if this was an ongoing problem, I would have heard of it by now from more than a few of our several thousand members worldwide.

The Cessna 150/152 is one of the most rugged, durable and trouble free aircraft you can buy. No, it isn't fast, no it isn't sexy, but it will NOT eat you out of house and home - parts are widely available, and if you shop around at all, quite reasonable, even by aircraft standards.

The airframe parts that "wear out" are as follows - the seat pans crack in high hour trainers from all the people jumping in and out of them. These can be patched. The flap tracks sometimes wear, this is a fiddly repair, but not hugely expensive. Sometimes you will find corrosion on the inside of the flap well, get out the drill and rivet gun and a bucking bar. Firewalls and engine mounts take a beating in rough landings, but that is accident damage, not "wearing out". Finally, every once in a while you might see corrosion on the main spar cap. Again, not a trivial job, but nowhere near $12,000 (much closer to $2,000, and that's at retail).

For $12,000, I'd expect most of a restoration, this much for an annual inspection is downright criminal. For $12,000 I could make a garden-variety Cessna 150 or 152 fly like a new airplane. For $24,000, you'd also get a zero time engine, new windows, new paint, upholstery, and other stuff. For $36,000, you'd have a Garmin 430 in it as well.

I'd be VERY interested in seeing the actual repair order which resulted in this bill, not once, but what, two years running? Or was it three? I think this tale has grown in the telling.

Best Regards,
Echo Mike

[A and C]

As the owner of two C152's I agree with most of the technical content of what you say, however your opinion on costs is not good for the eastern side of the Atlantic.

With most parts prices will go up by 75-100% by the time they get to the maintenance company due to shipping, import, and the issue of a 8130 (no yellow taggs in EASA land).

The new EASA regulation requires a lot more paperwork and most company's have had to employ another paper-pusher to keep up with this, not to forget the payment to EASA to keep the approval to do the work. This costs about £600 per year for each aircraft just to do the paperwork.

The costs of local taxes on business and push the labour rate to £40/hour (about $60) and add 15% VAT to this and you get the idea of costs of running aircraft in Europe.

[EchoMike]

A and C, pls PM me re Cessna parts. Thx!