Cessna 162 Skycatcher questions

Beats some underexposed back country VLA shop, never testing at all.
In fact, some of the VLA's will create a pile of dead bodies once they are 'treated wrong' or spun.

Looks like Cessna is trying to test the plane towards what it is supposed to do - help in creating safe confident pilots. As some know, that may include spin demos. I'd prefer a few of them crashing during tests, rather than with a CFI/ Student in them...?

They'll figure it out. In the meantime I'm glad they are keeping this thing going.
 
Cessna414JJB said:
Looks like Cessna is trying to test the plane towards what it is supposed to do - help in creating safe confident pilots. As some know, that may include spin demos. I'd prefer a few of them crashing during tests, rather than with a CFI/ Student in them...?
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That's a damn good point... although it still irks me that they're going to be produced in China.
 
I like the TECNAM series of aircraft! Have about 40 hrs in the Bravo, 20 hrs in the REMOs and would choose the Bravo anyday.
 
flyingmaniac said:
I think Ktsai91 is referring to quality of work, dependability, cost, lifespan, etc.
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When they care to produce safe baby formula for their own people, maybe they'll think about keeping lead based paints away from products they ship here. When that happens, I just might start coming around to the idea of a Chinese produced Cessna.

Nope, scratch that. I'd rather it be built here from a quality and safety standpoint... AND because we need more good manufacturing jobs here.
 
If you can't stay out of your own way flying a 152, Darwin is selecting you out. Great airplane, simple, reliable, and posessed of its own type of charm if you're not the sort who gets all hot and bothered by tv screens and parachutes. Generations of pilots learned to fly in 150/152s. If it ain't broke...raise the weights, build the plane from the same exact jigs, and build it in the US. Easy peasey.
 
aloft said:
I don't think I'll ever get used to the idea of a Cessna with a stick rather than a yoke.
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Actually its even worse than that. I got to sit in a skycatcher a few months ago. The stick isn't a stick. Rather its kind of mix between a stick and yoke. Its a stoke. Or maybe its a yick.

What you have in the skycatcher is a control that is similar to the side stick on a Cirrus in that it has a stick-like grip, but its mounted on a post that protrudes rearward from the panel. On the skycatcher the stick is mounted right in front of you instead of on the side. But that's not the only difference from the Cirrus setup. On both the Cessna and Cirrus you slide the stick fore and aft for pitch control. But on the Cirrus you roll the stick left and right from vertical on the axis of the post for aileron control. On the Cessna, you slide the stick and post left and right with the grip staying completely vertical the entire time. With a stick, the stick tilts from vertical as you move it left and right which feels very natural. With the Cessna the grip stays vertical the whole time which just feels very weird to me. Maybe it wouldn't bother me in the air with flight loads on the stick. But trying it on the ground, I thought it felt really odd and I didn't like it at all. It felt more like a Fischer-Price toy than an airplane.

The panel didn't bother me. A panel is a panel as far as I'm concerned. It's been a long time since I've been a C150 but the skycatcher felt much roomier than I remember the C150 to be so I'd probably fly one if I could get beyond the stick weirdness and that whole tendency to crash thing.
 
Boris Badenov said:
If you can't stay out of your own way flying a 152, Darwin is selecting you out. Great airplane, simple, reliable, and posessed of its own type of charm if you're not the sort who gets all hot and bothered by tv screens and parachutes. Generations of pilots learned to fly in 150/152s. If it ain't broke...raise the weights, build the plane from the same exact jigs, and build it in the US. Easy peasey.
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Yes please.
 
Roger said:
Yes please.
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It's maybe a little bit indicative of where we find ourselves in the whole pilot-training question that we've gone from arguing about whether the 152 will spin "well enough" (read: hard enough) for a prospective pilot to really Get It to arguing about whether the 152 has enough shiny buttons or is "clean enough" for a prospective pilot to Get It. Jesus, kids. Learn to fly in something draggy, slow, steam-gauged, and predictable. You can fly the Space Shuttle later. You might even try spinning it, the plane doesn't just suddenly explode if you do. It might do the next generation of pilots a world of good to learn how to fly the wing in a plane that isn't going to kill them for seeing what it looks like when you go "outside the profile". You might go "outside the profile" any moment for the rest of your professional career...wouldn't it be better to have some notion of what that's like in something that isn't going to rise up and bite you for getting there?

Sorry, but I've seen one too many "pilot"s who think if the wings stop flying you might as well just put your will inside a fireproof box and start praying.
 
My unsolicited input:

Plastic plane made in China. Not so good.

I'll go with the Champ call, or something similar. For the difference in price, you could buy the airframe, restore it from the metal, get a new motor and put in whatever avionics you want and still have less money than with the plastic toy.
 
Boris Badenov said:
It's maybe a little bit indicative of where we find ourselves in the whole pilot-training question that we've gone from arguing about whether the 152 will spin "well enough" (read: hard enough) for a prospective pilot to really Get It to arguing about whether the 152 has enough shiny buttons or is "clean enough" for a prospective pilot to Get It. Jesus, kids. Learn to fly in something draggy, slow, steam-gauged, and predictable. You can fly the Space Shuttle later. You might even try spinning it, the plane doesn't just suddenly explode if you do. It might do the next generation of pilots a world of good to learn how to fly the wing in a plane that isn't going to kill them for seeing what it looks like when you go "outside the profile". You might go "outside the profile" any moment for the rest of your professional career...wouldn't it be better to have some notion of what that's like in something that isn't going to rise up and bite you for getting there?

Sorry, but I've seen one too many "pilot"s who think if the wings stop flying you might as well just put your will inside a fireproof box and start praying.
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But Basic Airmanship won't help me get a yob at RJs-R-Us with 100TT!!!! Need that glass time baby!!! I got a column in my logbook just for that!!!!!

Caveat: I instruct in glass airplanes. They switched the fleet after I started training here.
 
Roger said:
Caveat: I instruct in glass airplanes. They switched the fleet after I started training here.
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I'm just curious because it seems like every flight school is switching to only glass... Don't any of them see the value in being proficient with a 6-pack?!
 
Roger said:
But Basic Airmanship won't help me get a yob at RJs-R-Us with 100TT!!!! Need that glass time baby!!! I got a column in my logbook just for that!!!!!

Caveat: I instruct in glass airplanes. They switched the fleet after I started training here.
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There's a lot of that going on. It seems that flying apparently equals riding. I'm not sure why.
 
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