Dylan Smith wrote:
On 2006-07-08, wrote:
Quirks: C-172 none, Sundowner appears to require a bit of dual to
learn how to land without porpoising.

Whoever's spouting that is talking rubbish (or can't control their
airspeed). The Sundowner will NEVER porpoise if you touch down main
wheels first. It's one of the easiest planes to land out there.

I converted to the Beech Super Musketeer (200hp) as an early solo
student pilot with only 30 hours. The checkout only lasted an hour, and
half of that was airwork.

The Musketeer/Sundowner is an excellent plane. Fly it properly (i.e.
don't come in fast) and it virtually lands itself. I never had a bad
landing in a Musketeer.

--
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It is Aviation Consumer that is "spouting that".

From Aviation Consumer on the Musketeer/Sport/Sundowner series:

These airplanes have developed a reputation for providing some ego-crushing
landings for even experienced pilots. Student pilots who were unfortunate
enough to endure training in the Sport all too often wound up with more than
their egos crushed.

The reason for all this sturm and prang is the airplane's bad habit of
porpoising and crow-hopping on landing, a trait it shares with Mooneys but
not with other trainer types in this class.

Some experienced Sport pilots can regale hangar-flying crowds with tales
of epic wrestling matches as they worked throttle and yoke desperately
trying to stop the porpoise before A) the nose gear collapsed; B) the
aircraft groundlooped; C) the runway ended; or D) all of the above.

At least part of the reason for this touchdown behavior is the landing
gear design. Beech chose a trailing-beam configuration for the aircraft.
Normally, this type of landing gear is quite forgiving of botched landings.

But Beech went for stiff rubber shock mounts instead of oleos, converting
what would have been wonderful cushioning into terrible springs, ready to
help the aircraft rebound into the air at the drop of a wheel. With it's
stiff rubber donuts, the Mooney gear has the same shortcoming with the
same results for hapless pilots.

Gentle, mains-first touchdowns are the rule to prevent a crow-hopping
excursion across the field. All this is not to imply that good landings
are impossible in the Musketeers. Precise speed control is the key. If
you're the type who likes to tack on a few knots for the insurance company
and another couple for the wife and kids, buy a Cherokee or some similar,
more forgiving design.

The Sport and Sundowner demand precision handling down final and into the
flare. If your landing technique is off, these aircraft will show you
exactly where you're going wrong by magnifying the results out of all
proportion to anything you've seen before. Great training, if it doesn't
scare you to death.

Also:

At least the aircraft are consistent in this regard. Consider that an
NTSB study reaching back to the early 1970s identified the Sundowner
as the worst aircraft in its class for hard landings. We're talking
about a rate of hard landings that was five times worse than the Cessna
Skyhawk or the Piper Cherokee.

Indeed, every time we've looked at the safety records of the Sport and
Sundowner, the story has been the same-lots of hard landings and lots
of overshot landings. And even today we find the pattern intact. One
interesting finding of our studies through the years has been the low
rate of groundloop accidents.


From the above it would seem to me to be prudent for the average GA pilot
to get a bit of dual.

--
Jim Pennino

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