Learning to Fly
by Philip Greenspun, CFI, CFII
Site Home : Flying : One Article
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In getting a single-engine private pilot's certificate, you have to pick three things:
the plane
the instructor
the pace
Picking the plane depends to some extent on what you want to do after you get your license. If you want to rent airplanes all over the world, a Cessna 172 is a good training choice. If you want to transition to soaring, the Diamond Katana DA20-A1 makes sense because (a) the manufacturer also makes gliders, and (b) the Katana is controlled with a stick rather than a yoke, making it more like a typical glider.
Worried about safety? Statistics show that the Cessna 172 and the Diamond Katana are about the safest trainers. The Cessna 150/152 and the Piper Tomahawk have combined with student pilots to assemble comparatively poor safety records.
How about noise? The Katana isn't any bigger than it needs to be, which means that it can cruise at 104 knots with an 80-horsepower engine. The Cessna 152 needs 110 hp and the Cessna 172 needs 160 hp to cruise just a bit faster. Less horsepower means less noise. The Katana is one of the only single-engine airplanes in which I find the noise tolerable without noise-cancelling headphones.
Visibility through the Katana's plastic canopy is much better than older-design airplanes with their windshields, support bars, metal roofs, etc.
You'll never get killed in a Katana by a 25-year-old part that finally wears out; the airplanes have only been produced since the mid-1990s.
The main drawback to a Katana is space. At 6' tall and 195 lbs., I just barely fit into the machine. If my instructor were as fat as I am, we'd have to dump some fuel in order to get off the ground. If I wanted to bring the dog along on a flight, there isn't a back seat in which he could safely ride.
Finally there is an emotional element. If the old Cessnas and Pipers at most schools remind you of Volkswagen Beetles with wings, it isn't an accident. They were designed at around the same time as the old VW! The Katana looks more like the modern kit planes that your cousin might have built in his garage, but finished to a vastly higher standard.
(If you believe in the wisdom of government, you can follow the example of the United States Air Force. After an extensive evaluation of trainers, the USAF Academy decided to use the latest Continental-powered DA20s for all of their primary flight training. The US Naval Academy also uses the DA20.)
Choosing an Instructor
Most people working as flight instructors are folks anxious to get their Air Transport Pilot (ATP) certificates but not anxious to pay for 1,500 hours of airplane rental. Such an instructor may not necessarily have a great love of teaching, and if you can't complete your training in three months or so, you might find that your instructor has moved on to a job at the local commuter airline. In theory it should be much better to find an instructor who has 3,000+ hours and is teaching because he or she likes to teach. However, someone who has been an expert pilot for decades may not be able to understand what you're doing wrong or explain step-by-step how to do maneuvers. The expert pilot has deep knowledge in his or her bones and muscles. That is tough to transfer. By contrast, you might learn more from an articulate newer pilot than an older expert who is able to show, but not explain, how it is done.
The only way to evaluate an instructor is to ride with him or her. If the instructor touches the controls before the final approach to land, that's bad. A good instructor should be able to talk you through every maneuver and should have the patience to let you fly the airplane badly. You should never be afraid. The instructor should take you into progressively more challenging situations so gradually that you barely feel the challenge. The instructor should try to teach only one thing at a time. As a beginner you may be doing ten things wrong at any given time. A good instructor will pick one out of the ten to talk about and tactfully ignore your other nine mistakes.
In terms of the number of hours required to get your certificate, it might be most efficient to fly with a single superb instructor. But I flew with five different people in the right seat during my first 20 hours and learned unique and valuable lessons from each one. If you're having trouble with a maneuver, fly with a different instructor and get a fresh explanation of how to do it and a fresh perspective on what you're doing wrong. If you're worried that you're going to miss something by bouncing around from instructor to instructor, pick up a Jeppesen training syllabus and organize your own learning around it.
Finally, find instructors whose company and conversation you enjoy. You're going to have some long cross-country flights and a lot of one-on-one time waiting for planes, resting between lessons, eating lunch, etc. It might as well be enjoyable time. If it means that you need five more hours to get your certificate, at least you were having fun during those five hours.
An Ideal Pace
The best pace for learning to fly is probably the same pace at which you intend to fly recreationally. Human memory requires periodic reinforcement, ideally at roughly the intervals when you're 50 percent likely to recall (or forget). Suppose that you're able to remember random facts for about one month. You go down to Arizona where more than 350 days per year have good enough weather for visual flight rules (VFR). You train every day for three weeks and get your certificate. You go back home to New England and, due to work, social commitments, and bad weather, fly just once a month. By the time you're forgetting the stuff that you've learned, you're up in an airplane with no instructor.
I personally opted to train three days per week and felt it was about as fast as reasonable, given the amount of reading and studying that I wanted to do in between lessons. Note that the period of time in which your probability of recall falls to 50 percent gets longer after you've been reminded a few times. Maybe you learned a VFR rule and forgot it the next day but were reminded by your instructor. It may take a week before your memory degrades to the point of 50 percent probability of correct recall. After another reminder, the next time interval might be a month. Thus it may make some sense to train intensively for a month or two and then reduce the frequency of lessons if flight training is interfering with the rest of your life. On the other hand, once you've done all the reading and simply need to build up your coordination skills, it may make sense to fly all day every day for a few weeks.
What it Costs (time and money)
Between airplane rental, instructor time, and the various accessories that you'll want to buy, budget about $10,000 to get your private pilot certificate. If you figure that you'll get your certificate at 70 hours of flight time, budget 280 hours to build up those 70 hours. The four-to-one ratio accounts for time spent driving to the airport, waiting around for the airplane and instructor to be available, preflighting the airplane, putting the airplane away, paying your bill, and driving home. Budget another 100 hours for reading textbooks, studying rules and regulations, browsing Internet sites, talking to experienced pilots, etc. If you're a full-time wage slave, flying will be your only hobby for a while.
Tips
These are the most useful things that I've learned from my instructors.
Taxi
Prime with the electric boost pump on and watch the fuel flow. Now you know that the boost pump works. Taxi with the boost pump off. Now you know that the engine-driven fuel pump works. If it is called for in your airplane's P.O.H. ("pilot's operating handbook"), remember to switch the boost pump back on for takeoff so that you have redundancy.
Maintain a sterile cockpit (no chatting with anyone else in the plane) when taxiing, at least if you're anywhere near hangars and other airplanes. If you are going to hit something with your plane, it will very likely be when taxiing.
Takeoff
Add a "position ailerons for crosswind" item to your takeoff checklist. In the rush of being cleared by the tower and rolling onto the runway, it is easy to forget to look at the windsock and hold an appropriate crosswind correction.
Midair
Don't look at your instruments and adjust the flight controls, for example, to keep the altimeter steady. The instruments have a tendency to lag behind reality, and therefore if you "chase the instruments" by adjusting the flight controls, you will overcorrect and oscillate. Staring at your instruments is also a good way to get motion sickness. Use the flight controls to keep the nose of the airplane at a constant attitude relative to the horizon. After you've got that attitude established, glance at your instruments to see if the chosen attitude is giving you what you want (level flight, climbing, a descending turn, whatever). If not, set a new attitude for the nose relative to the horizon and look at the instruments again a few seconds later. In VFR flight the primary instrument is the nose's position relative to the horizon.
Landing
Don't stare at the runway numbers in front of the nose of the airplane. Keep your gaze centered about halfway up the runway, sort of the same way that you keep your gaze in the middle distance when driving on an Interstate highway. This makes it easier to detect the small changes in aircraft attitude that are critically important. The scene right in front of the airplane's nose doesn't change that much as you yaw and pitch. But the distant portions of the runway move around dramatically as your attitude changes.
You can fly all day midair without using the airplane's rudder. Maybe not super efficiently but you can get where you want to go using only the ailerons and elevators. Landing is different, especially a crosswind landing. The rudder becomes a critical tool in keeping the airplane on the runway centerline and for making sure that the tires are pointed in the direction of aircraft movement so that the gear aren't side-loaded during touchdown. On short final, press relatively hard on both rudder pedals. Mostly your left foot is fighting off the pressure from your right. But at least you are consciously working the rudders and, when necessary, will push decisively in the required direction.
There are two things that are hard about landing. One is flying the airplane at landing speed with the wheels just over the runway. Two is flying the airplane just below landing speed with the wheels on the runway. You might say that item two isn't flying but rather taxiing. But in point of fact the ailerons and rudder are still functioning as control surfaces for keeping the plane headed down the centerline. Let's suppose that you do 10 touch-and-gos. How much practice will you get in these two regimes of operation? Maybe 20 seconds (10x2) of flying low over the runway and 40 seconds (10x4) of rolling down the runway really fast after landing. Landings are quick. I didn't learn anything from my first 20 except that the airplane was always in the wrong place and that my instructor tended to start yelling about 10 feet above the ground.
My friend Richard came to the rescue. He suggested that I go up to the Pease tradeport in New Hampshire. The runway at this former military base is more than two miles long (11,300', longer than Logan Airport's longest runway!). Richard suggested trying to fly the entire length of the runway with the wheels just above the centerline, then coming back to land and roaring down the entire remainder of the two-mile runway at 50 knots without lifting the wheels. "Ask for clearance for the 'option' when doing the low flight," Richard noted, "and tell the tower that you want to practice aborted takeoffs for the long taxis."
This was the key. After about 90 minutes of playing around on the Pease runway, I felt confident in my ability to control the airplane on or near the ground at or near landing speed. All this with an instructor I'd never flown with before. Final score: six complete landings with no instructor assistance against one landing where the instructor needed to push the controls a bit. The instructor, Lara Greenwood, noted that the easiest way to land a plane was to try not to land. She said "if you just try to float along the runway as low as possible without landing, eventually you'll sink down onto the runway in more or less the correct attitude." And she was quite right! My best landings were after the long floats. When I concentrated on landing, I would flare too much or too little.
More: Make Better Landings (Alan Bramson; 1982; out of print but probably easy to find on the Web, a revised edition from 1994 is supposedly available from amazon.com)
Simulation
According to flight instructors and some of the students that I've interviewed, expert PC flight simulator users don't get their first pilot's certificate all that much faster than raw beginners. On the simulator you don't get any physical feedback as the plane moves. You can't look around when using the simulator. It is a pretty poor excuse for reality. Why don't they make the kinds of fabulous hydraulic simulators for primary flight students that you see for Boeing 767s and fighter jets? Because a really fancy and realistic flight simulator costs more than a Diamond Katana or Cessna 172. It is cheaper simply to go up in the sky.
The foregoing notwithstanding, Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) is an excellent program, and it might make you feel more comfortable that you can handle unusual situations. If you do set up MSFS, try to do it on a computer with two monitors so that you can open one window on the bottom or side for the instruments and reserve the main monitor for the view over the cowl. My instrument-rated friends report that MSFS was tremendously valuable in learning instrument flying.
Here's what you need for a good home simulator:
Windows XP or Vista for high quality multi-monitor support
Microsoft Flight Simulator
CH Products joystick or CH Products yoke
rudder pedals: CH Products USB
The Knowledge Test
It is possible to pass the FAA knowledge test (a.k.a. "the written test") without knowing how to fly an airplane, and a passing score is valid for two years from the date of the exam. If you're on a tight budget, it is therefore probably best to do all of your reading and studying before taking your first lesson in an actual airplane. The most successful prep course is from www.kingschools.com. Normally you need an instructor's signoff before you can sit for the exam, but the King Schools can supply the signoff for you. Do the King course, take the exam, learn to fly, then review the material from your knowledge test shortly before your practical test ("checkride").
If you don't mind spending some extra time and money, you could defer studying for the knowledge test until shortly before your checkride. Then you won't have to study twice. Again, however, you'll probably want the course from www.kingschools.com.
(Personal results: I used King Schools courses for Private, Instrument, and Commercial knowledge tests. My scores were 97, 98, and 100 respectively.)
Useful Educational Materials
Aside from the standard textbooks that you'll be assigned by your flight school, I've found the most useful to be the classic Stick and Rudder (Wolfgang Langewiesche 1944) and John S. Denker's See How It Flies (Web-only). Denker is a PhD physicist who works at Bell Labs and is also an FAA-certified flight instructor.
Another resource is joining Airline Owner's and Pilot's Association (www.aopa.org). Membership is free for student pilots.
Flight training hasn't changed for 50 years. Chances are your question has already been asked, answered, and indexed in one of the aviation newsgroups such as rec.aviation.student. Check http://groups.google.com/ before posting a duplicate!
Food for thought:
The Art of Failure—Why Some People Choke and Others Panic by Malcolm Gladwell (New Yorker Magazine, August 21-28, 2000)
Motion Sickness
I get violently seasick in any normal ocean swell but have never thrown up on a commercial airline flight. Personally I find light planes in good weather to be somewhat more nauseating than commercial airliners, but nowhere near as bad as a boat. That said, I felt really sick during my first lesson and continued to get queasy whenever my instructor touched the controls. If you tend toward motion sickness, try to find an instructor whose style is to talk you through everything rather than demonstrate and correct with his or her hands and feet. A $100 electronic ReliefBand for your wrist will probably help but the keys to avoiding motion sickness while training are the following:
Eyes out of the cockpit; fly by watching the nose's position relative to the horizon and periodically check the instruments to see if the visually established attitude is getting you what you want in terms of airspeed and climb rate
Instructor talking to you instead of working the stick him or herself
Fly on non-turbulent days
Maybe it will take you a few extra hours to get your certificate but you'll have more fun.
Oh yes, be sure to carry a barf bag for any passengers. In the immortal words of Charles Wright, instructor at East Coast Aero Club, "Having a passenger throwing up violently a few inches from you can be very distracting."
Nearly all Air Force fighter pilots succumb to motion sickness during their training, which of course involves aerobatics. The Air Force does not wash out those students who throw up. If a pilot throws up and then is able to continue the mission he or she is considered a good pilot. It is the pilots who throw up and remain incapacitated who are washed out. The good news is that nearly all Air Force pilots develop a tolerance for aerobatics and stop throwing up. The bad news is that if a pilot doesn't fly for a month or so the tolerance is lost.
Personally I found that motion sickness was less of an issue at 50 hours than 5, less at 100 than 50, and barely a memory at 200 hours. The only way that I can bring on any symptoms is to let a friend fly through bumpy skies while I dig through luggage in the back of the airplane. The foregoing notwithstanding, I still try to avoid turbulence because I find it wearing and uncomfortable.
More
Very likely a CFI and/or ATP will answer your question in the Aviation question and answer forum on this server.
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Text and photos Copyright 2002-2005 Philip Greenspun.
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philg@mit.edu
Reader's Comments
MSFS is very nice, but is made to be more of a game than a simulator. Try X-Plane too -- it has a very good (and getting even better) flight model and an great amount of work has been put into realism, including the ability to fail any of the airplane's systems to see how you can recover. It has been used for generic (not specific to a single airplane model) full-motion simulators (these people are just building full size cockpit with X-Plane).
You are right in the fact that you can't really compare a simulator to the "real thing" because you can't look around, but it does seem to help. I only flew once so far (introductory flight), and the instructor kept his apendages off the controls for most of the flight (he did the final landing, though). He didn't believe me when I told him that I never flew an airplane before.
-- Petru Paler, January 5, 2002
I agree with Phil's observations here. Trying to fly 2-3 times a week works out less expensive and faster in the long run - assuming time to read and study between flights. Especially when, say, 3 planned flights a week might actually end up being 1 or 2 depending on weather and other last minute problems (plane hasn't returned from the previous person, instructor called in sick, etc., etc.). This is especially true when you start doing cross country flights.
Other things I found useful were:
flying early. This won't be for everyone, but I liked lessons at 6-6:30am. The plane was always available and usually fueled, the instructor wasn't running late from another lesson. There was no/little traffic in the pattern and on the field - providing more time flying and less time taxiing or extending downwind. And the air was usually calm and cool - great while you're still starting out. Of course I still flew at other times of the day, but I loved those early mornings.
Plan your own lessons. You may get an instructor who plans for you, but if my experience was typical, the instructor will more or less randomnly decide what to practice while doing pre-flight with you. I quickly found I could get *much* more out of a lesson if I proposed the activities for the day. E.g. 'before we do circuit work, can we do some steep turns? I'm not happy with how I handled them the other day'. or 'Could we work on short-field landings today as its been a while?'. Also, at the end of each lesson I would ask 'What do you think I should work on next lesson?'. I found that the instructor's response was usually much more appropriate then, after spending an hour or so in the cockpit with me, than just before the next lesson.
William Kershner's Student Pilot's Flight Manual. For some reason this book hit a chord for me. I found the explanations really helpful and the practical techniques worked well. I read many many books while learning to fly, but this is the one I ended up using as my reference.
Take the written early. Of course some schools require this. Mine didn't but I went ahead and did it after only about 15 hours of instruction. I found I benefited from this in many ways, and when the topics came up again in actual training I was able to get much more from them.
'Fly' while parked. It doesn't cost anything to sit in the plane on the ground, so if you can, turn up early for your lesson and run through the day's procedures while sitting in the plane (with everything off). While this is especially good for checklist procedures, I also found it useful for steep turn practice, cross control practice (e.g. slips), stalls and other manouvers.
Try other instructors. I couldn't agree with Phil more on this - especially if you're blocked on something. E.g. I just couldn't get my Taylorcraft to touch down softly - until I flew with another instructor who suggested holding the yoke just between my thumb and forefinger. Magic! The T'craft was just SO much more sensitive than the Cessna 150 I'd been flying previously (that plus the bungie cord landing gear).
Get some controlled field time early. I admit it - I had my Private's license and almost 250 hours before I really did any controlled airpot flying - and I was scared of screwing up! My lessons weren't at a controlled field and I only went into one once during training. If I was starting over, I'd insist on going to a nearby controlled field until I was truly comfortable with the radio procedures. The irony was, of course, that once I got used to it it was actually easier than an uncontrolled airport - albiet less convenient at times.
Cut your lesson short if need be. Some days I just couldn't get my head into whatever skill I was learning. My instructor did me a favor and taught me to quit while I was ahead and/or before I learnt bad habits by trying more. It saved me money, gave me a chance to go home and study the manouver more, and generally the next time I flew it would all fall into place.
I hope these tips are useful...
-- Michael Mee, February 10, 2002
FlightGear Image of DC-3 Departing KSJC
Check out what the talented developers of the open-source flight simulator FlightGear http://www.flightgear.org have produced. I consider it one of those great open source success stories like the Apache webserver - only no one's heard of it...yet!
Cheers,
Mark Turner
-- Mark Turner, February 11, 2002
Some of the downsides of the Katana as a trainer:
1) It is considerably more expensive to rent, per hour, than a typical 150/2 or Tomahawk (both of which are excellent learning platforms). Hello, money matters.
2) The thing doesn't fly or, especially, land like almost any conventional airplane in the GA fleet. That's because it's a quasi-glider. It floats, a lot. Most private pilots will transition from trainers to middle-of-the-road Cessnas (172s) or Pipers (Cherokees); the more adventuresome and well-heeled will go the way of Mooneys, Bonanzas, etc. (No one without a good bit of experience should think about getting into a Lancair or something like that -- wonderful, wonderful airplanes, but they are decidedly high-performance and need an experienced stick.)
And that's why Cessnas and Pipers -- and primarily Cessnas -- still dominate the training fleet. Why spend almost twice as much on a Katana when you're going to have to relearn so much in transitioning to 99.5% of what's out there?
I suppose what bugs me about this flying section is that it is written by someone who took the 'golden road' to learning and treats that experience as if it's ordinary or even necessary. Having learned how to fly as a teenager in a Champ, paying as I went along by mowing lawns and what-not, this talk of Sennheiser headsets and $80/hr+ aircraft rentals is just plain silly.
We need to encourage young pilots and take into account the fact that young pilots -- and, for that matter, most pilots -- are not wealthy dot-com types. I fly far nicer ships these days, but the basics are the basics.
-- george day, May 2, 2002
I learnt to fly in San Diego in 1997. It took my 25 hours and 119 landings to go solo, and 55 hours total until I took my test over a period of 5 months. From talking to other people this is about average. I wrote down everything on spent on learning to fly in the back of my logbook, and the total came to $4650. In term of planes I would tend to recommend the 172 or Cherokee. They both cost a bit more than the 152 or Tomahawk, but are more stable, and more comfortable which helps keep the hours down. Later I learnt alpine flying ;while working in Switzerland; in a Katana and would thoroughly recommend the Katana. The visibility from the cockpit and the improved performance and feel over a Cessna 152/172 made flying more enjoyable for me.
I would recommend using several instructors and different airfields, pay per hour, and never block buy hours. You can stick with a good instructor until you come up against a block in your learning, but then it is best to switch staight away. These guys will sit with you all day even if you are not learning anything, most are motivated just to build hours.
Passing the test doesn't make you a good pilot and you need a lot more hours to build confidence. Keep well within your limits for the first few hundred hours. If you get over confident and encounter a bad situation you can scare yourself out of flying forever.
Try to have a clear idea what you want to do with your flying after you pass the test. My plan was that as I travelled the globe working on short term contracts I could fly in different countries; and I did this in Belgium, Switzerland, Australia and Kenya. However, I since stopped flying as I no longer find it enjoyable having to go through all the requirements to fly and hire planes in each country. I hope I can get back to it if I stay in one place for a while.
-- Mike Bulcock, July 28, 2003
I flew a "discovery flight" in a Cessna 172, and my lessons have been in a Katana. Both planes were relatively new. (My school doesn't keep them more than 3 or 4 years, tops.)
The Cessna was enough to put me off flying. It was like a rickety old schoolbus. I didn't feel like I was "flying" so much as "making vague suggestions to the airplane", which it would take under advisement and possibly obey when it got around to it. The Katana does what I tell it to do.
I guess there are cheaper ways to fly. I pay $90 for a nearly new Katana. But their Cessna is $120 per hour. (Gotta love that $4 per gallon avgas.) I could save a little by finding a "school" with a tired old 152, but I wouldn't enjoy it as much...and since I'm only in it for the fun, enjoyment is everything. The lessons ARE my hobby, not just something I have to endure in order to start a hobby.
I like the Katana. It is what it is, though. It's not a cargo plane, by any stretch. And, at 6'3", a couple of hours in the cockpit is all I can tolerate. It's clearly not the plane I'd want to own in the long term, but for learning purposes it's great.
-- Eric Anderson, July 4, 2006
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Related Links
Introductory flight in a Diamond Katana- My review of my first flight. (contributed by John Hodge)
Cessna Pilot Center - New Skyhawks/Skylanes Only- Some people want to learn in new planes and enjoy the benefits of learning GPS navigation, color multi-function displays, moving map displays and serious 2 axis auto pilot use. Some want 180 HP performance and leather seats! If you want to fly new planes - we are your place in the Fresno, CA area. (contributed by Central California Aviation Inc)
Private 2 ATP.com- Private 2 ATP.com is the largest online search engine for flight schools and rental aircraft. We also contain valuable information on starting your career as a professional pilot. (contributed by Matt Smith)
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Arizona Flight Training And Instruction- Flight Instruction with a 10,000 Hour Flight Instructor 20 Years of General Aviation Flight Traiing Experience (contributed by frederick longe)
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Friday, November 27, 2009
Diamond Katan
Diamond Katana
reviewed by Philip Greenspun in March 2002
Site Home : Flying : One Article
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The Diamond Katana is a 2-seat training aircraft with a European motorglider heritage. It is statistically safe, slow, forgiving, reliable, quiet, and cheap. You can buy an 80 hp Rotax-powered DA20-A1 for between $35,000 and $50,000 or newer versions with engines up to 125 hp for prices that approach $100,000. The Rotax-powered DA20-A1 can cruise at 95 knots indicated airspeed while burning just 3.25 gallons per hour. This article will concentrate on the 80 hp DA20-A1 because that's what the author has personally trained in (total of nearly 90 hours).
What is most addictive about the Katana is the visibility of the low-wing design combined with a plexiglass canopy. You feel as though you're part of the sky. With its constant-speed prop pulled back to 1900 RPM the interior is remarkably quiet and you're still cruising at 95 knots, just shy of the 104 knot standard cruise.
Pilots who regularly fly $500,000+ airplanes love the Katana. The examiner for my Private checkride was a 25,000-hour guy who has instructed on multi-engines and turbines. When I said that we were taking a DA20-A1 he said "I love the Katana; it is so much fun." My 1500-hour friend who owns a 240-knot Mooney Bravo also loves to goof around in the Katana and rents one whenever his Mooney isn't available.
The DA20-A1 cannot be IFR certified due to its lack of lightning protection.
Safety
The Katana has an excellent safety record. In the April 2001 issue of AviationConsumer.com the article "The Safest Trainer" (Jane Garvey and Paul Bertorelli) gives high marks to the Cessna 172 and the Katana. If you're unsure about the Rotax engine, you'll be comforted by this quote from the article: "The trainer with the best engine reliability record was the Diamond Katana, with only two engine failures, one of which was operator induced by lack of oil." Should you kill yourself in a Katana, you'll be the first American to do so. The plane's fatal accident rate of 0.2 per 100,000 hours is entirely due to a Canadian VFR-into-IMC incident. The AviationConsumer article does caution Katana pilots to ensure that the canopy is well and truly closed. Three in-flight incidents, none resulting in serious injury, have occurred due to pilots failing to latch the canopy fully. [The older Austrian-built DV20 had a different latching system imposed on it by the certifying authorities. Opening either latch would completely release the canopy. In November 2001 two people were killed in Wiener Neustadt when their DV20's canopy came open in the pattern--only 500' above ground level. The theory is that they wanted to pull in a trapped seat belt strap that was generating a lot of noise.]
No Diamond airplane has ever caught fire after an accident.
Preflight
Passenger and baggage capacity with the 20-gallon fuel tank full is about 460 pounds. Baggage is stored on a shelf behind the two front seats. A cargo net prevents it from coming forward and hitting you during radical maneuvers. There is enough space in the baggage area for at least two large duffel bags full of clothing, books, etc.
Preflighting the airplane takes less than 10 minutes. There are a couple of Plexi inspection panels underneath each wing where you can look for loose control rod nuts. For creaky 38-year-old me these involve kneeling on the tarmac. Wear bluejeans.
There are no power points for noise-cancelling headsets. There is no cigarette lighter outlet. You plug your headset into sockets just behind the seats and then step on the little metal step to get into the plane, something that can be easily accomplished without stepping on the leather seat.
At 6' tall, 205 lbs., I find the legroom and elbow space just barely adequate. You sit hip-to-hip with your passenger or CFI and if you're both putting on the 4-point harnesses at the same time, someone is going to get stuck in the ribs. Headroom is ample, even with massive Dave Clark headset bands.
Taxiing the Katana in a straight line via differential braking is an acquired skill.
Takeoff
Keep the center-mounted stick neutral, some right rudder in, and rotate smoothly at 51 knots. The Katana really wants to fly. If you're doing soft field takeoffs and hold the stick back all the way, you'll find that you go from rolling on the runway to stalling in the air within the space of an eyeblink. It is probably best to hold the stick no more than halfway back to avoid having to shove it forward in a panic for a reasonable soft field takeoff.
The 80 hp airplane climbs quite nicely from cold New England sea level airports but has a reputation as a dog down in Florida. Floridians also complain of baking underneath the canopy while taxiing out. When it is really cold, i.e., below -10C, Diamond recommends obstructing one of the cooling air inlets with a small metal plate. If you leave this in when the temperature is closer to 0C, climb out becomes very interesting. At maximum power, the engine temperature heads rapidly for the red but won't quite reach the red line. Any oil that you spilled during the preflight oil check starts to burn off and produce a burning smell in the cockpit. Your instructor calls the tower and asks for a precautionary landing. The smell goes away. The engine cools down. You taxi back and take off again. The engine temperature soars. Your 600-hour instructor begins to freak out again. You suddenly recall the existence and presence of that little plate. Not that this has ever happened to me ...
Cruise
When cruising you pull the prop back to between 1900 and 2200 RPM. In most Katanas this results in a substantially quieter ride. In some Katanas this results in a lot of vibration. Test before you buy.
The Rotax engine is water-cooled and therefore has more thermal mass than traditional air-cooled airplane engines. This means that you don't have to worry too much about shock cooling the engine when descending at very low power settings. The carburetor is auto-leaning, which means that you have only two engine controls: throttle and prop.
The Katana has only one fuel tank and a single on-off switch. The cruise checklist is very short: boost pump off, landing light off, power settings reasonable, gauges check, align DG to wet compass. There is no vacuum system so you don't have to worry about instruments flaking out. Everything is electric and very reliable in my experience. The narrow King GPS that was an option in most DA20-A1s has a user interface that is way too complex for in-flight operation. The moving map is monochrome and cryptic. Basically the King GPS is good for two things: (1) bearing and distance to a designated airport, and (2) one-button information about the 5 closest airports in case of a problem in-flight.
Sadly the Katana is not fuel-injected and therefore you really ought to apply carb heat periodically inflight. That's what the books say. However, despite having flown the Katana for 90+ hours in a medium-cold medium-wet Massachusetts winter, I never noticed that the carb heat had any positive effect on the engine. I.e., the Rotax does not seem to be prone to carb ice.
After 2 hours of cruise you'll notice that the fuel tank is more than half full and that your back and neck are starting to hurt. The Katana seat backs have a substantial and fixed recline angle. One's natural tendency is to crane one's head forward a bit to get a closer look at the instruments and the world outside. This is a huge mistake and will result in a stiff neck. Force yourself to lean back in your seat and accept the recline angle. Diamond makes this tough because there are no headrests in the DA20-A1.
Landings
Because it has huge wings (14:1 glide ratio) and no mass (1600 lbs. gross weight), the Katana is highly susceptible to crosswinds. If you can learn to land the Katana in a gusty crosswind, any heavier plane will seem remarkably stable.
The recommended approach speed is 57 knots, well above the 37 knot stall. If you're a sloppy student and come in at 65 knots you'll float an extra 500 feet or more down the runway. Coming in with half flaps to deal with that gusty crosswind? At 65 knots and half flaps, you'll glide an extra 500 feet over the numbers before you know it and then float an extra 500 feet. This is when you'll recall that best glide is 72 kts. and half flaps.
The landing gear on the DA20-A1 are fixed, simple, and strong. Students pound the stuffing out of the planes all day every day and the gear never seems to suffer.
Transport of Dogs
If your dog weighs less than 35 lbs., he can probably fit comfortably in the baggage area. A larger dog wouldn't be comfortable in the baggage area and might not be safe sitting in the right seat, due to the fact that the stick is part of the seat. It is a real shame.
Night Flying
Most of the instrument lighting comes from a couple of little bulbs behind the pilots' heads. The gauges are tough to read at night. If you do fly at night you might want to bring a passenger whose job is to shine a small flashlight on the engine instruments periodically.
The backlit instruments in the DA20s that I've tried are the following: wet compass, radio (includes a bar-graph VOR CDI), and the GPS. Basically I ended up using the GPS as my primary flight instrument due to its superior readability.
Winter Flying
It is difficult to remove snow and ice from a plastic airplane. If you can't get a hangar you'll have to use fabric wing covers during the winter months. This adds about 15 minutes to the already miserable cold and windblown experience of being out on the ramp.
Once in the air, however, the Katana is wonderfully warm and well-sealed. On sunny days the greenhouse effect from the canopy means that you won't even need to use the cabin heat.
Stalls and Spins
The Katana is very well behaved in a stall and can be maneuvered easily right down to its full-flaps stall speed of 37 knots. Even with most of the wing stalled, the ailerons remain functional. This can actually lead to some bad habits if the student moves to an older design or aerobatic plane. Most airplanes require "stepping on the high wing" with rudder.
The DA20-A1 is also spin-certified. Russ Hustead, renowned for his HK36R motorglider instruction (see www.skykingsoaring.com), previously instructed for 400 hours in the DA20. Hustead says "It is a great airplane for teaching spins and learning recovery. The Katana has a very vertical nose-down spin. Sometimes it takes about 1/4 turn to 1/2 turn to stop the rotation with opposite rudder."
The Continental-powered Version
Diamond produced 331 Rotax-powered DA20s in Canada from 1995 through 1998. Since 1998 the North American branch of Diamond has used only air-cooled Continental and Lycoming engines in its planes, not counting HK36 R/T motorgliders. The new DA20-C1s, which are named "Eclipse" and "Evolution" rather than "Katana", are substantially faster than the Rotax-powered DA20. If you fly from a hot high airport, i.e., in high density altitude air, the extra power would certainly be nice. But for most student pilots, power and speed is the last thing that is needed. The faster you fly the faster your small errors turn into big unintentional altitude and heading changes. Flying under the hood at 95 kts isn't so tough; try it at 135 kts in the new improved DA20 and you might find yourself all over the sky.
If you slow a DA20-C1 down to DA20-A1 speeds, the airplane will be comparably quiet inside, despite the Continental engine's lack of a constant speed prop. At maximum speed, however, the C1 will be noisier than a throttled-back A1. Everything else about the interior of the C1 is much plusher than the old A1s and you can get fancier avionics, e.g., Garmin 430 GPS, S-TEC two-axis autopilot. The C1 has 4-point harnesses like the A1 but they're on inertia reels. You can crack the canopy of the C1 for improved comfort when taxiing on hot days. The seat back recline angle on the C1 is less extreme.
Retail prices on the DA20-C1s range between $125,000 (stripped Evolution) and $170,000 (loaded-with-avionics Eclipse). Diamond also makes a version with the flight instruments in front of the right seat. This is the airplane used by the United States Air Force for primary flight training at the Air Force Academy.
The Katana 100 Version
The Katana 100 is a factory retrofit of a DA20-A1 with a brand new 100 hp Rotax 912S. This yields a useful load increase of 44 lbs, to 1654 lbs gross. Conversion also entails improved cooling, various new and improved parts, and a complete mechanical and cosmetic refurbishment. It costs about $30,000 and the airplane comes out looking like new.
One option for the budget-minded owner is the following:
buy a 7-year-old DA20 today for $35,000
fly the plane until the Rotax engine is just about due for its 1200-hour overhaul
fly the plane to London, Ontario for a refit into a Katana 100
enjoy the "like new" plane for a couple more years
take the wing off and send the Katana 100 on a container ship to Europe (the Diamond factory in Ontario can do this for you)
fly around Europe for a few weeks
sell the plane in Europe where demand is probably stronger (Europeans love Rotax-powered airplanes as much as North Americans hate them)
Maintenance
Mechanics at Hanscom Field report that the DA20-A1s are easy to maintain. Unlike a metal airplane they don't have a lot of inspection panels so a 100-hour inspection can be done in as little as one day. The Rotax engine will be unfamiliar to the vast majority of American airplane mechanics. Thus, if you plan to fly around in the boondocks and get oil changes or 100-hour inspections, the Continental-powered DA20 is going to be easier to live with. The Continental will go 2000 hours between overhauls and the Rotax just 1200.
Owners report that they do their own oil changes on the Rotax 912 and that it is easy. Best to change oil every 25 hours to prevent lead fouling, with an oil filter change every 50 hours unless you fly infrequently, in which case the filter should be changed at 25 hours along with the oil.
Factory support for spare parts is apparently very good.
Personal Conclusion
Despite my positive experience as a flight student in the DA20 and its low price and operating cost, I decided not to buy a DA20. Although my main goal is to fly day VFR and see those aspects of the world that aren't visible from the ground, I want the option of flying IFR and flying comfortably at night. More importantly, I want a back seat so that I can bring my dog Alex with me. So I shelled out about 5X the cost of a used DA20 on a brand-new four-seat Diamond DA40.
More
www.diamondair.com
the Aviation Question and Answer Forum on this server.
AVweb article on the Katana
www.trade-a-plane.com (subscription-only; lots of ads for lots of planes)
www.barnstormers.com (Katanas show up on this classified ad site as well; click on "unclassified everything" and search for "Diamond")
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Text and photos (if any) Copyright 2002 Philip Greenspun.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
philg@mit.edu
Reader's Comments
Hello Phil,
A friend and I rented a DA20 for 24 hours in Scottsdale, AZ back in the late 90s. During our one-hour check rides, we found it to be an exceptionally stable and enjoyable airplane to fly, remaining fully controllable with the stick all the way back in my lap in a what passes for a stall in a Katana. When I say we rented it for 24 hours, I mean we had the plane for 24 hours straight for a single flat rate. We only had to purchase our own fuel but could fly for as many hours as we could get in during the 24-hour period.
The simple GPS provided a single line of digital text! We flew from Scottsdale to Albuquerque for a nice brunch, on to Page (KPGA at the edge of the Grand Canyon), then finally landing in Flagstaff at sunset (this was a day-VFR version). We had to climb the airport fence the next morning in order to get out at sunrise and have the plane back to Scottsdale in time to meet our 24-hour deadline. I think we paid $200!
It was the trip of a lifetime, and these many years later I am shopping for a Katana.
Thanks again for your very informative web page.
Mike Stiteler
P.S. I was surprised to find the differential braking fairly easy to master.
-- Mike Stiteler, December 5, 2008
Add a comment | Add a link
reviewed by Philip Greenspun in March 2002
Site Home : Flying : One Article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Diamond Katana is a 2-seat training aircraft with a European motorglider heritage. It is statistically safe, slow, forgiving, reliable, quiet, and cheap. You can buy an 80 hp Rotax-powered DA20-A1 for between $35,000 and $50,000 or newer versions with engines up to 125 hp for prices that approach $100,000. The Rotax-powered DA20-A1 can cruise at 95 knots indicated airspeed while burning just 3.25 gallons per hour. This article will concentrate on the 80 hp DA20-A1 because that's what the author has personally trained in (total of nearly 90 hours).
What is most addictive about the Katana is the visibility of the low-wing design combined with a plexiglass canopy. You feel as though you're part of the sky. With its constant-speed prop pulled back to 1900 RPM the interior is remarkably quiet and you're still cruising at 95 knots, just shy of the 104 knot standard cruise.
Pilots who regularly fly $500,000+ airplanes love the Katana. The examiner for my Private checkride was a 25,000-hour guy who has instructed on multi-engines and turbines. When I said that we were taking a DA20-A1 he said "I love the Katana; it is so much fun." My 1500-hour friend who owns a 240-knot Mooney Bravo also loves to goof around in the Katana and rents one whenever his Mooney isn't available.
The DA20-A1 cannot be IFR certified due to its lack of lightning protection.
Safety
The Katana has an excellent safety record. In the April 2001 issue of AviationConsumer.com the article "The Safest Trainer" (Jane Garvey and Paul Bertorelli) gives high marks to the Cessna 172 and the Katana. If you're unsure about the Rotax engine, you'll be comforted by this quote from the article: "The trainer with the best engine reliability record was the Diamond Katana, with only two engine failures, one of which was operator induced by lack of oil." Should you kill yourself in a Katana, you'll be the first American to do so. The plane's fatal accident rate of 0.2 per 100,000 hours is entirely due to a Canadian VFR-into-IMC incident. The AviationConsumer article does caution Katana pilots to ensure that the canopy is well and truly closed. Three in-flight incidents, none resulting in serious injury, have occurred due to pilots failing to latch the canopy fully. [The older Austrian-built DV20 had a different latching system imposed on it by the certifying authorities. Opening either latch would completely release the canopy. In November 2001 two people were killed in Wiener Neustadt when their DV20's canopy came open in the pattern--only 500' above ground level. The theory is that they wanted to pull in a trapped seat belt strap that was generating a lot of noise.]
No Diamond airplane has ever caught fire after an accident.
Preflight
Passenger and baggage capacity with the 20-gallon fuel tank full is about 460 pounds. Baggage is stored on a shelf behind the two front seats. A cargo net prevents it from coming forward and hitting you during radical maneuvers. There is enough space in the baggage area for at least two large duffel bags full of clothing, books, etc.
Preflighting the airplane takes less than 10 minutes. There are a couple of Plexi inspection panels underneath each wing where you can look for loose control rod nuts. For creaky 38-year-old me these involve kneeling on the tarmac. Wear bluejeans.
There are no power points for noise-cancelling headsets. There is no cigarette lighter outlet. You plug your headset into sockets just behind the seats and then step on the little metal step to get into the plane, something that can be easily accomplished without stepping on the leather seat.
At 6' tall, 205 lbs., I find the legroom and elbow space just barely adequate. You sit hip-to-hip with your passenger or CFI and if you're both putting on the 4-point harnesses at the same time, someone is going to get stuck in the ribs. Headroom is ample, even with massive Dave Clark headset bands.
Taxiing the Katana in a straight line via differential braking is an acquired skill.
Takeoff
Keep the center-mounted stick neutral, some right rudder in, and rotate smoothly at 51 knots. The Katana really wants to fly. If you're doing soft field takeoffs and hold the stick back all the way, you'll find that you go from rolling on the runway to stalling in the air within the space of an eyeblink. It is probably best to hold the stick no more than halfway back to avoid having to shove it forward in a panic for a reasonable soft field takeoff.
The 80 hp airplane climbs quite nicely from cold New England sea level airports but has a reputation as a dog down in Florida. Floridians also complain of baking underneath the canopy while taxiing out. When it is really cold, i.e., below -10C, Diamond recommends obstructing one of the cooling air inlets with a small metal plate. If you leave this in when the temperature is closer to 0C, climb out becomes very interesting. At maximum power, the engine temperature heads rapidly for the red but won't quite reach the red line. Any oil that you spilled during the preflight oil check starts to burn off and produce a burning smell in the cockpit. Your instructor calls the tower and asks for a precautionary landing. The smell goes away. The engine cools down. You taxi back and take off again. The engine temperature soars. Your 600-hour instructor begins to freak out again. You suddenly recall the existence and presence of that little plate. Not that this has ever happened to me ...
Cruise
When cruising you pull the prop back to between 1900 and 2200 RPM. In most Katanas this results in a substantially quieter ride. In some Katanas this results in a lot of vibration. Test before you buy.
The Rotax engine is water-cooled and therefore has more thermal mass than traditional air-cooled airplane engines. This means that you don't have to worry too much about shock cooling the engine when descending at very low power settings. The carburetor is auto-leaning, which means that you have only two engine controls: throttle and prop.
The Katana has only one fuel tank and a single on-off switch. The cruise checklist is very short: boost pump off, landing light off, power settings reasonable, gauges check, align DG to wet compass. There is no vacuum system so you don't have to worry about instruments flaking out. Everything is electric and very reliable in my experience. The narrow King GPS that was an option in most DA20-A1s has a user interface that is way too complex for in-flight operation. The moving map is monochrome and cryptic. Basically the King GPS is good for two things: (1) bearing and distance to a designated airport, and (2) one-button information about the 5 closest airports in case of a problem in-flight.
Sadly the Katana is not fuel-injected and therefore you really ought to apply carb heat periodically inflight. That's what the books say. However, despite having flown the Katana for 90+ hours in a medium-cold medium-wet Massachusetts winter, I never noticed that the carb heat had any positive effect on the engine. I.e., the Rotax does not seem to be prone to carb ice.
After 2 hours of cruise you'll notice that the fuel tank is more than half full and that your back and neck are starting to hurt. The Katana seat backs have a substantial and fixed recline angle. One's natural tendency is to crane one's head forward a bit to get a closer look at the instruments and the world outside. This is a huge mistake and will result in a stiff neck. Force yourself to lean back in your seat and accept the recline angle. Diamond makes this tough because there are no headrests in the DA20-A1.
Landings
Because it has huge wings (14:1 glide ratio) and no mass (1600 lbs. gross weight), the Katana is highly susceptible to crosswinds. If you can learn to land the Katana in a gusty crosswind, any heavier plane will seem remarkably stable.
The recommended approach speed is 57 knots, well above the 37 knot stall. If you're a sloppy student and come in at 65 knots you'll float an extra 500 feet or more down the runway. Coming in with half flaps to deal with that gusty crosswind? At 65 knots and half flaps, you'll glide an extra 500 feet over the numbers before you know it and then float an extra 500 feet. This is when you'll recall that best glide is 72 kts. and half flaps.
The landing gear on the DA20-A1 are fixed, simple, and strong. Students pound the stuffing out of the planes all day every day and the gear never seems to suffer.
Transport of Dogs
If your dog weighs less than 35 lbs., he can probably fit comfortably in the baggage area. A larger dog wouldn't be comfortable in the baggage area and might not be safe sitting in the right seat, due to the fact that the stick is part of the seat. It is a real shame.
Night Flying
Most of the instrument lighting comes from a couple of little bulbs behind the pilots' heads. The gauges are tough to read at night. If you do fly at night you might want to bring a passenger whose job is to shine a small flashlight on the engine instruments periodically.
The backlit instruments in the DA20s that I've tried are the following: wet compass, radio (includes a bar-graph VOR CDI), and the GPS. Basically I ended up using the GPS as my primary flight instrument due to its superior readability.
Winter Flying
It is difficult to remove snow and ice from a plastic airplane. If you can't get a hangar you'll have to use fabric wing covers during the winter months. This adds about 15 minutes to the already miserable cold and windblown experience of being out on the ramp.
Once in the air, however, the Katana is wonderfully warm and well-sealed. On sunny days the greenhouse effect from the canopy means that you won't even need to use the cabin heat.
Stalls and Spins
The Katana is very well behaved in a stall and can be maneuvered easily right down to its full-flaps stall speed of 37 knots. Even with most of the wing stalled, the ailerons remain functional. This can actually lead to some bad habits if the student moves to an older design or aerobatic plane. Most airplanes require "stepping on the high wing" with rudder.
The DA20-A1 is also spin-certified. Russ Hustead, renowned for his HK36R motorglider instruction (see www.skykingsoaring.com), previously instructed for 400 hours in the DA20. Hustead says "It is a great airplane for teaching spins and learning recovery. The Katana has a very vertical nose-down spin. Sometimes it takes about 1/4 turn to 1/2 turn to stop the rotation with opposite rudder."
The Continental-powered Version
Diamond produced 331 Rotax-powered DA20s in Canada from 1995 through 1998. Since 1998 the North American branch of Diamond has used only air-cooled Continental and Lycoming engines in its planes, not counting HK36 R/T motorgliders. The new DA20-C1s, which are named "Eclipse" and "Evolution" rather than "Katana", are substantially faster than the Rotax-powered DA20. If you fly from a hot high airport, i.e., in high density altitude air, the extra power would certainly be nice. But for most student pilots, power and speed is the last thing that is needed. The faster you fly the faster your small errors turn into big unintentional altitude and heading changes. Flying under the hood at 95 kts isn't so tough; try it at 135 kts in the new improved DA20 and you might find yourself all over the sky.
If you slow a DA20-C1 down to DA20-A1 speeds, the airplane will be comparably quiet inside, despite the Continental engine's lack of a constant speed prop. At maximum speed, however, the C1 will be noisier than a throttled-back A1. Everything else about the interior of the C1 is much plusher than the old A1s and you can get fancier avionics, e.g., Garmin 430 GPS, S-TEC two-axis autopilot. The C1 has 4-point harnesses like the A1 but they're on inertia reels. You can crack the canopy of the C1 for improved comfort when taxiing on hot days. The seat back recline angle on the C1 is less extreme.
Retail prices on the DA20-C1s range between $125,000 (stripped Evolution) and $170,000 (loaded-with-avionics Eclipse). Diamond also makes a version with the flight instruments in front of the right seat. This is the airplane used by the United States Air Force for primary flight training at the Air Force Academy.
The Katana 100 Version
The Katana 100 is a factory retrofit of a DA20-A1 with a brand new 100 hp Rotax 912S. This yields a useful load increase of 44 lbs, to 1654 lbs gross. Conversion also entails improved cooling, various new and improved parts, and a complete mechanical and cosmetic refurbishment. It costs about $30,000 and the airplane comes out looking like new.
One option for the budget-minded owner is the following:
buy a 7-year-old DA20 today for $35,000
fly the plane until the Rotax engine is just about due for its 1200-hour overhaul
fly the plane to London, Ontario for a refit into a Katana 100
enjoy the "like new" plane for a couple more years
take the wing off and send the Katana 100 on a container ship to Europe (the Diamond factory in Ontario can do this for you)
fly around Europe for a few weeks
sell the plane in Europe where demand is probably stronger (Europeans love Rotax-powered airplanes as much as North Americans hate them)
Maintenance
Mechanics at Hanscom Field report that the DA20-A1s are easy to maintain. Unlike a metal airplane they don't have a lot of inspection panels so a 100-hour inspection can be done in as little as one day. The Rotax engine will be unfamiliar to the vast majority of American airplane mechanics. Thus, if you plan to fly around in the boondocks and get oil changes or 100-hour inspections, the Continental-powered DA20 is going to be easier to live with. The Continental will go 2000 hours between overhauls and the Rotax just 1200.
Owners report that they do their own oil changes on the Rotax 912 and that it is easy. Best to change oil every 25 hours to prevent lead fouling, with an oil filter change every 50 hours unless you fly infrequently, in which case the filter should be changed at 25 hours along with the oil.
Factory support for spare parts is apparently very good.
Personal Conclusion
Despite my positive experience as a flight student in the DA20 and its low price and operating cost, I decided not to buy a DA20. Although my main goal is to fly day VFR and see those aspects of the world that aren't visible from the ground, I want the option of flying IFR and flying comfortably at night. More importantly, I want a back seat so that I can bring my dog Alex with me. So I shelled out about 5X the cost of a used DA20 on a brand-new four-seat Diamond DA40.
More
www.diamondair.com
the Aviation Question and Answer Forum on this server.
AVweb article on the Katana
www.trade-a-plane.com (subscription-only; lots of ads for lots of planes)
www.barnstormers.com (Katanas show up on this classified ad site as well; click on "unclassified everything" and search for "Diamond")
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Text and photos (if any) Copyright 2002 Philip Greenspun.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
philg@mit.edu
Reader's Comments
Hello Phil,
A friend and I rented a DA20 for 24 hours in Scottsdale, AZ back in the late 90s. During our one-hour check rides, we found it to be an exceptionally stable and enjoyable airplane to fly, remaining fully controllable with the stick all the way back in my lap in a what passes for a stall in a Katana. When I say we rented it for 24 hours, I mean we had the plane for 24 hours straight for a single flat rate. We only had to purchase our own fuel but could fly for as many hours as we could get in during the 24-hour period.
The simple GPS provided a single line of digital text! We flew from Scottsdale to Albuquerque for a nice brunch, on to Page (KPGA at the edge of the Grand Canyon), then finally landing in Flagstaff at sunset (this was a day-VFR version). We had to climb the airport fence the next morning in order to get out at sunrise and have the plane back to Scottsdale in time to meet our 24-hour deadline. I think we paid $200!
It was the trip of a lifetime, and these many years later I am shopping for a Katana.
Thanks again for your very informative web page.
Mike Stiteler
P.S. I was surprised to find the differential braking fairly easy to master.
-- Mike Stiteler, December 5, 2008
Add a comment | Add a link
2002 Diamond star DA40
2002 Diamond Star DA40
reviewed by Philip Greenspun, ATP, CFI, and former owner, in August 2002, updated August 2006
Site Home : Flying : One Article
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Diamond's DA40 is a low-wing 4-seat composite airplane that is suitable for everything from primary flight training to personal transportation through hard IFR conditions. The airplane can cruise as fast as 140 knots on 9 gallons per hour of fuel through its 4-cylinder 180hp fuel-injected Lycoming engine. The DA40 sells for between $206,000 (conventional instruments, basic Garmin avionics, no autopilot) and $280,000 (Garmin G1000 glass cockpit, autopilot, satellite weather, most of the rest of the options).
The things that distinguish the DA40 from its competitors such as the Cirrus SR20 and the Cessna 172/182 are the following:
exceptional visibility through Plexiglas canopies
higher airspeeds and efficiencies than the Cessnas
lower stall speeds and easier handling than the Cirrus
all-electric instruments
center-mounted stick
cavernous rear canopy for loading bulky cargo into back seats
This review is based on the personal ownership experience of the author, who took delivery in April 2002 of the second DA40 built in Diamond's London, Ontario factory. In its first year the author took the DA40 from Boston to the west coast of Alaska (Nome, Kotzebue), down to the tip of Baja Mexico, back to Boston, then down to Florida and 2/3rds of the way through the Caribbean islands before returning to Boston once again. The author subsequently flew the DA40 to Labrador and Newfoundland and out to Oshkosh, San Francisco, and back to Boston. After three years and 740 Hobbs hours, the plane was traded in.
Safety
During its 20 years of operation Diamond has amassed a superb safety record. As of January 2005, with hundreds of airplanes in the fleet, there has been only one fatal DA40 crash, which apparently involved a botched instrument approach in extremely poor conditions.
Occupants of Diamond-built aircraft have survived terribly violent crashes and mid-air collisions with remarkably light injuries. Diamond has never been sued for a product defect. The April 2001 issue of AviationConsumer.com carries an article titled "The Safest Trainer" (Jane Garvey and Paul Bertorelli) that gives top marks to the Diamond DA20 (shared with the Cessna 172). No Diamond airplane has ever caught fire after an accident.
Safety in the DA40 begins with the superb visibility afforded by the wrap-around canopy and low panel. The long narrow wing is just behind the pilot and therefore you can see up, left, right, and down and sideways. The one blind spot is down and straight ahead, where your view is blocked by the panel and cowling.
Safety continues with extremely forgiving handling. Stalls are gentle with virtually no tendency for a wing to drop. Although the DA40 is not currently spin-certified it has been spin tested and can be recovered from a spin via a standard opposite rudder procedure. A non-factory pilot who intentionally (and illegally) spun a DA40 reported that it "spun gently" and was "not as much fun as spinning a DA20-C1" (the DA20s are spin-approved).
Either of the DA40's wing spars can carry the full load of the wings, thus leading to the FAA certifying the composite airframe with no life limit. Composite materials are not subject to metal fatigue and therefore a mid-air break-up seems virtually impossible.
Suppose that, like the unfortunate pilots of a DA20 involved in NTSB accident ATL98LA006, you find yourself misunderstanding ATC and wandering into the wake of a MD-80 jet, resulting in being flipped over then smashed down onto the pavement from 200' AGL? You too may walk out of the hospital a few days later thanks to the DA40's massively overbuilt cockpit.
One fly in the safety ointment is that the DA40 has 3-point harnesses. The lap belt portion is manually adjusted so that turbulence can't bump your head against the canopy. The shoulder belt portion is on an inertia reel for comfort. The harnesses are very comfortable and convenient but give the rigidity of the airframe it would be nice to decelerate against two shoulder straps rather than one. It would be even nicer to see Diamond install the airbag seat belts from www.amsafe.com.
Preflight
Passenger and baggage capacity with the 40-gallon fuel tanks full is about 600 pounds (the optional tanks hold 50 gallons). Baggage is stored on a shelf behind the two rear seats, which fold forward in case you want to carry very bulky cargo such as a bicycle. A Velcro cover opens up a "ski tube" in the tail for carrying long lightweight cargo.
Preflighting the airplane takes less than 10 minutes. If it is cold you probably want to plug in the Tanis engine preheater.
The DA40 interior is spacious and cramped at the same time. Getting in and out is easy with no need to step on the seats. Rear seat passengers have their own gullwing door, which is very handy for dogs. Once the rear seat passengers are in place, they have an awesome amount of space and plenty of legroom even for a 6'-tall person. Like the front seats, the rear seats are equipped with car-style 3-point inertia-reel seatbelts. The view from the rear seat is an amazing 180-degree panorama out the teardrop . One could be happy riding in the back seat all day.
What's the cramped part? Sadly it is the pilot's seat. The composite seats are part of the airframe, which makes them fantastically strong but prevents them from sliding forward and back. Rather the pedals are adjustable. That's fine except that 6' pilots can't get a good leg stretch even with the pedals pushed back all the way. A 6'2" height limit is probably sensible for long flights. Note that the Austrian-built 2001 DA40s had an instrument panel that came down to touch the tops of one's thighs; the 2002 and later DA40s are built in Canada with a redesigned panel that affords greater thigh clearance.
Taxiing the DA40 in a straight line via differential braking is remarkably easy, much easier than in some other planes of similar design.
Takeoff
The DA40's big wings translate into short takeoff rolls and excellent climb rates. Rotation speed is about 59 knots. At sea level one is usually aloft at the 500' mark; at 9000' density altitude and nearly gross weight we watched 3500' of runway roll underneath before the mains lifted.
The standard DA40 with 40-gallon fuel tanks does not have the world's largest rudder so expect to be stomping pretty hard on the right rudder pedal. The 50-gallon model needed a larger rudder to pass spin certification and therefore might not need quite as heavy a foot.
If you have the three-blade MT Prop, you are required by the POH to pull the prop back to 2400 RPM as soon as practical, typically at 500' AGL when the flaps are retracted or at 1000' AGL. The limitation of 2400 RPM continuous relates to European noise certification and not to safety. You can safely run the engine/prop at 2700 RPM and the POH encourages you to do just this in an inadvertent icing encounter. Most of the DA40s being delivered in the U.S. have the two-blade metal Hartzell prop. If you look at the supplements in the very back of your P.O.H., you'll discover that the STC for the Hartzell prop removes the 2400 RPM limitation. The Hartzell prop can legally be run continuously at 2700 RPM, though I don't recommend this unless you have a high tolerance for noise or are trying to climb out of 12,000' on a hot day.
En-route Comfort
I started flying because I like looking at the ground from the air. In the DA40 the wing is behind you so that you can see the ground almost as well as in a high-wing airplane. The view is breathtaking, even for people who've spent a lot of time in Cessnas and other small planes. That takes care of the joy part.
Whether or not you have a physically comfortable flight in the DA40 will depend primarily on two factors: turbulence and outside air temperature. The DA40 has relatively large wings for its weight, i.e., its wing loading is light. Aircraft with heavier wing loading will be less affected by turbulence. The DA40 is very stable in smooth air and a pleasure to fly on instruments but it becomes a handful to manage on a bumpy summer afternoon. Why not design the plane with smaller wings, like a Mooney or a Cirrus? Planes with heavy wing loading are unforgiving at low airspeeds.
A paper airplane is a good illustration of the pluses and minuses of light wing loading. It has small wings but the total weight is that of one sheet of paper, thus resulting in a wing loading much lighter than any general aviation airplane. The paper airplane may be stable when flown indoors but the smallest gust of wind can pick up that paper airplane outdoors. Trying to push a paper airplane through turbulence to land on a specific spot would be impossible. On the other hand, the paper airplane can fly at very low airspeeds. It would be very unusual to have a stall/spin accident in a paper airplane.
The light wing loading of the DA40 makes it an excellent primary trainer. The airplane is extremely forgiving at low airspeeds; the DA40 may take care of you even if you don't take care of yourself. I flew with Michael Feinig, general manager of Diamond's Austrian operation. He had me close the throttle, take my hands off the stick, and pull my feet back from the rudder pedals. Then Feinig trimmed the airplane all the way back, full nose up. We mushed down at 500-700 fpm for several minutes. The DA40 rocked a bit but never dropped a wing or threatened to spin, despite the fact that we never touched the rudder.
The downside of light wing loading is most apparent when you're flying instruments in turbulent conditions, for example when training under the hood on a summer afternoon when the sun beating down on fields and parking lots generates convection. Tom Wardleigh, my 77-year-old CFII, would say "The PTS standards are minimums; tell yourself that the width of the needle is all the tolerance that you need." A small updraft, however, can lift the DA40 100 feet within a few seconds. You need a rapid scan and constant attitude adjustments to stay on course and at altitude. Holding forward pressure on both rudder pedals cuts down on the tail wagging back and forth to some extent.
Instrument training on a summer afternoon brings us to the second major factor determining en-route comfort in a DA40: outside air temperature. Like other airplanes with great visibility you pay a price in terms of great heat gain. The later DA40s have tinted windows and probably aren't as hot as mine was but on a sunny day you'll want to either open the front vents (effective but noisy) or climb to 7000' where true airspeed picks up to 135 or 140 knots on less than 10 gallons per hour with the mixture set 75 degrees rich of peak.
En-route Navigation (Garmin)
The Garmin GNS 530/430 combination is complex enough that it deserved a separate review, available from http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/garmin-gps. Briefly, however, each Garmin is a combined communications radio, VOR/ILS receiver, and moving-map GPS. The installation is IFR-certified and therefore you can fly GPS approaches in a DA40. The Garmins have very readable displays, excellent capabilities for VOR navigation (GNS 530 only), and a useful moving map that shows the airplane's position relative to airports, roads, bodies of water, and cities. The Garmins do not display any information regarding terrain height or obstacles, however, which means that you must carry sectional charts. The Garmins cannot display federal airways, which means that you must carry en-route charts for IFR flight. The Garmins provide some horizontal guidance during instrument approaches but do not provide any hints as to approved altitudes during various phases of the approach, which means that you must carry a complete and current set of approach plates for your region.
Rather than having soft keys, Garmin's user interface relies heavily on the pilot taking his or her eyes away from the task of flying the airplane to use knobs to position a cursor on the screen. Once the pilot has verified that the cursor is over the desired choice, the pilot is expected to press the Enter key. What would be a single glance and button push on a soft key-equipped system such as the Apollo CNX 80/MX20 or Avidyne becomes on the Garmin a task more akin to moving the mouse around the screen of a personal computer and selecting an option from a pull-down menu.
The engine instruments
My old DA40 came with a Vision Microsystems VM1000 LCD engine monitor, which has been replaced in G1000-equipped airplanes with something built into the Garmins flat-panel displays.
For folks who are considering buying a used DA40, the VM1000 is a large flat panel that displays the following information:
manifold pressure and RPM
cylinder-head and exhaust gas temps for each of the 4 cylinders
fuel pressure
fuel burn rate
oil pressure and temperature
electrical system voltage and current draw
Although the screen is large it is a low-resolution segmented LCD display, not a high-res matrix of pixels like a laptop LCD. This means that the analog displays are very crude and you need to refer to the numbers, which are distractingly precise. For example, if you're trying to set the prop speed to 2200 you'll have a subconscious moment of indecision: is "2190 close enough to 2200 that I can take my hand off the prop lever?"
Pulling the tach time out of the Vision Microsystems display is something most mechanics won't know how to do. You turn on the master switch but don't start the engine, the VM1000 first goes through a few seconds of self-test in which all the segments are lit and then the field labeled "RPM" shows the tach time.
We did appreciate the VM1000's individual temperature readouts when the engine was running rough on climb-out one evening from Bar Harbor, Maine. The bar graphs showed that cylinder 3 was cooler than the other cylinders but its exhaust gas was hotter. We conjectured that one of the spark plugs in that cylinder wasn't firing, leading to less combustion in the cylinder (lower CHT) and delayed combustion as the air-fuel mixture was leaving the exhaust valve (higher EGT). As we circled the field we confirmed this hypothesis by running the engine on just the left mag (smoother and the VM1000 bar graphs evened out) and the right mag (rougher and the VM1000 bar graphs showed cylinder 3 further out of line with the others). We aborted our planned return to Boston, grounded ourselves in the local Holiday Inn, and the next morning a mechanic at Acadia Air found a bad plug in cylinder number 3, just as the VM1000 was suggesting.
Fuel Totalizer
The LCD fuel gauges in a DA40 are flashy analog/digital affairs, one for each side. When the tanks are full, the gauges read 17 gallons although each tank in fact holds 20 gallons of usable fuel. As you start to burn below 17 gallons the gauges come alive. Compared to the float gauges in old-style planes like Cessnas the gauges are remarkably consistent and stable. Once you've burned down below 3 gallons in a tank, the gauge reads "Lo". There is also a "low fuel" caution light on the annunciator panel. Generally the gauges on my plane were accurate to within 1 gallon, i.e., if they say that the plane has 20 gallons remaining the plane will take a top-off of 20 or 21 gallons.
Experienced pilots know never to trust fuel gauges. What they want is a fuel totalizer. The VM1000 incorporates one. If you read the manual you can learn the unlabeled button functions necessary to tell the VM1000 "this airplane has a 40-gallon gas tank" and "I just filled up the gas tank". From there the VM1000 uses its fuel flow meter to calculate how much fuel is remaining. In my airplane this number was consistently off by about 5 percent but in a safe direction: the VM1000 would show 0 gallons remaining when the plane was still capable of running for 20 minutes.
KAP-140 Autopilot
"In the complex world of instrument flight, an autopilot is almost a requirement; some day they will probably be standard on all except pure sport airplanes; they are certainly very desirable, as they turn a busy hand-flying task into a relaxed experience where the pilot is well in command of the situation and always ahead of the airplane. The lower a pilot's experience level, the more an autopilot becomes a serious need, or, of course, a good copilot." ...
"A copilot during serious instrument flight is a necessity - not required by regulation, but without a doubt, flying instruments without a copilot is a very tough job. I've flown small aircraft in serious weather, on instruments, alone and it's much more difficult than flying a 747 with a crew."
-- Robert N. Buck, retired TWA captain, Weather Flying, pages 91 and 102
reviewed by Philip Greenspun, ATP, CFI, and former owner, in August 2002, updated August 2006
Site Home : Flying : One Article
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Diamond's DA40 is a low-wing 4-seat composite airplane that is suitable for everything from primary flight training to personal transportation through hard IFR conditions. The airplane can cruise as fast as 140 knots on 9 gallons per hour of fuel through its 4-cylinder 180hp fuel-injected Lycoming engine. The DA40 sells for between $206,000 (conventional instruments, basic Garmin avionics, no autopilot) and $280,000 (Garmin G1000 glass cockpit, autopilot, satellite weather, most of the rest of the options).
The things that distinguish the DA40 from its competitors such as the Cirrus SR20 and the Cessna 172/182 are the following:
exceptional visibility through Plexiglas canopies
higher airspeeds and efficiencies than the Cessnas
lower stall speeds and easier handling than the Cirrus
all-electric instruments
center-mounted stick
cavernous rear canopy for loading bulky cargo into back seats
This review is based on the personal ownership experience of the author, who took delivery in April 2002 of the second DA40 built in Diamond's London, Ontario factory. In its first year the author took the DA40 from Boston to the west coast of Alaska (Nome, Kotzebue), down to the tip of Baja Mexico, back to Boston, then down to Florida and 2/3rds of the way through the Caribbean islands before returning to Boston once again. The author subsequently flew the DA40 to Labrador and Newfoundland and out to Oshkosh, San Francisco, and back to Boston. After three years and 740 Hobbs hours, the plane was traded in.
Safety
During its 20 years of operation Diamond has amassed a superb safety record. As of January 2005, with hundreds of airplanes in the fleet, there has been only one fatal DA40 crash, which apparently involved a botched instrument approach in extremely poor conditions.
Occupants of Diamond-built aircraft have survived terribly violent crashes and mid-air collisions with remarkably light injuries. Diamond has never been sued for a product defect. The April 2001 issue of AviationConsumer.com carries an article titled "The Safest Trainer" (Jane Garvey and Paul Bertorelli) that gives top marks to the Diamond DA20 (shared with the Cessna 172). No Diamond airplane has ever caught fire after an accident.
Safety in the DA40 begins with the superb visibility afforded by the wrap-around canopy and low panel. The long narrow wing is just behind the pilot and therefore you can see up, left, right, and down and sideways. The one blind spot is down and straight ahead, where your view is blocked by the panel and cowling.
Safety continues with extremely forgiving handling. Stalls are gentle with virtually no tendency for a wing to drop. Although the DA40 is not currently spin-certified it has been spin tested and can be recovered from a spin via a standard opposite rudder procedure. A non-factory pilot who intentionally (and illegally) spun a DA40 reported that it "spun gently" and was "not as much fun as spinning a DA20-C1" (the DA20s are spin-approved).
Either of the DA40's wing spars can carry the full load of the wings, thus leading to the FAA certifying the composite airframe with no life limit. Composite materials are not subject to metal fatigue and therefore a mid-air break-up seems virtually impossible.
Suppose that, like the unfortunate pilots of a DA20 involved in NTSB accident ATL98LA006, you find yourself misunderstanding ATC and wandering into the wake of a MD-80 jet, resulting in being flipped over then smashed down onto the pavement from 200' AGL? You too may walk out of the hospital a few days later thanks to the DA40's massively overbuilt cockpit.
One fly in the safety ointment is that the DA40 has 3-point harnesses. The lap belt portion is manually adjusted so that turbulence can't bump your head against the canopy. The shoulder belt portion is on an inertia reel for comfort. The harnesses are very comfortable and convenient but give the rigidity of the airframe it would be nice to decelerate against two shoulder straps rather than one. It would be even nicer to see Diamond install the airbag seat belts from www.amsafe.com.
Preflight
Passenger and baggage capacity with the 40-gallon fuel tanks full is about 600 pounds (the optional tanks hold 50 gallons). Baggage is stored on a shelf behind the two rear seats, which fold forward in case you want to carry very bulky cargo such as a bicycle. A Velcro cover opens up a "ski tube" in the tail for carrying long lightweight cargo.
Preflighting the airplane takes less than 10 minutes. If it is cold you probably want to plug in the Tanis engine preheater.
The DA40 interior is spacious and cramped at the same time. Getting in and out is easy with no need to step on the seats. Rear seat passengers have their own gullwing door, which is very handy for dogs. Once the rear seat passengers are in place, they have an awesome amount of space and plenty of legroom even for a 6'-tall person. Like the front seats, the rear seats are equipped with car-style 3-point inertia-reel seatbelts. The view from the rear seat is an amazing 180-degree panorama out the teardrop . One could be happy riding in the back seat all day.
What's the cramped part? Sadly it is the pilot's seat. The composite seats are part of the airframe, which makes them fantastically strong but prevents them from sliding forward and back. Rather the pedals are adjustable. That's fine except that 6' pilots can't get a good leg stretch even with the pedals pushed back all the way. A 6'2" height limit is probably sensible for long flights. Note that the Austrian-built 2001 DA40s had an instrument panel that came down to touch the tops of one's thighs; the 2002 and later DA40s are built in Canada with a redesigned panel that affords greater thigh clearance.
Taxiing the DA40 in a straight line via differential braking is remarkably easy, much easier than in some other planes of similar design.
Takeoff
The DA40's big wings translate into short takeoff rolls and excellent climb rates. Rotation speed is about 59 knots. At sea level one is usually aloft at the 500' mark; at 9000' density altitude and nearly gross weight we watched 3500' of runway roll underneath before the mains lifted.
The standard DA40 with 40-gallon fuel tanks does not have the world's largest rudder so expect to be stomping pretty hard on the right rudder pedal. The 50-gallon model needed a larger rudder to pass spin certification and therefore might not need quite as heavy a foot.
If you have the three-blade MT Prop, you are required by the POH to pull the prop back to 2400 RPM as soon as practical, typically at 500' AGL when the flaps are retracted or at 1000' AGL. The limitation of 2400 RPM continuous relates to European noise certification and not to safety. You can safely run the engine/prop at 2700 RPM and the POH encourages you to do just this in an inadvertent icing encounter. Most of the DA40s being delivered in the U.S. have the two-blade metal Hartzell prop. If you look at the supplements in the very back of your P.O.H., you'll discover that the STC for the Hartzell prop removes the 2400 RPM limitation. The Hartzell prop can legally be run continuously at 2700 RPM, though I don't recommend this unless you have a high tolerance for noise or are trying to climb out of 12,000' on a hot day.
En-route Comfort
I started flying because I like looking at the ground from the air. In the DA40 the wing is behind you so that you can see the ground almost as well as in a high-wing airplane. The view is breathtaking, even for people who've spent a lot of time in Cessnas and other small planes. That takes care of the joy part.
Whether or not you have a physically comfortable flight in the DA40 will depend primarily on two factors: turbulence and outside air temperature. The DA40 has relatively large wings for its weight, i.e., its wing loading is light. Aircraft with heavier wing loading will be less affected by turbulence. The DA40 is very stable in smooth air and a pleasure to fly on instruments but it becomes a handful to manage on a bumpy summer afternoon. Why not design the plane with smaller wings, like a Mooney or a Cirrus? Planes with heavy wing loading are unforgiving at low airspeeds.
A paper airplane is a good illustration of the pluses and minuses of light wing loading. It has small wings but the total weight is that of one sheet of paper, thus resulting in a wing loading much lighter than any general aviation airplane. The paper airplane may be stable when flown indoors but the smallest gust of wind can pick up that paper airplane outdoors. Trying to push a paper airplane through turbulence to land on a specific spot would be impossible. On the other hand, the paper airplane can fly at very low airspeeds. It would be very unusual to have a stall/spin accident in a paper airplane.
The light wing loading of the DA40 makes it an excellent primary trainer. The airplane is extremely forgiving at low airspeeds; the DA40 may take care of you even if you don't take care of yourself. I flew with Michael Feinig, general manager of Diamond's Austrian operation. He had me close the throttle, take my hands off the stick, and pull my feet back from the rudder pedals. Then Feinig trimmed the airplane all the way back, full nose up. We mushed down at 500-700 fpm for several minutes. The DA40 rocked a bit but never dropped a wing or threatened to spin, despite the fact that we never touched the rudder.
The downside of light wing loading is most apparent when you're flying instruments in turbulent conditions, for example when training under the hood on a summer afternoon when the sun beating down on fields and parking lots generates convection. Tom Wardleigh, my 77-year-old CFII, would say "The PTS standards are minimums; tell yourself that the width of the needle is all the tolerance that you need." A small updraft, however, can lift the DA40 100 feet within a few seconds. You need a rapid scan and constant attitude adjustments to stay on course and at altitude. Holding forward pressure on both rudder pedals cuts down on the tail wagging back and forth to some extent.
Instrument training on a summer afternoon brings us to the second major factor determining en-route comfort in a DA40: outside air temperature. Like other airplanes with great visibility you pay a price in terms of great heat gain. The later DA40s have tinted windows and probably aren't as hot as mine was but on a sunny day you'll want to either open the front vents (effective but noisy) or climb to 7000' where true airspeed picks up to 135 or 140 knots on less than 10 gallons per hour with the mixture set 75 degrees rich of peak.
En-route Navigation (Garmin)
The Garmin GNS 530/430 combination is complex enough that it deserved a separate review, available from http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/garmin-gps. Briefly, however, each Garmin is a combined communications radio, VOR/ILS receiver, and moving-map GPS. The installation is IFR-certified and therefore you can fly GPS approaches in a DA40. The Garmins have very readable displays, excellent capabilities for VOR navigation (GNS 530 only), and a useful moving map that shows the airplane's position relative to airports, roads, bodies of water, and cities. The Garmins do not display any information regarding terrain height or obstacles, however, which means that you must carry sectional charts. The Garmins cannot display federal airways, which means that you must carry en-route charts for IFR flight. The Garmins provide some horizontal guidance during instrument approaches but do not provide any hints as to approved altitudes during various phases of the approach, which means that you must carry a complete and current set of approach plates for your region.
Rather than having soft keys, Garmin's user interface relies heavily on the pilot taking his or her eyes away from the task of flying the airplane to use knobs to position a cursor on the screen. Once the pilot has verified that the cursor is over the desired choice, the pilot is expected to press the Enter key. What would be a single glance and button push on a soft key-equipped system such as the Apollo CNX 80/MX20 or Avidyne becomes on the Garmin a task more akin to moving the mouse around the screen of a personal computer and selecting an option from a pull-down menu.
The engine instruments
My old DA40 came with a Vision Microsystems VM1000 LCD engine monitor, which has been replaced in G1000-equipped airplanes with something built into the Garmins flat-panel displays.
For folks who are considering buying a used DA40, the VM1000 is a large flat panel that displays the following information:
manifold pressure and RPM
cylinder-head and exhaust gas temps for each of the 4 cylinders
fuel pressure
fuel burn rate
oil pressure and temperature
electrical system voltage and current draw
Although the screen is large it is a low-resolution segmented LCD display, not a high-res matrix of pixels like a laptop LCD. This means that the analog displays are very crude and you need to refer to the numbers, which are distractingly precise. For example, if you're trying to set the prop speed to 2200 you'll have a subconscious moment of indecision: is "2190 close enough to 2200 that I can take my hand off the prop lever?"
Pulling the tach time out of the Vision Microsystems display is something most mechanics won't know how to do. You turn on the master switch but don't start the engine, the VM1000 first goes through a few seconds of self-test in which all the segments are lit and then the field labeled "RPM" shows the tach time.
We did appreciate the VM1000's individual temperature readouts when the engine was running rough on climb-out one evening from Bar Harbor, Maine. The bar graphs showed that cylinder 3 was cooler than the other cylinders but its exhaust gas was hotter. We conjectured that one of the spark plugs in that cylinder wasn't firing, leading to less combustion in the cylinder (lower CHT) and delayed combustion as the air-fuel mixture was leaving the exhaust valve (higher EGT). As we circled the field we confirmed this hypothesis by running the engine on just the left mag (smoother and the VM1000 bar graphs evened out) and the right mag (rougher and the VM1000 bar graphs showed cylinder 3 further out of line with the others). We aborted our planned return to Boston, grounded ourselves in the local Holiday Inn, and the next morning a mechanic at Acadia Air found a bad plug in cylinder number 3, just as the VM1000 was suggesting.
Fuel Totalizer
The LCD fuel gauges in a DA40 are flashy analog/digital affairs, one for each side. When the tanks are full, the gauges read 17 gallons although each tank in fact holds 20 gallons of usable fuel. As you start to burn below 17 gallons the gauges come alive. Compared to the float gauges in old-style planes like Cessnas the gauges are remarkably consistent and stable. Once you've burned down below 3 gallons in a tank, the gauge reads "Lo". There is also a "low fuel" caution light on the annunciator panel. Generally the gauges on my plane were accurate to within 1 gallon, i.e., if they say that the plane has 20 gallons remaining the plane will take a top-off of 20 or 21 gallons.
Experienced pilots know never to trust fuel gauges. What they want is a fuel totalizer. The VM1000 incorporates one. If you read the manual you can learn the unlabeled button functions necessary to tell the VM1000 "this airplane has a 40-gallon gas tank" and "I just filled up the gas tank". From there the VM1000 uses its fuel flow meter to calculate how much fuel is remaining. In my airplane this number was consistently off by about 5 percent but in a safe direction: the VM1000 would show 0 gallons remaining when the plane was still capable of running for 20 minutes.
KAP-140 Autopilot
"In the complex world of instrument flight, an autopilot is almost a requirement; some day they will probably be standard on all except pure sport airplanes; they are certainly very desirable, as they turn a busy hand-flying task into a relaxed experience where the pilot is well in command of the situation and always ahead of the airplane. The lower a pilot's experience level, the more an autopilot becomes a serious need, or, of course, a good copilot." ...
"A copilot during serious instrument flight is a necessity - not required by regulation, but without a doubt, flying instruments without a copilot is a very tough job. I've flown small aircraft in serious weather, on instruments, alone and it's much more difficult than flying a 747 with a crew."
-- Robert N. Buck, retired TWA captain, Weather Flying, pages 91 and 102
flying
Flying
by Philip Greenspun
Site Home : Flying
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
introductions
Learning to fly
General Aviation Safety -- are those little planes as dangerous as they look?
Soaring -- flying silently
Helicopters -- flying without moving (helicopter training here in Boston)
Airline Career Advice
flying helicopters
Helicopter Part 141 Syllabus and Lesson Plans, what we use for helicopter training at East Coast Aero Club
miscellaneous lesson plans: simulated solo
Preparing a helicopter landing zone
Helicopter passenger safety card
PTS summary sheets: Private | Instrument | Commercial | CFI | CFII | ATP
for instructors: in-flight teaching; teaching hovering
renting helicopters
Helicopter Tours of Boston
R44 Transition Training
R44 Time-building
Boston Helicopter Charter (custom itineraries and destinations)
Boston Aerial Photography (folks who just want the picture)
information for renters at East Coast Aero Club: N211SH (R22)
buying helicopters
Robinson R22
Robinson R44
Robinson R66 (jet-powered)
trip guides
Flying to Alaska
Flying to Baja
Flying the Caribbean
Flying around Boston
airplane tutorials
Airplane Private Pilot Syllabus and Lesson Plans
Instrument flying
Multi-Engine Training (abbreviated lesson plans)
Piston Engine Management
Garmin G1000 Training (for renters at East Coast Aero Club)
Garmin G1000 Checkride (for renters at East Coast Aero Club)
boring practical stuff
Cleaning Airplane Windows
Buying a new plane (general strategy)
airplane reviews
Cessna Mustang review
Very Light Jets (Eclipse, Embraer, Cessna, Cirrus, Diamond, Honda, et al., compared)
Cirrus SR20 review
Diamond Star DA-40 review
Diamond Katana DA20-A1 review
Buying a 4-seat modern airplane, includes a section on the future of small airplane design
other hardware
Avidyne versus Garmin G1000
Review of the Garmin GNS 530/430 Nav/Com/GPS
Shopping for headsets, folding bikes, watches and other little items
philip the pilot
Personal Flying Milestones (summary of my flight experience)
Fantasy Fleet (aircraft that I would buy given sufficient money and time)
for charity auctions: airplane rides | helicopter rides
a new jet charter company based at Hanscom Field
aviation expert witness
improving the system
Runway Incursions
Ground Monitoring, using telecomm to add a ground-based copilot
miscellaneous
Aviation for Early Retirees
Flight Level 005 Prize for young aviators
Aviation question and answer forum
Videos
Why I Fly
I like to look at the Earth and Nature from different perspectives. Flying in a light plane 2000 or 3000 feet above the ground is a totally different experience from being in a commercial jet where the pilots shoot straight up into Class A airspace (18,000 feet and above) as quickly as possible. Once I learn enough to get safely from Point A to Point B, I plan to take a lot of aerial photos.
Flying is also fun and challenging. You have to think and act in three dimensions. You have the freedom to move to a lot of new spots on the globe. You learn to examine and appreciate scenery and natural phenomena that you'd never be able or wouldn't bother to see from the ground. Charles Lindbergh put it best: "Science, freedom, beauty, adventure."
Sadly Lindbergh was, in addition to being a great aviator, a supporter of the Nazis. In October 1938 he accepted the Service Cross of the German Eagle from Hermann Goering. On September 11, 1941, Lindbergh noted in a speech that "[The Jews'] greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government."
Resources
Training
Webexams (log in as guest and practice taking the FAA written test)
Flight Planning
NOAA Aviation Weather (aviationweather.gov)
Twilight calculator
Unisys weather (no pop-up or pop-under ads!)
SkyVector.com; fast and high resolution sectional chart browser; also digital versions of terminal area and helicopter route charts
aeroplanner.com, the free plan includes access to puny online versions of sectional charts (very poor quality compared to SkyVector)
fltplan.com, good database of airport information in addition to flight planning tools
airnav.com, cleanly presented airport information as well as fuel prices; links to IFR approach plates
New England
Atlantic Flyer
Wings Pilot Shop at the Nashua airport (KASH), a dog-friendly destination
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Text and photos Copyright 1993-2008 Philip Greenspun. Top photo from Travels with Samantha Chapter XII.
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philg@mit.edu
Reader's Comments
Even if the end goal is soaring, you might want to try this some time. I think it's the ultimate flying experience you can get as a civilian. I didn't try it (still saving the money... who knows maybe in a couple years I can afford it) but Ken Thompson did (a couple years ago, with another company it seems): see his story.
-- Petru Paler, January 5, 2002
Happy to hear of your new interest, Phil. I have flown for the fun of it almost as long as I have taken pictures for the same reason. Combining the two can be a real treat, and I almost always take a camera with me when flying to some exotic place 50 miles away... Funny how using an airplane to get there makes it move up the exotic scale... :)
A note of caution -- even high timers like to take somebody along (pilot or non pilot) to yell if something goes wrong while taking pictures. As my flight instructor from 22 years ago told me -- the pilots primary duty is to "fly the airplane". Everything else is a lower priority.
A really cool thing you can do, after you solo and begin the cross-country phase of your training, would be to take pictures of every airport you land at. Conditions permitting (gusty crosswinds probably won't permit) a snap through the windscreen on final approach, and once on the ground, a picture of the tower/terminal/hangars/line shack/whatever would make great keepsakes for you. Have the person who signs your logbook also take a snap of you by the airplane, possibly with some local feature in the background. I have pictures in my archives of once famous aiports I've landed at that aren't there anymore.
Definitely have handy a decent point&shoot loaded with a fresh roll of NPH to give to somebody who can take reasonable pix during and after your first solo. (Which will probably come when you don't expect it.)
Other tips: One or even two UV filters (never without -- Plexiglass passes all UV, and there is a lot once you get above the haze layer!), don't touch the camera to the windows (vibration), fill flash or the cabin will be way dark (it's always bright upstairs), and a wide to normal zoom (24-50 or somesuch).
A word about shooting through the propeller arc -- a prop at 2400 rpm will cover 360 degrees in 1/40 second, thus faster exposures will show one of the blades as an arc: 1/125=120 deg, 1/250=60 deg, 1/500=30 deg -- wait! You're an engineer too. You can do the math!
Also, consider the weight of the camera -- a 2lb projectile can be dangerous during turbulence (not to mention a medium format camera with a big 50mm lens!) Come up with a secure place to stash the camera, or a means of tying it down when not in use. Loose, it's a serious liability and in bumpy air, you won't have time to grab for it as it floats toward your head at high speed! I speak from experience and have the lump on my head to prove it! (Nikon F2-MD, Tokina 2.8/28-80. Ouch.)
And if you ever get the idea to open the window of a Cessna, just make sure the camera strap is secure and around your neck or shoulder...
I imagine though, that most of the precious time you are flying, your instructor will want you to concentrate on the PRIMARY task: Flying the airplane. And rightly so.
A final word. Airshows.
Happy Landings and looking forward to your photo.net Flying Presentation.
Image: Propeller.jpg
-- Joe Shupienis, January 7, 2002
Seattle Space Needle
After you finish your instrument rating, you may find your VFR skills have deteriorated because the instrument flying gets you accustomed to being led through the system to the end of the runway. (This happens to a lot of folks, often during the first few forays into an uncontrolled field.) If you have enough hours, you might consider adding the commercial rating. It's functionally useless -- you're severely limited on things you can do "for hire" -- but it does present an opportunity for working towards tighter tolerances and becoming smoother in your control.
Another fairly "useless," but amazingly fun thing is the seaplane (technically: Airplane Single-Engine Sea) add-on rating. You can do this in a long weekend, weather permitting, and it will do wonders for your soft-field technique. It will be the only time you'll get 20-30 landings an hour and not seriously bend anything ;-)
I would be curious on comments on the King test preparation. I thought their subject videos (e.g., Stalls and Spins) and the practical test prep were very well done. The Instrument practical prep was done with J.C. Boylles, a DPE and master CFI, and walked you through the entire test from planning to maneuvers.
Jim Carson http://cleanliving.com/flying/
-- Jim Carson, May 2, 2002
Add a comment
Related Links
FAA Registry Database- self-explanatory... (contributed by Gen Kanai)
Aircraft for Sale on GlobalPlaneSearch.com- Aircraft ad search-engine, enabling you to search from over 30,000 aircraft for sale, lease or charter, on many quality sites from around the world. (contributed by Clint Walton)
Van's Air Force - World Wide Wing- THE must-see site if you are interested in Van's Aircraft, Inc.'s line of RV kitplanes. Daily news, contact info for builders around you, tons of photographs. (contributed by Doug Reeves)
Ozark Airfield Artworks- Ozark Airfield Artworks is an aviation oriented art dealer. We have hundreds of prints of all different types of planes. (contributed by Derek Nees)
Worldwide Helicopter Links- Your webportal to the civilian helicopter industry. Hundreds of useful helicopter links on one page. (contributed by Roger Brul)
Runway Finder- A mash-up of Google maps, aviation charts, and the METARs. A great place for a quick check of the surrounding fields' weather to see if you can stay VFR. (contributed by Colin Summers)
Dan Checkoway's Weather Pages- Textual weather, but very nicely formatted and centered around your home airport. It does routes and TAFs, too. (contributed by Colin Summers)
FAA Safety Program Web site- Your place to register to receive notification of FAA aviation safety education seminars being held in your area, take online training courses and much more. (contributed by Joseph Foresto)
Avnac - Aviation's video rental store- Rent aviation DVDs online; training for Sport pilots up to ATP, glass panels, GPS, IFR proficiency, A&P Mechanics, homebuilt aircraft, aircraft purchasing and licensing, Biennial Flight Review, entertainment discs and much more. (contributed by David J)
Aircraft Operating Cost and Performance Data - What2fly.com- Aircraft Operating Cost and Performance information and much more. You can do side by side comparisons of aircraft. Searchable, sortable and addictive. (contributed by Will Rogers)
Add a link
by Philip Greenspun
Site Home : Flying
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
introductions
Learning to fly
General Aviation Safety -- are those little planes as dangerous as they look?
Soaring -- flying silently
Helicopters -- flying without moving (helicopter training here in Boston)
Airline Career Advice
flying helicopters
Helicopter Part 141 Syllabus and Lesson Plans, what we use for helicopter training at East Coast Aero Club
miscellaneous lesson plans: simulated solo
Preparing a helicopter landing zone
Helicopter passenger safety card
PTS summary sheets: Private | Instrument | Commercial | CFI | CFII | ATP
for instructors: in-flight teaching; teaching hovering
renting helicopters
Helicopter Tours of Boston
R44 Transition Training
R44 Time-building
Boston Helicopter Charter (custom itineraries and destinations)
Boston Aerial Photography (folks who just want the picture)
information for renters at East Coast Aero Club: N211SH (R22)
buying helicopters
Robinson R22
Robinson R44
Robinson R66 (jet-powered)
trip guides
Flying to Alaska
Flying to Baja
Flying the Caribbean
Flying around Boston
airplane tutorials
Airplane Private Pilot Syllabus and Lesson Plans
Instrument flying
Multi-Engine Training (abbreviated lesson plans)
Piston Engine Management
Garmin G1000 Training (for renters at East Coast Aero Club)
Garmin G1000 Checkride (for renters at East Coast Aero Club)
boring practical stuff
Cleaning Airplane Windows
Buying a new plane (general strategy)
airplane reviews
Cessna Mustang review
Very Light Jets (Eclipse, Embraer, Cessna, Cirrus, Diamond, Honda, et al., compared)
Cirrus SR20 review
Diamond Star DA-40 review
Diamond Katana DA20-A1 review
Buying a 4-seat modern airplane, includes a section on the future of small airplane design
other hardware
Avidyne versus Garmin G1000
Review of the Garmin GNS 530/430 Nav/Com/GPS
Shopping for headsets, folding bikes, watches and other little items
philip the pilot
Personal Flying Milestones (summary of my flight experience)
Fantasy Fleet (aircraft that I would buy given sufficient money and time)
for charity auctions: airplane rides | helicopter rides
a new jet charter company based at Hanscom Field
aviation expert witness
improving the system
Runway Incursions
Ground Monitoring, using telecomm to add a ground-based copilot
miscellaneous
Aviation for Early Retirees
Flight Level 005 Prize for young aviators
Aviation question and answer forum
Videos
Why I Fly
I like to look at the Earth and Nature from different perspectives. Flying in a light plane 2000 or 3000 feet above the ground is a totally different experience from being in a commercial jet where the pilots shoot straight up into Class A airspace (18,000 feet and above) as quickly as possible. Once I learn enough to get safely from Point A to Point B, I plan to take a lot of aerial photos.
Flying is also fun and challenging. You have to think and act in three dimensions. You have the freedom to move to a lot of new spots on the globe. You learn to examine and appreciate scenery and natural phenomena that you'd never be able or wouldn't bother to see from the ground. Charles Lindbergh put it best: "Science, freedom, beauty, adventure."
Sadly Lindbergh was, in addition to being a great aviator, a supporter of the Nazis. In October 1938 he accepted the Service Cross of the German Eagle from Hermann Goering. On September 11, 1941, Lindbergh noted in a speech that "[The Jews'] greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government."
Resources
Training
Webexams (log in as guest and practice taking the FAA written test)
Flight Planning
NOAA Aviation Weather (aviationweather.gov)
Twilight calculator
Unisys weather (no pop-up or pop-under ads!)
SkyVector.com; fast and high resolution sectional chart browser; also digital versions of terminal area and helicopter route charts
aeroplanner.com, the free plan includes access to puny online versions of sectional charts (very poor quality compared to SkyVector)
fltplan.com, good database of airport information in addition to flight planning tools
airnav.com, cleanly presented airport information as well as fuel prices; links to IFR approach plates
New England
Atlantic Flyer
Wings Pilot Shop at the Nashua airport (KASH), a dog-friendly destination
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Text and photos Copyright 1993-2008 Philip Greenspun. Top photo from Travels with Samantha Chapter XII.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
philg@mit.edu
Reader's Comments
Even if the end goal is soaring, you might want to try this some time. I think it's the ultimate flying experience you can get as a civilian. I didn't try it (still saving the money... who knows maybe in a couple years I can afford it) but Ken Thompson did (a couple years ago, with another company it seems): see his story.
-- Petru Paler, January 5, 2002
Happy to hear of your new interest, Phil. I have flown for the fun of it almost as long as I have taken pictures for the same reason. Combining the two can be a real treat, and I almost always take a camera with me when flying to some exotic place 50 miles away... Funny how using an airplane to get there makes it move up the exotic scale... :)
A note of caution -- even high timers like to take somebody along (pilot or non pilot) to yell if something goes wrong while taking pictures. As my flight instructor from 22 years ago told me -- the pilots primary duty is to "fly the airplane". Everything else is a lower priority.
A really cool thing you can do, after you solo and begin the cross-country phase of your training, would be to take pictures of every airport you land at. Conditions permitting (gusty crosswinds probably won't permit) a snap through the windscreen on final approach, and once on the ground, a picture of the tower/terminal/hangars/line shack/whatever would make great keepsakes for you. Have the person who signs your logbook also take a snap of you by the airplane, possibly with some local feature in the background. I have pictures in my archives of once famous aiports I've landed at that aren't there anymore.
Definitely have handy a decent point&shoot loaded with a fresh roll of NPH to give to somebody who can take reasonable pix during and after your first solo. (Which will probably come when you don't expect it.)
Other tips: One or even two UV filters (never without -- Plexiglass passes all UV, and there is a lot once you get above the haze layer!), don't touch the camera to the windows (vibration), fill flash or the cabin will be way dark (it's always bright upstairs), and a wide to normal zoom (24-50 or somesuch).
A word about shooting through the propeller arc -- a prop at 2400 rpm will cover 360 degrees in 1/40 second, thus faster exposures will show one of the blades as an arc: 1/125=120 deg, 1/250=60 deg, 1/500=30 deg -- wait! You're an engineer too. You can do the math!
Also, consider the weight of the camera -- a 2lb projectile can be dangerous during turbulence (not to mention a medium format camera with a big 50mm lens!) Come up with a secure place to stash the camera, or a means of tying it down when not in use. Loose, it's a serious liability and in bumpy air, you won't have time to grab for it as it floats toward your head at high speed! I speak from experience and have the lump on my head to prove it! (Nikon F2-MD, Tokina 2.8/28-80. Ouch.)
And if you ever get the idea to open the window of a Cessna, just make sure the camera strap is secure and around your neck or shoulder...
I imagine though, that most of the precious time you are flying, your instructor will want you to concentrate on the PRIMARY task: Flying the airplane. And rightly so.
A final word. Airshows.
Happy Landings and looking forward to your photo.net Flying Presentation.
Image: Propeller.jpg
-- Joe Shupienis, January 7, 2002
Seattle Space Needle
After you finish your instrument rating, you may find your VFR skills have deteriorated because the instrument flying gets you accustomed to being led through the system to the end of the runway. (This happens to a lot of folks, often during the first few forays into an uncontrolled field.) If you have enough hours, you might consider adding the commercial rating. It's functionally useless -- you're severely limited on things you can do "for hire" -- but it does present an opportunity for working towards tighter tolerances and becoming smoother in your control.
Another fairly "useless," but amazingly fun thing is the seaplane (technically: Airplane Single-Engine Sea) add-on rating. You can do this in a long weekend, weather permitting, and it will do wonders for your soft-field technique. It will be the only time you'll get 20-30 landings an hour and not seriously bend anything ;-)
I would be curious on comments on the King test preparation. I thought their subject videos (e.g., Stalls and Spins) and the practical test prep were very well done. The Instrument practical prep was done with J.C. Boylles, a DPE and master CFI, and walked you through the entire test from planning to maneuvers.
Jim Carson http://cleanliving.com/flying/
-- Jim Carson, May 2, 2002
Add a comment
Related Links
FAA Registry Database- self-explanatory... (contributed by Gen Kanai)
Aircraft for Sale on GlobalPlaneSearch.com- Aircraft ad search-engine, enabling you to search from over 30,000 aircraft for sale, lease or charter, on many quality sites from around the world. (contributed by Clint Walton)
Van's Air Force - World Wide Wing- THE must-see site if you are interested in Van's Aircraft, Inc.'s line of RV kitplanes. Daily news, contact info for builders around you, tons of photographs. (contributed by Doug Reeves)
Ozark Airfield Artworks- Ozark Airfield Artworks is an aviation oriented art dealer. We have hundreds of prints of all different types of planes. (contributed by Derek Nees)
Worldwide Helicopter Links- Your webportal to the civilian helicopter industry. Hundreds of useful helicopter links on one page. (contributed by Roger Brul)
Runway Finder- A mash-up of Google maps, aviation charts, and the METARs. A great place for a quick check of the surrounding fields' weather to see if you can stay VFR. (contributed by Colin Summers)
Dan Checkoway's Weather Pages- Textual weather, but very nicely formatted and centered around your home airport. It does routes and TAFs, too. (contributed by Colin Summers)
FAA Safety Program Web site- Your place to register to receive notification of FAA aviation safety education seminars being held in your area, take online training courses and much more. (contributed by Joseph Foresto)
Avnac - Aviation's video rental store- Rent aviation DVDs online; training for Sport pilots up to ATP, glass panels, GPS, IFR proficiency, A&P Mechanics, homebuilt aircraft, aircraft purchasing and licensing, Biennial Flight Review, entertainment discs and much more. (contributed by David J)
Aircraft Operating Cost and Performance Data - What2fly.com- Aircraft Operating Cost and Performance information and much more. You can do side by side comparisons of aircraft. Searchable, sortable and addictive. (contributed by Will Rogers)
Add a link
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