Curious as to Piper vs Cessna drivers.
I know I'm leaving out a handful of other planes...but let's keep this to Cessna vs Piper.

Edit: Guess I should mention i started in pipers.

Sorry neither, But Cessna was my second training plane

Cessna...though may suggest adding dimond to the poll as that would probably be the 3rd most common trainer out there these days

You need a spot for Diamonds, the Katana was quite a fun plane for spins

Maule

Cessna 150

Realistically the Piper

Cessna 152

C-152. SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME. During the climbing phase, the aircraft was moving similar to a rush hour traffic on the 401

After all these years, I believe the current stat is that more folks have learned to fly in the 150/152 than all other types COMBINED!! That's a lot of rebuilt Cessna shimmy dampeners!

A 1968 C172-- Orange and white paint scheme-- Nice

Katana DA20, climb 1200fpm, good visibility in turns... Nice, very nice plane!

1979 Cessna 152

If we're talking airplanes? DA-20 c1
If we're talking aircraft... Big Yellow School Bus.
Managed to stay away from Cessnas til I had 2 licences.

First flight was in a Champ. So was the second.

Learning in a 152

Schweitzer, then cessna for most of the rest.

Airtids wrote:After all these years, I believe the current stat is that more folks have learned to fly in the 150/152 than all other types COMBINED!! That's a lot of rebuilt Cessna shimmy dampeners!

I believe you were right. I would say most folks train in the c-150/152 than ther aircrafts. I find that the vast majority seem to think they're the best aircraft for training.

First plane anyone let me fly was a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub, here come the memories, flying over the grand river, perfect day. That flight will allways stick in my mind, and is the reason behind my affection for and desire to own an (original) J-3 Cub. I have taken the stick in a Chipmunk, Stearman, Harvard, a Comanchee and another plane I never officially flew in. As for official training, the beloved Piper Cherokee. (as you know flyincanuck)

I will mention that the original "hershey bar" wing cherokee had a very bad habit of developing an awful lot of induced drag if you let it slow down too slow on final ... enough that even the application of full power would not increase the airspeed. Back side of the power curve, anyone ... anyone?

The cessnas have a tapered wing, which do not exhibit this undesirable characteristic quite as enthusiastically.

The later cherokees (warrior, archer) went taper-wing.

Thousands of private pilots happily own and operate their "hershey bar" cherokees - there's nothing wrong with it, once you learn to control the airspeed on final.

But objectively, it is not as forgiving of student pilots mistakes (eg poor airspeed control on final). Nor is it perhaps the best short field performer with the "hershey bar" wing. On a 3,000 foot paved runway with low density altitude however, it is just fine.

DV20 A1 Katana. More training on BE19, G115C, C172.

--

Sidenote, Grobs are fun to spin

Beech Sundowner, nice airplane pretty cool to fly. I'm still flying it but now I'm mostly doing my twin IFR rating on a Navajo.

Have a good one.

Luis

1949 Cessna 170A