Light Sport Aircraft

On Friday, March 5th, Gryphon McArthur from Ocean Air Flight Services gave me a call and invited me to fly over to Salinas with him, I jumped on the opportunity right away!

The first thing that made me want to join him on this short trip would be that I would get to fly one of their new Light Sport aircraft, the Tecnam Sierra, also known as the Tecnam P2002 Sierra.

The Sierra is a low wing Rotax 912 series powered Light Sport Aircraft. This specific plane was set up nicely with a digital glass panel, the AF-4500 EFIS. On such a short flight from Watsonville to Salinas I barely even touched it, I let Gryphon show me a few of it’s features and I was quite impressed.

It only took a few minutes to get familiar with the aircraft systems and to review differences on the checklist from other aircraft I have flown before. The Rotax 912 is different than any aircraft engine I’d flown before and also has some excellent benefits in terms of safety and new technology. The plane flew wonderfully, very responsive and excellent visibility. The flight to Salinas ended far too quickly, I definitely look forward to flying the airplane more and really getting to know it.

Next up, for the return flight to Watsonville, was the Tecnam P92 Eaglet. This is one of their high wing models, and as expected, it felt much more like flying a small Cessna in it’s setup. Well, I say that, but at the same time, it was very, very different than a Cessna in so many ways! The instrument panel was a more traditional “six-pack” with analog instruments. The checklist was nearly identical to the Sierra so a very easy transition. Like the Sierra both seemed very light on the controls, it really wanted to go wherever you pointed it with no resistance.

As we flew back in a very loose formation with the Sierra and the Eaglet, it was pretty clear from our brief and non-scientific test, that the Sierra had a speed advantage when we matched engine RPM. That didn’t surprise me at all, low wing aircraft in general seem to be faster and more efficient by their design and with the lack of wing struts, etc.

When we arrived back I asked the other pilots which was their favorite, and even for myself, it would be hard to choose just one. I think it might depend on the “mission” of the flight… for a longer cross country, the extra speed and efficiency of the Sierra might be my choice. For sight seeing around down where I might be looking down a lot more, the Eaglet would fill the need perfectly. And if your passengers wanted to take pictures during the flight, the canopy on the Sierra can slide open in flight if you choose, and I understand the Eaglet can be flown with the doors off if desired. I’m looking forward to some warm summer flying in both of these aircraft!

Additional images of these aircraft and the trip to Salinas are available here:

http://flickr.com/photos/dandawson/sets/72157623438814491/

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 7th, 2010 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Aircraft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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