Sport Pilot Talk

For those of you in the North Carolina (Raleigh) area, Flightgest at RDU just added a Dynamic LSA WT-9 to their fleet. I'm being blessed with the opportunity to promote the proposed program and to instruct once I obtain the CFI-Sport. We are looking to start a sport and private pilot ground school in the month of September. A picture of the WT-9 has been attached.

I've been putting some hours on this plane, and I can say that its a great flying little plane, and an excellent cross country vessel - cruise is right at 120 knots TAS at around 4500/5500, however you do have to be gentle getting there as the temps tend to climb quickly on you.

Once I have a chance to do a longer cross country I'll post a longer PIREP, but I'm pretty dang happy that this is near by!

Mo,

I read in your earlier post that you were giving up on the Sport-CFI.

Glad to see your back in the game.

I'm still renting 650 and I want to put together a dynamic, growing group/club.

Everyone needs a dream.

I'm glad there are more options in the area.

Frank

Wow, congrats Mo, this is great news. I can't find any info about it on their website, How much for hourly rental with and w/o an instructor?

125/hr solo, i think instruction is 50/hr.

Pretty airplane, Mo. Have you flown it yet? Any peculiarities you care to report?

I've put about 12 hours on the plane. I think that it's turbulence penetration and speed are two of the best parts of the aircraft. It also has a garmin 530, making for an excellent instrument trainer, too.

Two downsides are the brakes, which have failed on me twice, during taxi; also the ASI is inaccurate at lower speeds and does not seem to be calibrated despite them calibrating it twice at my request.

The brake issue is not well understood by them, and they believe that even low speed riding of the brakes is causing the fluid to vaporize.

theskunk wrote:I've put about 12 hours on the plane. I think that it's turbulence penetration and speed are two of the best parts of the aircraft. It also has a garmin 530, making for an excellent instrument trainer, too.

Two downsides are the brakes, which have failed on me twice, during taxi; also the ASI is inaccurate at lower speeds and does not seem to be calibrated despite them calibrating it twice at my request.

The brake issue is not well understood by them, and they believe that even low speed riding of the brakes is causing the fluid to vaporize.

We had brake problems on our P92, so we fitted a set of Cleveland brakes. Made a world of difference.

theskunk wrote:the ASI is inaccurate at lower speeds and does not seem to be calibrated despite them calibrating it twice at my request.

All ASIs indicate much lower than calibrated airspeed in level slow flight. This is a problem not with the ASI itself, but with the physics of a pitot tube. Low airspeed in level flight means high angle of attack. At a high angle of attack, the pitot tube is not pointed directly into the airflow, so it provides reduced air pressure to the ASI. You can't calibrate that out of an ASI, unless it is also interfaced to an angle of attack indicator.

One significant consequence of this is that most people think their stall speed is lower than it really is. The pitot tube is pitched way up in a stall (with respect to the relative wind), so the ASI reads low. In my LSA at max gross weight, the ASI indicates 37 knots in a wings-level power-off stall, but the calibrated airspeed is right at the 45 knot ASTM maximum. That's nearly an 18% error!

rgstubbsjr wrote:

theskunk wrote:I've put about 12 hours on the plane. I think that it's turbulence penetration and speed are two of the best parts of the aircraft. It also has a garmin 530, making for an excellent instrument trainer, too.

Two downsides are the brakes, which have failed on me twice, during taxi; also the ASI is inaccurate at lower speeds and does not seem to be calibrated despite them calibrating it twice at my request.

The brake issue is not well understood by them, and they believe that even low speed riding of the brakes is causing the fluid to vaporize.

We had brake problems on our P92, so we fitted a set of Cleveland brakes. Made a world of difference.

This airplane is much smaller production than Tecnam...getting an LoA might be harder. Or maybe not.

I replaced my CTSW's Marc brakes with Matcos. Honestly, the Marcs would stop harder, but the Matcos are smoother and don't want to lock up, which is nice on hard braking. And the rebuild kit on a Marc cylinder is $130, while a NEW Matco cylinder is $125, and the rebuild kit is $18.