172 or Warrior?
 

Hi all,

An age old debate the low-wing/high-wing one, I know. However, I'm looking to log some hours again now I can afford to do so, it has been a while and I have hardly flown at all since gaining my PPL just over a year ago.

I'm just looking for some opinion on which I might get more joy from, the 172 or the Warrior? All my PPL training was done on the 150/152, but I want a couple more seats now with a bit more range and speed. I was looking at Almat Flying Club at Coventry as a place to hire as it's not too far away. It looks to be a nice place to be and the aircraft are mostly modern variants, with the Warrior being a III, as well as a 172N and 172SP (too pricey though) being available.

(Long term plan is commercial training towards the right-hand seat, if the opportunity and/or funding ever becomes a reality!)

Thanks for any thoughts.

Jim

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Its about time somebody asked this question again- after all its been almost two weeks since it was last discussed :rolleyes::rolleyes:
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To summarise the previous therad - there's not a lot to choose between them. If you're hour building then go for the cheapest.

Brooklands

Not knowing anything about you, except what you put in your post, but if you have had an unused PPL in your drawer for a year and had only just obtained it, you might want to get back with an instructor and do a few circuits, PFLs, and brush up all your skills and get a good currency check before you think about renting and taking passengers with you.

Then go for the cheapest thing you can find if you want to build hours .. like join a C152 group and hog it midweek.

Enjoy

I do appreciate that this type of question is often asked. Searching for 'vs' would be a good place to start, but it's not allowed by the forum search as I found.
I'm glad you pointed me to that thread though, Brooklands. Many thanks :ok:
Consider this thread closed then :) lol.

EDIT: Dave, that is absolutely my intention, I am expecting to spend a few hours doing exactly what you have listed to get me back up to scratch before taking passengers. Indeed, I expect any flying school would deem it a necessity prior to self-fly-hire.

172 or warrior is interesting but i think if you want to operate short field then the 172 will do a better job but the warrior is a good machine and low wing.If its not about performance then its all down to what style you want to fly. I operate a 172 from grass for short field performance and a friend has a warrior. He is always concerned about short grass runway performance.

Get a diesel, you'll fly a lot more!

Get a mooney...

eugh.. for hour building this is not a good choice... a smart doctor once told me that for hour building you need a SLOW plane, not a FAST plane...

The best plane for getting in and out of (important for many adults especially older ones) is a two door one, and a Cessna is hard to beat. If you regularly carry a few average sized Brits, or old people, get a C182.

A PA28 is a b*gger to get in and out of, and I am fit and flexible. Also it has only one door, which is questionable for emergency escape reasons. The door has two locks and if either jams (which I had once) you aren't getting out in a hurry.

A Cessna has poor visibility in turns, but is much better for local sight-seeing.

Landing a Cessna needs less careful speed control because it has less ground effect. A PA28 will float all the way down the runway if you land 10kt too fast. This is not an issue if you know what you are doing.

I really reccomend almat. there prices are good, aircraft well maintained, and friendly staff. Also, they have recently moved to new premises, which are excellent, with a great viewing area of the airfield, which believe me is better than sitting around in a cold hangar when waiting for an instructor. As for aircraft, id go for the 172. They also have a PA28 cherokee.

Isn't the fuselage more rigid because it has only 1 door ? (like in cars, normal cars vs cabrio's ?)

It's indeed likely the single door was done for structural reasons, but since this plane was designed c. WW2 I doubt the original calculations (if any were done at all) are available.

There is nothing about the performance of any single door aircraft that suggests the single door has benefitted it significantly in any department - other than greater inconvenience and rapid damage to seats as people climb over them.

Unless you get a 177 ;) The strutless set-back wings afford excellent visibility in turns.

I think a C172 is easier for me to get into and out of (6ft, overweight and not as flexible as I used to be) but a lot of that is due to practice. Getting inexperienced passengers into a C172 is difficult. However, I think getting them into a Warrior (I've not had passengers in one yet) would be much easier - it seems to be designed to make the pilot access the most difficult.
I agree with your view on emergency escape - that was what made me a bit uncomfortable in a Warrior first time round. On the flip side, though, I'd much prefer to be in a water ditched Warrior than a C172.