Conversion from PA28 to Cessna 152
 

Hi guys,

I'm thinking of converting from PA28 warrior (over 80 hours) to Cessna 152 due to cost savings on hour building.

Has anyone done that, and is it much different to get used to?

Also how long is the differential training? I'm thinking of joining Omega aviation at Shoreham - Sussex, if anyone flies with them is there any good feedback and things to watch out for?

Thanks

30 minutes in the cct should do it. Any more than that and I would suspect they are taking the p*** out of your wallet. It's going to be lighter on the controls (before the Pitts guys chip in I obviously mean relatively speaking) but not that much so. The xwind limits are less, 12kts for the 152 although it will do more. It's a little twitchier to keep straight on the deck in a gusty xwind. All of the stuff really you would expect from a lighter a/c.

Other than that there's not much difference at all. I jump from one to the other and can't say I really notice.

I agree, one flight should be enough. Ground effect is more noticeable in low-wing aircraft. Actually I think it would be sufficient to sit in the airplane and go through the checklist several times and touching all controls so you know where to find them. To me, a transition to another plane is more about the panel layout than about the airplane (as long as we're talking about PA28, C152...). Anyhow, I appreciate to fly from time to time with an instructor/"rated" pilot.

An SEP is an SEP is an SEP...

Is the lack of a fuel pump the only difference?


They are both electrical flaps if I remember correctly.

Mechanical flaps on the 28. No fuel pump on 152, gravity fed. I should say no electric fuel pump.

Just thought of the main difference, it doesn't need a clogful of rudder in the climb. The engine is only like a couple of rubber bands so no or hardly any rudder required. That one still catches me out as I usually just climb with my right foot out automatically, then wonder why I'm flying sideways in the 152.

hi mattari

After you are through flying the C152 you will say: gee, maybe a few bucks more is not so bad for the warrior.

Let's look at the turn from base to final (is that what you call it over there?)

You drop the wing in the warrior and you see more and more of the airport runway. You drop the wing in the C152 and you see less and less.

Some of your current scanning patterns for traffic will be way off as you really can't see so well in the C152 as the wing is in the way for the climb.

no electrical fuel pump. fine. but if the plane cracks up, the gas is on top of you.

OH, and get use to that lawnmower style throttle, carb heat and mixture.

It will be less comfortable and you may bump your head on the wing or wing struts. Oh, and don't slip when you climb on the strut to look in the gas tanks.

The reason you are switching is money. The best thing you can say about the C152 is that its cheaper. Like saying I'll take girl "A" out because she is a cheaper date than girl "B".

hmmmm

and yes, some will disagree with me and good luck to you all.

Glen, the best aircraft is the one that you're flying at the time...:).

There's a reason a 152 is cheaper PA 28 is an aeroplane, no-one knows what a 152 is :E

Mattari

Make sure that you ask the instructor to show you the C150/152 stall in the approach configuration (20 flap/1,500 RPM), then come back and tell us if you think '30 mins in the circuit' is enough :eek:

MJ:ok:

I was waiting for the horror stories to start...:rolleyes:. Actually Matt the 152 is a known killer, best avoided if you are incapable of flying it within it's flight envelope. In fact avoid flying any a/c if you're incapable of flying it properly.

Most instructors will have never done a fully developed stall in that configuration why would they give it to a student converting?

Its recover on the stall warner in that configuration. Which is a piece of piss.

MJ, I've done the deadly stall configuration at low revs etc etc. It flicks. It flicks no more than 90 degrees on a bad day with a 't' in it. Recovery is instant and if you unintentionaly get to the point where it flicks then you have to question whether you should be flying in the first place.

MJ-It might be on SEP test but think any decent checkout would cover various types of full stall. I particularly cover full flap goaround from a trimmed glide approach, recover at stall warner. Which i think should be a test item.

M_J. Are you really telling me that, for training purposes, fully developed stalls are only to be carried out wings level, power off, clean? :ooh:

Thing. Not a horror story, :rolleyes: just a significant difference between the PA28 and the C150/152.

But surely you wouldn't do a go round with full flap? I'm not an instructor so am interested to hear why you would do that.

If you are in the final stages of the approach, with full flap, and someone taxys onto the runway in front of you, I don't know what else you can do. I'm hoping that you practised these during your training.

Well in a 152 you would select full power, 10 degrees and pitch for 54 kts. Why would you go around with full flap?

That sounds like a reasonable go around with full flap to me.

I think you've misunderstood BEB's suggestion. He means a simulated 'go around' with full flap, where the pilot forgets to retract the flap and tries to climb. (At a safe height of course, not during a real 'go around')

you lot are inventing stuff that's not required.

All your doing is making PPL's not want to go anywhere near schools or instructors.

And yes that's all that's required because prevention of getting into the stall attitude is better than and safer than the cure.

Shock horror I have gone flying solo in 3 types without a check out at all. Just read the POH and fired the engine up and then flew the length of Britain without stalling then picked up another aircraft and flew back again managing against all odds not to stall again.

Absoutley nothing will happen stall wise if the pilot has been trained to attitude fly and sets the normal climb attitude of 10 degrees. They won't climb mind but that should then give them a hint that they haven't put the flaps away.

there is a possiblity the flaps won't come up due to electrical failure

but this is rare of course

Don't know why (blame the usquebaugh) but that has left me with tears streaming down my face. Well done that man!

Edit: Well Matt, now you know that you will die as soon as you look at a 152 are you glad you asked the question? :ok:

I'm sure you are right MJ, but sadly many pilots have not been so well trained, and we have to cater for them as well.

This is rare, but I have seen it happen, and it was 'interesting' watching that C150 do a whole circuit with full flap.

MJ:ok:

MJ - I agree with what your saying re stall recovery in app config - and that was true for me when I was in Scotland.

Arrive in Aus - I found myself having to demonstrate recovery (actually in a 152 in app config) in a fully developed stall.

I was like - erm, this is new and quite good fun, but surly I've done this before - perhaps not!

We don't all that happens with instructors gold plating is that it drives punters away from flying and schools.

Personally I always did very relaxed checkouts and type differences training. the 30mins in the circuit was the norm.

Then when we got back I told them they were good to go and said we had an advanced handling courses, including short grass strips, mountain flying etc etc. And because they had enjoyed the checkout/differences training pretty much all of them came back for additional none required training.

If they booked the plane solo and were by themselves and spotted that we had a free instructor slot they would quite often ask for the instructor to come along as well and go and do some general handling including stalls out of any situations that both of us could think of.

But as I always taught reduce the AoA wings level, power up and clean up. We mostly got bored of that quite quickly and then started the PFL game.

Maybe the reason why I did 900hours a year when I was a full time instructor.

And to my knowledge none of mine have crashed so far touch wood.

I too used to be thrown a set of keys and told take that for a company I was involved in some 15 yrs back.

These were not simple aeroplanes like a PA28 or 152.

As MJ says spend some time with the POH and then again sit in the aircraft and working across finger touch everything so you know where and what everything is.

All SEPs are a variation on a theme and its more a case of finding out the differences which you can usually count on one hand.
I would question anyone expecting more than an hour to convert from a PA28 to a C150 as being more interested in your wallet

Pace

Not uniquely, I have a big book of kneeboard cards I've produced for my own use, which remind me of the key values and features of whatever I happen to be flying next. That said, each one probably took me half a day with the manuals to produce.

Which is an important point I think. There's far too much of a culture in the UK of "just get in and fly it". There is a reason why we have POHs and similar documents - it's to learn about the aeroplane before you get in it. The pilot who takes their time with the books to get to know the aeroplane, probably will do it inside an hour.

The pilot who doesn't will take more hours, and the instructor who doesn't ask pilots to spend some book time before flying, is probably just after the hours.

G

What else do you do after you've bounced twice and are heading rapidly towards the edge of the runway?

H'mm some take there hands off everything and scream like a girl but refuse to fly the approach at 65knts instead of the 80knts which their instructor told them they would die horribly if they went slower than.

Just reminded me of talking to the old girl next door.

She was sent down to leeds to pick up a Lancaster bomber for delivery up to Inverness all she had was hand written pilot notes on the train to read for her first flight with another lady who hadn't flown one before. Then she got driven up to Fern to pick up a spit but that was ok because she had flown one of them before. All with the grand total of 120 hours flying.

Ann Welch once told me that it was perfectly normal to turn up not knowing what you were going to fly, read how to get in and start whilst being driven to the aircraft, read how to take-off whilst warming up, and read how to land whilst in the cruise.

Amazing women (and a few men we shouldn't forget) the ATA, but not that many of them made it to the end of the war.

You can buy a set of those notes still, referred to as the "ATA Blue Book" from the Yorkshire Air Museum - I have a set, and they were £20 well spent just for the sheer fascination of it.

G

I'm not sure I'm understanding you. Personally I would select ful power, flaps 10 and climb out at 54. I'm pretty sure though you're going to come back and tell me that it's wrong to do that.

It's not 'gold plating'. The whole point of 'conversion training' is to demonstrate the significant differences between the new aircraft and what the pilot is used to. After the benign nature of the PA28 in the stall The rather abrupt wing drop that the 152 often produces will be quite an eye opener.

The problem with wartime is we only hear the experiences of the survivors.

Wombat. Don't encourage him/her. := I think we already established that Thing is deliberately misunderstanding the term 'full flap go around' just to keep the pxssxng contest going.


MJ:ok:

I'm not (although you're right to be suspicious...:)). No one yet has answered my question. Why on earth would you do a go round with full flap? I'm not that long out of PPL training and I can assure you that it was hammered home to get the flap up as well as applying full power. How much flap you take off being dependent of what you are flying. Can anyone just answer the question instead of beating around the bush?

Full flap approach, need to go around.

(1) Full power.

(2) Retract flaps in stages.

Therefore a go-around is typically initiated with full flaps, although it you've still got full flaps by 500ft, you may be missing something.

G

Also remember that I most aircraft full flap is mostly drag while Lower stages of flap lift! There is little harm in reducing flap from full to a lower number especially as you will reduce AOA to compensate for the less drag

Pace

Lots of guys with plenty of experience saying this, I have flown with pilots who are fine with this, I have also flown with others who should be looking at this sort of time for a checkout but need WAY more, and that can be on an aircraft they have flown before. Personally, I would expect anyone with low hours doing a checkout on joining a new school to take an hour to satisfy that they are competent, but a conversion from Piper to Cessna or visa versa should be possible without anything much extra.
The ATA girls did a great job, but the circumstances were a little more exceptional, and if they DID bend one I suspect it would have been more acceptable than a low hour PPL bending a club machine.

I cannot believe that "converting from a piper to a cessna" is even a topic for discussion.

bye the bye on my licence test flight the examiner required me to do a takeoff in the cessna with full flap.
I argued with him for half a runway but eventually he persuaded me.
all that happens is that you need to push a lot of nose down elevator to counter the centre of pressure movement.

you can actually takeoff with 40 degrees of flap.

I think its a good idea to give a student or transitioning pilot a go around without being able to retract flaps. A failure of some sort or a popped CB that won't reset will make that a scenario that is best to have some previous experience rather than being a first time for a low time pilot. Of course, a mechanical flap handle might preclude that exercise...

Regarding flaps and performance, we had a few 182's in one particular organization. One had flap gap seals, and the rest didn't. Doing a no flap approach with the flap gap seal equipped airplane and comparing it's much flatter glide ratio to the others was a productive exercise.

We are not talking about a PPL transitioning from a 150 to a retractable complex single we are talking about jumping from one simple single to another!
You would think we were talking about students
Any PPL should be perfectly capable of flying to 3000 feet and checking out the behaviour differences with full flap or part flap on their own.

So you really need an instructor to change from a PA28 to a C150? i think not. These are PPLs not students!

Really stinks of flying clubs out to make money

Pace

Full power first, check that the aircraft is pointing in a sane direction and is still flying second, then flaps (to 20 in my case) as the third action. So for a second or three I am going around at full power - there's no way I'm going to faff around with the flaps before I've got the power on.

Instructor didn't complain when I did exactly that on a currency check ride the other day.