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"Morgans" wrote in message ...
"Rich Stowell" wrote in message om... In the interest of fairness, following is the AOPA ASF response to my review. All of this, including the link to the original study, is posted on my web site as well at http://www.richstowell.com/aopa.htm: Dead link Try this: http://www.richstowell.com/aopa.htm (the colon I added at the end of the line was mistakenly treated as part of the hyperlink...) |
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Recently, Rich Stowell posted:
While not exactly covering the breadth of the issue, this portion is dear to my heart: "Here, too, the AOPA study misleads readers regarding so-called significant differences between Tomahawk and Cessna 150/152 spin behavior." We've been down this road before, and our conclusion that the Piper Tomahawk is NOT a particularly dangerous airplane when properly flown stands. It does have spin behavior that - while meeting FAA certification standards - is not as docile as most, other training aircraft, but that in itself doesn't make it dangerous. As with many aviation safety issues, it's the pilot who makes the difference, especially when dealing with matters of aircraft design. Since our last go-around on this issue, we've been watching the accident record for Piper Tomahawks very carefully to see if your concerns about the design could be validated. So far, they can't: the last stall/spin accident involving a Tomahawk was in 1999, near Warrensburg, Illinois. The aircraft had been loaded nearly 100 pounds over its maximum gross weight, which the NTSB cited as a contributing factor. (rest snipped for brevity) Much of my early training was in a Tomahawk. My first attempt at a stall resulted in a spin. It was... exhilirating... but no big deal to recover from. Having been provided with many alarmist documents about the dangers of spinning in a Tomahawk, I researched the matter thoroughly, both theoretically and in practice. The conclusion that I reached is similar to the above: to get into trouble, you have to load the Tomahawk pretty far out of the w/b envelope, and that isn't easy to do. My instructor and I, along with a full load of fuel, amounted to being in the same 100 lbs over max gross weight as the above example, and that was our typical configuration at take-off. However, while overweight, we were *not* out of balance, and thus all manoeuvers were predictable and controllable. To get out of balance, you have to be a light-weight pilot and have some serious weight (exceeding the posted max load) in the baggage area. Anyone that could do such a thing is probably pretty dangerous in other regards, as well, so it would be difficult to pin any consequent difficulties on the design of the aircraft. The worst thing that I can say about a Tomahawk in comparison to the Cessnas is that you have to *fly* the plane at all times... it won't fly itself for long. I think that makes for a great trainer. Neil |
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