Sport Pilot Talk

ming1000 · Joined: 26 Jun 2010 Posts: 22

In both CT and Tecnam flights. I used an IPhone app to record recourses of flight, they are pretty accurate. I can view them on google earth.

I took a discovery flight with the school having a CTLS on Aug 7. The weather was marginal that day, thick clouds lingering around airport. A friend accompanied me, he flew a Cessna discovery. We waited about a half hour for Cessna getting ready.

While waiting, we talked to my supposed instructor, he is a fresh college graduate with 1700 hours and holds a commercial license; yet, he claimed that he is not a fan of sport pilot, and that his last student took about 25 hours to solo and 42 hours to checkride; and this is about average for beginners to get a sport ticket. He tried hard to talk me up to private. I also learnt that the plane is a lease from the owner; he nurses this plane back forth to the owner for quite some and accumulated 500 hours on it.

Finally, the Cessna is back; we rushed out to tarmac, the CT quietly sitting there, a sleek little egg with wings. My wife said it's cute. We didn't do a walk around check; avionics is amazing in this plane, three big screens: one for flight instrument, one for engine and the middle one for GPS.

It took some efforts that he figured out the wheel stopper was not pulled out. We eventually taxied out; he made a quick check on engine status; hardly noticed take off run, we were in the air. Because of the weather condition, we made a right turn after take off. At about 2300 ft, he made a steep turn, at least 55 degree bank; then, he instructed me to try a turn which is a little surprise to me. I tried anyway, and soon I realized my flight simulator habit kicked in at this point: all my attention is attracted to try to make the ball in the center of coordinator; by the way, I stink at simulation too. He climbed to 3500 ft, I experienced my first stall or near stall that is per my request, speed is a little under 50 kts. We also played finding Cessna my friend was in; he showed the amazing avionics abilities, we can actually see planes around us on the central console. We slowly descended to about 200 ft, he set the flap to 0, we glided into runway threshold and landed, my first flight was over. Five minutes after landing, the rain was down pouring.

Tecnam Discovery

The first thing I learnt is that driving is a mood killer. The school with Tecnam is about 6 hours drive, including 2 hours drive cross small towns

The P-92 is a two thirdths version of a 172; the school has two old 92s; only equipped with basic instruments: one with artificial horizon the other with heading indicator; so it looks like instrument training would not be required.

I waited about a half hour while instructor talked to another student. Eventually, my turn started; we talked about training plan, cost; their plan is similar to Gleim, a little bit variations. He told me that normally it takes 10 hours to solo in this plane. He has taught ultra-light and light sports total about 30 years; definitely a high timer; however, he never holds a commercial license nor instrument rating, other instructors in the school do that. This raised the question if the training with him could count for private license if I want to; his answer is, of course, yes. He also answered my questions about S turns, stall, slip, etc, I can get very clear answer from him, I like this guy.

At noon, we walked to the plane. It’s all metal, feels very sturdy. We did a walk around check, item by item, he even showed me engine oil check. I got into the cockpit, the front view is better than I experienced in CT, probably because the seat is higher. He let me pull out pre-flight check list, and instructed me to do item by item again; I started the engine, the process I’ve already learnt from some AOPA online course. He taxied to take off, the airport was quite, I only saw some trike in the morning. We climbed to about 1500 feet, he let me take over the controls; it’s mid-day, current was a little rough, I could concentrate on outside of the plane without all fancy screens, the owner I talked to was right : he thought fancy stuffs are distractions to beginner. The feel of P92 is more sluggish than CT, without continues force on controls, it won’t response; does this mean it is a good trainer?

We made two landings, one regular, one short run. He let me taxied the plane back, it was, certainly, a lousy one, I didn’t feel full control of the plane, it always looked like turning to one way or another, just not what I wanted.

Another thing bothers my is the maintenance, it is said that they do their own work, they have on staff certified maintenance crew; but, the trim button of this plane not work at most of the flight, it kicked back after the first landing.

Over all, after three hundred dollars out of pocket, I’m still open for instructors. I just contacted another school today, and will take a discovery next week; the plane is Remos, beech or SportStar; the instructors are all retired atp pilots.

Bill · Joined: 07 Jul 2008 Posts: 96 Location: Delaware Beaches

Good way to get started - try the planes "on for size" and evaluate the instructors to see whether there is a good match or not.

I know one instructor I would NOT use - the one where you stated. "We didn't do a walk around check." You ALWAYS do a pre-flight. Just imagine if there had been something else overlooked other than a "wheel stopper (?)."

Z06 C5 · Joined: 27 Feb 2010 Posts: 28 Location: Garland, TX

You'll like the Remos. The controls are very responsive. They use aluminum rods instead of cables for the controls, almost too responsive at first. But you get use to it.

Have fun.