Jaybird180
Final Approach
I trained in a fleet of C172Ps. All of em'. And each and every darned one had a different personality. I had my favorite and my 'do not want that one again' planes.
Different "feel" of a plane... thoughts?
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Dan Thomas
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Dan Thomas
I will bet that your more responsive airplane is better maintained, nothing more. I have encountered both older and newer 172s that had enormous differences in control system friction. All three primary control systems are full of pulleys that have ball bearings in them that are lubricated at the pulley factory with a light grease that dries out with age (and they'll dry out a lot faster in warmer climates) and they start to resist turning. The pilot has to work harder to move the controls. There are no decent seals on the pulley bearings.
The aileron system, for example, has four sprockets and a chain, about 15 pulleys, two bellcranks each with two needle bearings, two pushrods each with two self-aligning rod ends, and six aileron hinges. The elevator has seven pivots, five pulleys and five hinges. The rudder has four plastic rudder bar bearings (that almost never get lubed), four pulleys, four pivots and three hinges. All of these need various types of lubrication periodically, and time sitting is as bad as time flying. The system needs lube at least annually even if it didn't fly at all in the past year. I have seen many pulleys seized solid so that the cable had to slide over them, and both cable and pulley were suffering severe wear.
The control yoke shaft gets caked with an invisible layer of gunk formed by oils from your hands and airborne dust. This sludges up the plastic bushing in the panel and make elevator travel sticky.
And as Kimberly said, the carb heat and mixture controls can get really stiff, too. Using the wrong lube on those is worse than no lube at all. The heat of the engine compartment cooks the lubricant and stiffens the control.
Take a few hours, open everything up, lube it up and free it all, and the airplane will feel totally different.
Dan
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Well, you can be scared, or you can go try and see what you get, see which one improves your flying at the end of the day.
kimberlyanne546
Final Approach
If I remember I will ask my CFI and then try it. For all I know he'll suggest it. I've never used trim before in landing (always hand fly) and this could bring some consistency if I don't have anything else wrong with my approach etc.
Edit: I mean in / near the flare. Of course I use trim starting abeam the numbers and adjust until I get the desired rate of descent / airspeed / etc.
spinfire
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Dan
I land the Cardinal with the trim full nose up or nearly so. The go-around from this configuration does require a fairly large forward force on the yoke but you only need to hold this momentarily. The go-around procedure for me always involves a big handful of nose down trim and then eventual fine tuning.
It is a good idea to practice a full nose up trim go around at altitude.
It is a good idea to practice a full nose up trim go around at altitude.
Jaybird180
Final Approach
Again, not an issue for a 180HP C-172. I've done it in the C-182 and I'm no slouch when it comes to strength but did find it can be a handful in a go around situation. Two hands no problem...take one hand off the yoke to pull the flaps and you may pitch up significantly. Best to anticipate the need for a go-around and ease the power, trim, more power, trim....full power, flaps.
All I'm saying is that your skills are well above the norm of what I've seen here. I've also seen that many other posters have encouraged you to get a CFI. I think that if you did so, it would change the tone of your posting considering that many others are reading your words and attitude, etc and just may try what you say and get themselves hurt because they did not have the necessary fundamentals before flying 'the Henning way'.
I always look forward to reading your postings and aspire to the skill level you have.
It shouldn't be that way, there is no excuse for it, it is a matter of effort and self instruction. It's a matter of not being afraid to break out of the envelope trying. Just start at a safe altitude as you are learning. I wouldn't make it as a CFI, I'd wash out and scare off likely 80% of my business by giving them a dose of reality.
As for technique, that's what doing a check out is about, you do a nose trim go around and develope the technique to handle it, as you note you can stagger, but I find that if I shove in throttle and directly flip 2 up, inertia takes most of the pitch up energy with only a single shove required.
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Jaybird180
Final Approach
Then possibly your niche could be guys like me. I'd love to fly with you. Not everyone should do intro rides.
There is no need for me to have a CFI to provide you non required instruction lol. I teach rated pilots advanced flying technique and weather flying all the time lol. CFI is only required to sign off required instruction. People who come to me are looking for solutions, not signatures.
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wabower
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Wayne
It doesn't really matter all that much from a safety standpoint. Overcoming trim forces isn't difficult and speed changes aren't great. Takes what, 2-3 seconds at most to roll trim knob in either direction?
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jsstevens
Ruh-roh, I got "yeah yeah'd."
Seriously though, I would love to get to the point where I knew what to expect before I got in. Actually, I would really just like to just repeat the responsivness that I felt today! (It almost made me feel.... competent).
I've flown 6-8 different C-172's of different vintages. I'm still a low time pilot (~160 hours). They're all different to some degree. Weight is part of it and as Tim mentioned above, rigging and control maintenance is part of it. At some point you develop enough experience with feel and sight picture. You know what you want the plane to do and if the plane's not doing that you move the controls to make it happen. Eventually you don't even think about it - it's muscle memory and sub-concious processes.
So, yes you were right - they feel different. At some point in your experience it won't matter very much.
John
Lawreston
En-Route
- - next time you're over Wiscasset, land it. You & yours will be welcome to fly my "old one:" 1971 C-172L 'Hawk. Almost every CFi has claimed, "has to be smoothest running/flying 172 I've ever taught in." Reason? Very few people have flown it - never a typical "Trainer" plane - and meticulous maintenance history. Oh, and the four new cylinders need some air time. I'm 12.5sm from the airport, so give me 30 min. notice. Threeoneninezerozerofoursix.
HR
Exactly, you just keep pushing or pulling until things line up. Some planes take more muscle than others.
spinfire
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Dan
One thing I've noticed in the Cardinal regarding control feel is that relative to the 172K I did my primary training in the ailerons are much stiffer on the ground. I'm sure this is mostly a rigging difference. The Cardinal ailerons are also much larger Frise type ailerons. However, once in flight the control authority is so good that it is as much a fingertip airplane if not more so compared to the 172K.
The 177RG was the best all around single they built. It still has goofy gear, but at least it's the simplified version.
Jaybird180
Final Approach
Somebody lives in a place small enough to only need to dial 7 digits
I find myself asking the area code quite often reading rural signs..
wabower
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Wayne
I don't know, probably because between everything they were cutting out of production, the 182RG fell between the 177RG and 210 which is also no longer in production. It just made the most business sense for product consolidation, that doesn't really have anything to do with product quality because bean counters could give a ratt's azz about that.
Jaybird180
Final Approach
Maybe because it looks funny...it's got no wing struts
John Baker
Final Approach
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John Baker
On older airplanes, control force, or effort required to manipulate the controls are probably related to maintenance problems more than anything else.
A few years back I flew an Archer and the controls seemed much more sensitive to my input than what they were on my Warrior. I told my mechanic about this and he told me my Warrior probably needed a little cleaning and lubricating, starting with my yoke shaft.
When I got my plane back I could not believe the difference, everything just glided back and forth when on the ground. Flying it was (is) a downright pleasure now.
He did not just squirt some oil on the yoke shaft, he took it apart and cleaned the whole thing. He replaced several bushings and checked all the cable pulleys and rods.
It wasn't cheap, but it was like getting a new airplane.
-John
A few years back I flew an Archer and the controls seemed much more sensitive to my input than what they were on my Warrior. I told my mechanic about this and he told me my Warrior probably needed a little cleaning and lubricating, starting with my yoke shaft.
When I got my plane back I could not believe the difference, everything just glided back and forth when on the ground. Flying it was (is) a downright pleasure now.
He did not just squirt some oil on the yoke shaft, he took it apart and cleaned the whole thing. He replaced several bushings and checked all the cable pulleys and rods.
It wasn't cheap, but it was like getting a new airplane.
-John
wabower
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Wayne
So far today you've blamed the marketing department and the bean counters. Who's next, Rosie the riveter?
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This makes sense to me.. whatever you and Henning are talking about does not.You two went way over my head in that discussion.
I think the airplane being lighter and having a more aft cg helped a lot.
Tracey...I fly a cherokee 180 and have a collection of weights for the baggage area in the back, depending on the type of flying. If it's 2 adults in the front and not much else, an 7-8 gal water container (50#) along with the 25# of gear. This keeps the CG legal and moves it aft from 88.2 to 89.4 inches. That 14+ inches or so really makes a difference in handling. If just me, then the 4 gal tank is fine (24#) 88.4 to 89.1 in
No two airplanes have the same W&B chart - that's why each is unique to the individual airplane.
There are other issues that have been mentioned here. I've flown my neighbor's cherokee 180 that based on serial number, we guess it was built within 6 months before mine. It handles very differently because of various mods - a cruise prop where I have a climb prop. Plus the previous owner installed lots of speed mods that I don't have. I've also flown a 2000 Archer. That one, the yoke was very stiff because the control linkages were still fairly new compared to my 1969 airplane.
Who else makes corporate level decisions?
It sure as hell isn't the engineers. You tell me, who made the decision and on what grounds?
I clean the yoke shaft and control chains every few months with teflon (same stuff I use to clean & lube the bike chain). Solves so many problems.
spinfire
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Dan
My understanding is it had more to do with Rosie's wages. The Cardinal was substantially more expensive for Cessna to produce compared to the 172 and yet Cessna was never able to fetch high enough of a price to make it worthwhile. The 172RG and 182RG were supposedly much cheaper to produce.
I do agree but of course I'm biased. There are pretty substantial differences in the gear design between a 1971 177RG and a 1978 177RG. Generally the gear system got a lot better and more reliable as time went on. Mine is a 1977 which is similar to the final design but in 1978 they moved to a 28v system and halved the gear cycle time. The Cutlass I did my complex endorsement in was a 1980 and I think the gear design was substantially similar to a 1978 Cardinal.
Another good lube I've found is LPS3. It leaves a hard shell wax behind that doesn't collect dust and grime.
Jaybird180
Final Approach
jspilot
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jspilot
I'll definitely agree with that. I rent from the same fligt school I trained at. They have 4 172S models and even within their fleet their are huge differences in the feel. One plane requires so much more control input than the other 3 it's noticeable. Some of the planes in the fleet require almost no trim to maintain level flight while others require huge anounts of nose down trim or else they keep climbing. I guess it's good that I know these planes well by now and based on the tale number I get assigned for that flight I know how much work I'll be doing.