Could not agree more - great aeroplane to take to an airshow!!
Tootle pip!!

PS: How about a thread on "the worst".

if we are talking engine power and reliability... the DHC1 chipmunk! :}

<ducks head to avoid incoming :)>


(ps just in case - I have always thought the Chippie was a sweet aeroplane to fly)

Before I headed off on a Uk - Oz lengthy jolly, behind a Gipsy Major Mk 10 -2, Middle Wallop was abuzz with Chippies with like engines. Talking with the engineers there, who also did a final check on mine, I was told there had not been a failure due to the engine itself. Those that did go down were by trainee pilots, carby icing, mag points , fuel probs etc peripheral stuff. A confidence builder !,?. Was for me anyway.
impulse mag points needed regapping in India, a bit of carby icing over the Timor Sea…but that old Gipsy did just keep on noisily humming along.

Nicest handling piston twin - Aerostar by far. Then Aero Commander. C414A nice & safe if un-exciting.
Never felt relaxed in Chieftain for some reason.
Worst - Seneca 1. What a total ****-box. Later models marginally better.
Single - haven’t flown Chippie etc., but of the usual GA stuff only the C210 had nice handling (haven’t flown a Bonanza but suspect that’d be the only one that would be as good or better).

I flew a number of well maintained chiefs on mostly passenger charter and some RPT. They were always very reliable and safe. I know more than a few that are in pretty bad shape doing freight work and outback. That might be the ones you would feel 'at risk' in.

I did the endorsement back in the ole days where the instructor pulled the mixture and you actually feathered and landed 1 inop. It handled well on one engine, even had an air return on one engine with 10 pob at a later date. Knowing exactly how much drag an open cowl flap or such creates is critical at max weight, that alone could be the difference between climb, level or not. They definitely did not like hot conditions, very easy for those oil and CHT temps to build up if you stayed low on a hot day, and opening the barn door cowls would slow you significantly.

Yes, my feelings were probably not related to the aircraft themselves. The ones I flew were in good condition and very well maintained (this was 20+ years ago).
I think it was because every takeoff was at max weight and we were flying out of very hot locations virtually every day, and I knew those engines were working to their absolute limit.
But apart from one return to the departure field 5 minutes after takeoff due to oil streaming out of the left engine they were pretty reliable aircraft, to be fair.

Every twin endorsement I did ended in the way you describe. The last one was more than fifteen years ago so maybe things are done differently now.

+1 here for the Aerostar.

C130A and C47 both queens of the sky

trashie, the jump from C47 to C130A for airforce must have been a jaw dropping revolution (says he, stating the bleeding obvious).

DHC-1, B55, B200, F27, B727 & B767. - none of them as good as a H269 ;)

For me it would be the BE36 on the one spectrum and the B777 on the other, reason being is they both fly on rails , solid -the Rolls Royce of airplanes.

I have not flown one but i nominate the hawker hurricane . Boom .

No votes for the 707?! :\ :}

I'd vote for the 707 as one of the nicest looking.

Particularly the little Qantas138b.

Especially at low speed! Superb handling. Know of one that during an endorsement, was stalled at 15,000’, tumbled nose over tail and didn’t recover until 7,000’. There’s a winner right there!

Best of some 50 light airplanes (regrettably not including the Chipmunk), T-34, especially with an Allison 250 turboprop engine (one of a kind) that doubled the horsepower; Worst, Cessna 150 converted to a tail dragger with a more powerful engine for glider towing - inadequate rudder for much of a crosswind (and in some cases, it wasn’t as heavy as the sailplane being towed, which occasionally raised the question of whether the tow plane pilot or the sailplane pilot was in charge of the proceedings); second worst, Mooney M20, because of the lack of control harmony, but if you weren’t a big person and only wanted to go places, adequate for the task.

Extra 300 for easiest, Pitts S2A for most fun.
PC12NG for best all-round working aeroplane!
Yes, I'm definitely biased....

Twins
Aerostar, provided your endorsement was done by somebody with plenty of experience on the type and had been outside the local circuit area.
PA-31/310, great aeroplane with wing lockers, crew door and cargo door.
PA-39

Singles
F33 Bonanza

Definition of “best handling” and for what
 

What is your defintion of “best handling”?

”best handling” for what purpose..?

Best handling jet for short strips that I have flown Boeing 727

“ Best handling” old school small corporate jet for hand flying Learjet 35

” Best handling” offstrip and short strips The Twin Otter

Agree that the Beechcraft 99 for unpressurized turboprops handled awesome

Airplane with the nicest handling? What a fine question — and its numerous tangential queries are things of dreams and fantasies.

A Texas swing band called ‘Asleep At The Wheel’ did a song by the name ‘Dance With Who Brung You.’ If the site allows, I’ll post it (just tried and it won't allow -- sorry, fun song and great group.)

The USAF bought me into the aviation dance; so I mostly only know military aircraft. Financial limits keep me away from civil aviation.

I’ve flown Cessna’s 152, 172, and their T-37 (tweet); the Northrop T-38; varieties of the Lockheed C-130; and Boeing’s 727 (100, 200), 738NG, 752, 763, and 772.

Is defining best handling determined by the aviator’s current realm of flight? Besides renting a C-152 to airdrop a family friend’s cremated remains into the bayou in front of his home for all his friends gathered, all I know of flying is work-related.

Nicest handling was the C-130. If you had time on it, you could nearly pull off anything with the utmost of consistency and joy. The four turboprops, highlift wing, instantaneous lift generated by the props across the wings, sturdy gear, and reverse prop thrust makes it legendary. It is a magnificent, great handling aircraft provided good maintenance and qualified crew members are in the mix. The Brit mil know it as well as, if not better than, any operator.

The little Cessna 152 rental behaved predictably and gracefully while her novice in-type pilot (me) was 50’ off the water circling tightly for all the deceased’s friends and family to witness the drop of flowers then second pass, ashes.

The tweet was sublime for wrapping around and getting lift from growing benign CBs. Terrific fun for learning aerobatic, close and trail formation. Honest handling with thrust attenuators to help with the slow 35-second engine spool up rate.

The -38 was a supersonic trainer with an electrically activated canopy (bad ass approaching the active) and requiring g-suits and O2. How about a roll rate of 720 degrees/min! I could go on and on about that afterburning, neutral wing-camber amazing jet. It was solid for formation and rockin' on low levels. Hitting the pattern was a thing of awe due to the use of AOA, ‘elephants stomping the wings’ during the final turn, and the highest landing speed of all. It was an honest and harsh jet.

The 727 had a wing that just about disassembled itself for landing … 56 different, moving surfaces if I recall. If you could see your landing spot over the nose, you could aggressively pull it off without a hitch! 400 kts down 7-mile beach going into Grand Cayman Island, throttles idle, configure on speed, roll into final, spool-up, flare, land … all safe fun, good pax carriage, and a good day flying! The 727 was perhaps the last of truly engaging flying, but that’s days gone by. Loved that jet too — flew all three seats, in the Caribbean no less.

The 757 was a wayward rocket. Fantastic power to weight ratio, that and its looks. We all HAD to like it but not really so much. Its handling was as slow as it was powerful.

The 767 was a Cadillac, a Cadillac Brougham if you ever got to drive one. I did since my neighbor often lent his to me. All I can say is that it was comfy, solid, and sweet!

The 777-200 was an epiphany. Cannot imagine the 787. The 77 had so much automation, system’s synoptics, redundancy, comfort, and ease. Everybody loved it. I did too but sorely and usually missed true stick and rudder. The PES — pitch enhancement system — made me loose the 3D concept of flying.

The Boeing 737-800 NG was the worst aircraft I’ve flown. It had excellent engines and a great wing but it handled curmudgeonly if you can say that about an airplane. I understand that some of the earlier models were nice, but how does a newly produced aircraft (at the time) arrive so old? Its gripes were widespread from A to Z. Keep stretching an airframe and rig everything around more seats? The brakes improved yet the tire footprint remained the same.

Today an A-10, Warthog, overflew my home. He did a quick right-left jink that I chalked up to “the other left.”

From all I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading here, I wish for some time flying the ‘Chippie.’ Still, if a Chipmunk and a Warthog were on the ramp free to use … up, up and A-10 — a ag-tractor/crop duster on steroids!

Great thread!!

Interesting thread, took me two-days to read through it.

Worst - A330-200/300/F, any of them, they were and still are ****e!

Best - The aircraft I am being paid to fly!

OMAA

Per minute?? You sure about that?:confused::E

OMAA, obviously your opinion is 100% valid, but I could not disagree with you more :)

A330 is majestic. It is not nimble, but that is not its role - it is like a limousine. I had to teach myself how to operate the side-stick and FBW combination, nobody could ever explain it. I also learned how to land the A330 gently, (without floating), and then for me it became a fantastic machine.

Airliner - B767. I used to prefer the 757, but the ailerons on the 767 were stupendous. I rolled her on odd occasions in the sim, and I reckon you could do a fantastic air show sequence in a light one, right up until they pulled your licence!

Aerobatic - Yak 50 - best fun you can have with your clothes on.

Warbird - P-51D, no doubt for me. Spitfire is lovely, (not the 2-seat if there is someone in the boot), but I have never felt more at home in an aircraft that I have never flown before, and it gets better with every flight. And any aircraft that you can taxi with your elbow on the canopy rail gets my vote!!!

Last year there was a FB group discussion on the roll rates of various aircraft. We made videos of multiple rolls and someone analysed them to record the data in a spreadsheet. Someone posted this video of a T-38 with multiple rolls at 11:05. Dudley Henriques commented "3/4 would be max for the lateral stick throw on a roll series. Those seeking a max roll rate should be advised that the rolls on the film by the TB solo are being performed at somewhat less than the .9 Mach required to achieve max roll rate in the 38. These rolls were well below the coupling limit. I would add that watching Kirk Brimmer (TB T38 Solo Pilot) doing his vertical rolls through the Diamond break he could have gotten pretty close to the coupling limit." Bret Davenport posted data from USAF & NTPS reports: just less than 200 deg/sec at 0.8 M for a T-38. The roll rate is down there with an old Pitts.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5d2ab067e0.jpg
From Spencer Suderman.

FW-190 could achieve over 160 deg/sec, almost double the spitfire and 109 capability. Although it's high stall speed meant it couldn't translate that into a tight turn radius.

I do remember someone referring to QF 737 (pre -800s) in flight as a maggot, "whitish and just seems to wallow around and not get anywhere fast" or the veritable "fart in a bathtub, shoots to altitude and then lingers...", seems to follow the line that 737 are not pleasurable to fly. I think the later comes from the trans continent races where the AN A320s had to get into particular position or be slowed to follow the 737 across the country with no RADAR/ADSB back then.

NACA Rept 868, Summary of Lateral Control Research, in 1947 shows the Spitfire at 105 deg/sec and, with the clipped wing, 150 deg/sec. It shows the FW-190 as a tad over 160 deg/sec.

I have been lucky enough to confirm that this year, flying a clipped wing MkXIV after a few years flying a conventional MkIX.
The roll rate is fantastic- but I’m reserving judgment on the Griffon vs the Merlin!

Care to tell why Aerostar, that's the sort of detail some of we nutters thrive upon. Jealous as hell of your carriage.

I think I was a bit too vague, but was referring to early FW 190 vs Earlier model spits, the A series in particular. By the time the spits were advancing to the IX and beyond the 190 had also changed significantly and by the D had lost a lot of its roll rate in exchanged for higher altitude performance. So early war the 190 was superior in roll, however by the end of the war was marginal if not inferior to to the later model spits, esp the clipped wings.

PS From my understanding the clipped wing spits, they gave away a lot of altitude performance, climb rate and speed to achieve that extra roll rate, there was also a wing extension for high altitude performance. The griffon models had a new wing redesigned to alleviated problems with ailerons at high speed, particularly reversal. The FW 190 eventually morphed into the TA 152, which had two distinct forms, one with almost glider wings for high altitude intercept, and the other with traditional FW 190 type wings for ground attack roles, by then it was not really a challenge for spitfires of the griffon range, they were just made to hunt armored targets on the ground or bombers at altitude.

So glad you caught my error, as I mistakenly made it. Correction: 720 degrees/second. I waited. Thanks PtP!

This IS a long thread. How long is it? It's as long as the types of airplanes are myriad and have differences to the operators, who flying them, love and hate them.:ok: Thanks D J P for the 1980 Thunderbirds video. Believe it or not, the Thunderbirds came into existence simply because USAF aviators were having difficulties during the transition from props to jets way back -- too many crashes and bad morale. Leadership decided a demonstration team was necessary to show the troops how it's done. A bit of trivia. So many things to enjoy on this site!!:D

After doing my 120 hours on Chipmunk (ab initio) I was moved to BALLIOL T2. I've no idea of its ceiling or its roll rate,can't even remember its stall speed, but I'll never forget its Gotcha ! Go around: Failure to get the stick well forward before whacking the throttle open will result in a flick role; you will know how lucky you are as it cart-wheels: when it's standing on its nose,is it going to fall back on to its belly, or on to the cockpit transparency ? The joke of the flight line chief regarding the Merlin 35 was,"Actually,it's just a Merlin 3 with a Merlin 5 carburettor." It still produced 1250 h.p. Wish there were still some about.