Skycatcher discontinued...

[Genghis the Engineer]

Originally Posted by EDMJ

If you read his post carefully, he wrote that he considers them too boring for him to want to own one but that he'd be happy instructing on them. Fair opinion imho, what's your problem with that?

Yep, that's what I said.

I'd go so far as to say that both are superb training aeroplanes.

G

[The Fenland Flyer]

I learnt on a C-42, owned a share in an ex flying school C-42 that had done over 3000 hours of successful training and now teach on a C-42. They are an excellent all rounder and because of that never going to be that exciting or exotic.

They are perfectly strong enough for training. They may not be able to take the levels of abuse that a C150 can but it is easy enough to get students to treat them with a little bit care right from the beginning which I think is a good thing, whatever they go on to fly afterwards.

[cockney steve]

making just comments.

Gordon Bennett!....You're advocating posters should start making unjust comments?

tut tut, It.s already been refuted.....GtE's remarks were even-handed and objective.....Perhaps you're one of those eople who refuse to accept that the Ford Mondeo is not the pinnacle of automotive engineering and driver-satisfaction.?
IMHO, the way forward for Cessna would to have been building the Rotax under license.....creates American jobs (offsets the loss in lycosaurus sales by expanding the market) so, the punter gets a better donk, Cessna get a bigger margin , the objection to Chinese airframe sub-contracting is partly defused and everyone's a winner!

If my reading of history is correct, the original RR Merlin was a triumph of individual hand-fitting and building... The Packard (USA) version was far more consistent,precise and less labour-intensive I suspect it was vastly cheaper to produce as well.....the downside was that parts were incompatible with a RR version.
I'm sure it's not beyond the vast manufacturing resources of the USA to produce a licensed Rotax, or even, as they did, scratch-design a 21st. century engine for GA. Jabiru had that opportunity and blew it. That A maker of Microlight 2-strokes can reach respected Certified status in ~10 years, shows it can be done.
A properly thought-out "skycatcher" could still find a market....the fact that this one didn't, points to inept management.

[multycpl]

What killed the Skycatcher and will kill all the others is simply value for the money.....When announced we were all told that the would be around the $50' to 60' mark, the price of a nice luxury car. Not the $120' to 170' that they became.
A Trabant for the price of an Aston martin !!!


Cessna has now put a life limit on its older aircraft. hmmmmmm wonder why ?


What has killed the low cost aircraft are the lawyers and the stupid outrageous claims that the have filed over the years. I believe that more than half the cost of the new aircraft is liability insurance.

[Tinstaafl]

Instead of Cessna mucking around with the Skycatcher, I wish they'd restarted the C152 line. Improve it by widening the cabin a few inches and the seats to go back further. Add a bit more useful load eg use a climb prop to maintain cert. climb gradients. If it's 5 kts slower it doesn't matter.

I like a six pack instrument arrangement for training. Ditto manual trim to a trim tab - the feel for how much trim is needed to relieve the load is important, and the rate of trimming is controlled by the user, unlike electric trim.

[BPA]

+1 for Tinstaafi post.

If Cessna just used a shortened C172 airframe with 2 seats, it would solve the small cockpit issues of the C152.

[Desert185]

...or a C170B. Terrific little airplane.

[Dr Jekyll]

If Cessna just used a shortened C172 airframe with 2 seats, it would solve the small cockpit issues of the C152.

Would it be noticeably cheaper to build than a 172 though?

[Fostex]

I am 6'1" with long legs and have no problems when I occasionally fly a 152. It is cramped getting in and out but once you are 'installed' it is fine.

Completely agree with Tinstaafl, bring back the 152 with a Rotax up front and a six pack of steam instruments, it would be an excellent training aircraft. Agree with the comments on electric trim as well, one gets a certain feedback with the mechanical trim wheel that a push button cannot replicate.

[Genghis the Engineer]

The economics of building an aeroplane are that, with perhaps the exception of the engine, there's virtually no difference in the cost of building a C152 and a C172. They are about the same, shape, materials, and most importantly number of parts. Take the back seats, seatbelts, etc. out of the C172 and you'll probably break even.

The real economics are in running costs - and a huge part of that is fuel burn.

Let's say you buy a new aeroplane at say £120k (class and type irrelevant) and amortise that on a 10 year loan - with some interest, say £15k.pa.


Now fly it about 200 hours per year, with the major running cost being fuel.

C172: say 35 litres/hr at £2/litre of AVGAS, that's £14k.pa
C152: say 25 litres/hr at £2/litre of AVGAS, that's £10k.pa
C42: say 20 litres/hr at £1.40/litre of MOGAS, that's £5.6k.pa

And all of that saving really comes down to two things - the aeroplane weight, which with current technology be roughly proportional to the fuel burn, and the tax regime of the fuel it's burning.

Now put it up to school useage of 500hrs.pa, and the purchase cost of the aeroplane is relatively irrelevant - it's all massively dominated by fuel.


Comparing these three aeroplanes again - well the load on the structure is directly proportional to the weight. And so the (very rough numbers) 1 tonne C172 needs to have twice the amount of structure as the half tonne C42. So it needs half the amount of structure in the undercarriage, and half the amount of structure in the wing. The C152 is about halfway between.

So to anybody who is used to the appearance of the Cessnas, the C42 looks flimsy and under-engineered. In reality, it's designed to virtually identical structural requirements as the other two aeroplanes, and thus just about as easy, or difficult, to break. Because those requirements are phrased in terms of g-loadings.

But that low weight (and apparent flimsiness) is what keeps the running costs low.

In that light, the Skycatcher would have offered significant advantages over both the C172 and C152, including economic ones. But, not as great as the advantage of a C42 which is lighter again and runs on MOGAS. That the C42 is 2/3 the price to buy is another bonus, but when you analyse it, a relatively small one.

G

[Silvaire1]

Completely agree with Tinstaafl, bring back the 152 with a Rotax up front

The Rotax conversion already exists for the Cessna but needs a Hoffman constant speed propeller to make enough power for climb, and in combination with the engine itself would be an expensive package.

Typically small displacement engines making the same rated power as larger displacement engines have a narrower rpm range over which they make that power. In an automotive context that means you use the gearbox more, and in the context of a heavy aircraft with a fixed pitch propeller, it means that it won't climb because the engine rpm is loaded down below the power band at best climb speed. The solution (other than a bigger, torquier engine with a wider rpm power band) is a constant speed prop that I think many would consider unsuitable for a basic trainer.

Auto leaning fuel injection and self contained electronic ignition would improve the 152s Lycoming fuel economy in a training role, where manual leaning is not typically used. I think that would be a better overall solution.

So to anybody who is used to the appearance of the Cessnas, the C42 looks flimsy and under-engineered. In reality, it's designed to virtually identical structural requirements as the other two aeroplanes, and thus just about as easy, or difficult, to break. Because those requirements are phrased in terms of g-loadings.

The issue with light weight construction is that not all stresses on an aircraft are generated by g-loads. They can also get broken being pushed around the hangar or when people are climbing in and out. Training aircraft do not operate in a laboratory environment.

I learned this lesson running design studies and building experimental hardware for Army customers. They tend to take your carefully designed structure, matched perfectly to its theoretical loads, and run it into a tree! And they need it to work afterward.

[The Fenland Flyer]

Recently a PA28 share owner thinking of converting to microlights was at Chatteris. He had a sit in our school aircraft and liked it. When he got out he slammed the door shut hard, the door didn't shut so he brought it out further and slammed it down really hard. The door still didn't shut so he brought it out very far to give it an extremely hard slam.

Luckily I was able to stop him in time, the seat belt was caught in the door, that's the only reason it didn't shut. If that's the way Cessna and Piper pilots treat their aircraft then no wonder they have to be built like tanks, I honestly wouldn't treat my car like that and certainly not an aircraft of any type.

It is no problem to teach students to treat the aircraft with a bit of respect from the start, most microlight instructors own the aircraft they train on so will get the students to treat them with at least a small amount of care from the beginning.