Don't care about the fate of the Skycatcher but rejoice that Mooney is restarting production. :D

Mooney Restarts Production in Kerrville | Flying Magazine

Cessna 152, economy & SID's
 

The real truth of the matter is that for European flight training there is only one game in town and that is the Cessna 152 it is economically the best in terms of robustness and and day to day maintenance and is not too bad on fuel economy.

The 152 would of course be far better if the Rotax was fitted or even a FADEC controlled Lycoming.

The Idea that there is an alternative is almost laughable, all the VLA's that are robust enough for the job give much the same performance as the 152 and those that have very good performance are likely to fall apart very quickly, on one of these types we are seeing the same sort of airframe problems on 300 hour aircraft that we are seeing on 13,000 hour C152,s.

There is a reason that Cessna have come up with the SID's checks.......... It is because they know the aircraft will continue to be the market leader for some time as long as the airframe is properly maintained.

Oh ! I wish the guys restarting Mooney the very best..... A great aircraft.

So you'd deny those of us who can no longer maintain a medical for a PPL the privilege of flying, would you ? Well done, I hope you go to your grave still holding a Class II

The likes of the Tecnam, originally, (and still possible,) registered as Microlights in New Zealand - MAUW 1200 lbs. - certainly saved the recreational flying scene around 14 years ago, and definitely ensured that I have kept flying since that time. The medical standard is that of the "aged" driver, i.e. from the age of 70 I have to have a medical every 5 years to maintain my drivers' licence, so if the doctor allows me to drive home alone, then I can fly a Tecnam, with the requirement to undergo the same medical every 2 years to continue flying.

NZ has recently introduced the LSA class, and pushed the weight of these same aeroplanes, i.e. Tecnam, Alpi, Sportcruiser etc. up to 1300 lbs, and they can be flown as regular G.A. aircraft if registered as such, but they need PPL protocols with regard to training and maintenance, unlike "microlights" which can be owner mainained, and flown on a "Microlight certificate"

The CAA have also introduced a RPL ( Recreational PL) for which the training and licensing standard is that of the PPL, but the medical standard is one notch higher than the microlight, viz. Commercial Driver with passenger rating, effectively a bus driver standard. This licence also allows me to fly the G.A. aircraft up to 4400 lbs, single engine, but restricted to microlight rules, i.e. only one pax. no IFR or night flying, not over urban areas etc. but it allows Grandad to continue to fly the family Cessna off the farm strip.

Very enlightened, and long may it be so.

ExSp33db1rd - The FAA 3rd Class medical is what's currently required for private flying of normally certified aircraft in the US. LSA aircraft require no medical exam or declaration at all. You need a US (state) drivers license but that requires no medical exam at any age. If and when the FAA get rid of the 3rd class medical you will likewise need no medical at all to fly many or most light certified types privately, with no added limitations. That will reduce the motivation for some people to buy an LSA aircraft.

People often conjecture that the main political purpose of FAA Sport Pilot/LSA regulations was to provide a safety database in support of eliminating the FAA medical requirement for private operation of existing single engined certified aircraft under a certain weight, power and number of seats. And its true that the proposal is making some headway.

Genghis,

Confirmation bias?

Silvaire - the conditions for the dropped 3rd class medical are for now:

No IFR
Max 14000ft
up to 6000lbs aircraft.

So anything else will still require a 3rd class. Now, that would probably go away over time, but it's how it's worded now to get through congress.

LSA (600kg) was always going to be tricky for a robust training aircraft. VLA (750kg) makes far greater sense. Unfortunately you're then competing directly against a C152 (758kg) and you can get five 152s for the price of one VLA.

Yep, and consistent with what I wrote above most private light aircraft in the certified FAA fleet are operated now within those constraints - because they aren't physically capable of exceeding them, or equipped to fly in IMC. Only a few of them are Aerostars that require astronaut pilots ;) :)

The situation seems to me analogous to that in the 70s when the archaic FAA requirements for domestic aircraft and pilot radio licenses were dropped. Another step in adapting aviation regulation to an evolving and more modern world. Hope it passes into law.

My apologies, I didn't fully realise the situation ( When In Doubt Read The Instructions ! )

However, I'm not sure that I agree to a totally medical free environment, if that is what is envisaged, pilots generally benefit from an occasional monitoring that the general public don't get, my own medical problem, which now precludes my holding an ATPL, ( no age limit in NZ, only an enhanced medical standard ) was only discovered because I presented myself for an aircrew medical, otherwise I might have had no inkling of any problem until I woke up dead one morning ! as is a possibilty for some of the car drivers hurtling towards me at a closing speed approaching 150 mph - and they may hit me just before they die.

Originally our CAA ( aka FAA ) agreed to keep out of the medical arena when agreeing to our sub - G.A. prototcols, but couldn't help themselves when it came to the point, however, recently they have conceded and withdrawn, leaving the medical standards for our Microlight and RPL licences in the hands of the Land Transport Agency, i.e. bus driver licences as initially envisaged.

Our Microlight rules have been extended to the new RPL licence, so although I can fly the Heavy Iron Cessnas I'm restricted to only 1 passenger, not over towns or public events in the open, no IFR, aerobatics or night flying, but Hey ! I can still fly, and most of NZ is Class G deserted territory with no ATC. Magic !

I've never owned a C42 and have no desire to - it's quite a boring aeroplane, as is a C152, which I don't want to own either. I'd be very happy to instruct on either and have flown both.

But I defy anybody to find hard evidence to prove that the C42 can't take continuous training use, as opposed to "opinion". What evidence I've seen shows that properly maintained, both will take years of hard use.

G

Just look at the nose strut. It collapses if you say boo! to it.

Is that your inexpert opinion, the result of going through detailed stress analysis, or have you actually seen evidence of lots of failed nose struts in service?

G

One can search the ASN database ( Aviation Safety Network > ) for C42 incidents. While there are instances of the mains and nose wheel being damaged on landing, these are down to poor handling more than anything else and there is nothing to suggest the type is more susceptible to such failures than another.

Genghis
 

I said that the VLA 's that ARE robust don't offer any performance advantage over a C152 and the VLA's that give very good performance ARE NOT robust enough to handle the training market.

I was talking about the C42 - a C152 clone using microlight technology to achieve similar performance at half the running cost. But you are still wrong as evidenced by several schools happily training on the CT for over a decade.

Of course definitions matter here as well. A Piper Cub would qualify as a VLA, and some might regard fuel burn and running cost as performance figures.

G

A local flying school here has an EV97 in the microlight version with more that 5,000 hours on it, and it still looks as if it were new. On a day with nice weather, it's essentially in the air from dawn to dusk, mainly for training.

My local flying school had a Remos G3/600 and then an FK9 (both microlights). In the Remos it was things like door latches (cf. Cessna door latches...?) and various knobs failing, not the undercarriage or anything major. The FK9 landed nose wheel first one day and broke it. However, it is designed such that it folds back against the lower fuselage in such a case, without damaging the firewall or the engine mount. The propeller was smashed too, but it was a carbon fibre propeller and there is a friction clutch between that and the engine, so no schock-loading. The aircraft was flying again within a week. They now have a Tecnam P92, which to me seems just as solid as a C152, and withstands the rigours of training very well.

I hear that the manufacturer of the C42 has a very good reputation for customer service, spare parts being delivered very, very quickly (in Germany allegedly within 24-48 hours). Now if only they would put the throttle in the proper place....

In Europe, I think it is mainly the costs which are holding back the change to VLA or EASA RTC aircraft, as you can still get at least two C152 for the price of a new aircraft of this type.

As far as the Skycatcher is concerned, another thing which hasn't been mentioned is that it didn't arrive until the US LSA market was firmly in the hands - and partially saturated - by e.g. Flight Design and Remos. Although Cessna intensively tried to make everyone believe that the invented the LSA. I wonder what it would have been like if they had been quicker off the mark?

4,000 training hours on our C42s and one nose leg collapse - student solo just before he got his licence after 140 hours of training.

Yep, I am more tempted to blame the student than the aircraft.

Prop undamaged, nose gear back on withing a week - parts from Germany.

Bumpy grass runway, but soft ground saves props!

GtE I find it very sad and somewhat disingenuous of you as a flying instructor to post on an open forum that you find both the C42 and the C152 boring.

There are 173 C42 and 251 C152s on the UK register and I don't think that any of their owners or others who do enjoy flying them gives a to$$ about your finding them boring.

People who are thinking of learning to fly really want their instructors to show a level of maturity and encouragement and have some passion about aviation.

These days it is hard enough to get new students in through the front door but if they are confronted by self opinionated part time instructors then they might well walk out again.

You do yourself no good making just comments.

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?

But ridiculously cramped and somewhat restricted on payload. The problem with a 152 or an LSA for training is that you either need small students or small instructors.