Form my perspective making people fly a complex for the CPL ride is more about making sure they can do a little more walking and chewing gum at the same time.
I've also noted a large difference between people who can come into the downwind at full cruise power, dump the gear, to VFE, flaps, turning flaps to vref and make the first taxi exit not even spilling your coffee. Now that level of airmanship isn't required to be safe enough to get your log inked for a complex, nor should it be, but it's to be expected of a pro pilot.
Guess what I'm trying to say is it's not so much about just being a complex, it's adding in more controls and seeing if you still have a mastery of said aircraft.
None that I can afford and I've flown almost every square inch of FL, I'd rather not put a zero thrust plane down in the glades.You are correct, everyone has their own mission. I can understand the need for a twin in more populated cities but a place like Florida you can fly a single and find many places to land if the fan stops turning. There are singles that can fit your mission pretty well too.
These are not inexperienced airplane designers. And nobody could possibly think Neibauer didn't know how to design and build an excellent retractable gear for the plane. Think these guys might know something we don't? Or maybe they are all just like selling uncool stuff that doesn't qualify as a real airplane.
They made a choice. Remember we are still working out the best way to do composites and retractable gear and the best way to do it in a composite wing is not as far along.
I have no disagreement with you in this regard, just playing devils advocate as retracts slowly go away. Folks are using manufacturing numbers to represent the fleet, and they're not taking into account that many of those retracts will be owned by people who'd never let them anywhere near the damage and wear and tear of a flight club or school.
I think I'll see the day where a retract single is an oddity kept around at a club simply for the Commerical students, heck the way they're scheduled now is pretty much that.
Here's some fun for you James... would you rather someone got 20 hours + in a twin and did their initial Comm ride in that, vs 10 hours in the twin and the initial Comm ride in a single retract? Money aside, that is. Technically I did that, and I'm not chasing any jobs, so I don't care what anyplace that's hiring thinks of it for me, but I wanted to do the Comm SE ride in my 182.
For some kids, I'd say if they did it in that order, the multi time serves them better in the logbook of real experience rather than the time in a single sucking the gear up and down. Especially if they're bypassing the CFI route and just paying mega bucks to get to the hours needed to fly Commercially.
Obviously I'm not bypassing CFI and kinda have to fly anything that comes along, so I don't care either way, but I felt a lot better in the twin after more hours to prep both the Comm and initial CFI in it, than I need hours in a 182... retract 182 or not.
In general, more flying of *anything* is mo' better, that's for sure. But if you can train up for the multi-retract-Comm you've met the "James standard" and don't really need single retract time. It's just economics at that point.
I know my experience is weird. I was a private pilot for so long I was in one club that had a retract that did NOT fly because folks didn't want to get checked out in it, so I flew the hell out of it everywhere. (172RG) It was a dog, performance wise, but it was always open on that particular club's schedule and kept in a nice insulated hangar, and the owner was screaming mad if anyone got it even so much as dirty, so it was the closest to aircraft ownership one could get back then during my rental years. I looked at the flight logs and I had that airplane essentially to myself for a year once, and put a bunch of hours on it. It didn't go anywhere fast, and didn't do anything the Skyhawk in the hangar next to it didn't do.
That same airplane, when that club folded due to medical reasons for the owner and political reasons at the airport(s) was bought by a more traditional club, and within a couple of years looked like hell. Beat to total crap by Commercial students. It was eventually put out of its misery by a hailstorm.
N5330R. 30 Romeo and I went all over the place together for a couple of years.
If you Google it, you can see how well (badly) it was treated toward the end of its life. Dirty all the time, interior dirty, just beat up, and the hail shots from the salvage offer. When I flew that thing it was spotless, clean, taken care of, and in a hangar safe from hail.
This is pretty typical of how I see single retracts that are used in training treated around here. Schools destroy them.
retracts singles aren't going away, so I don't consider them endangered.
why is the expense and complexity of a retract is par for the course in a twin but all of a sudden blasphemy on a single?
Who's making new ones at the trainer level? Not the go-fast level?
Fair enough... but there's obviously still a demand for them out there so in the sense of "endangered" meaning they're at risk of going extinct I don't see that. Maybe right now there aren't many (any?) Legacy manufacturers introducing new models of them, that doesn't mean they're dead, just means the Legacies have an established product line and the costs of introducing a new twin right now aren't worth it with Cirrus having success with a fixed gear and the current market (both new and used) satisfying demand. Endangered to me would mean it's on the brink of dying completely due to lack of demand (like canard and pusher prop designs, etc.)More importantly who is making a truly new retractable piston single at the high performance level? Spare us the recycling of the Valkyrie et al; let's be serious and show us any examples from reputable aeronautical firms that actually have the development budgets to see a new design through to not only certification but also production.
Who's making new ones at the trainer level? Not the go-fast level?
Who's making new ones at the trainer level? Not the go-fast level?
Of course twins with fixed gear exist, like C-23A Sherpa. In case you aren't facetious, observe that a typical twin is faster. Cirrus SF50 has a folding gear and it's a single from Cirrus. So it's like the gear arrangement is a question of religion.why is the expense and complexity of a retract is par for the course in a twin but all of a sudden blasphemy on a single?
Of course twins with fixed gear exist, like C-23A Sherpa. In case you aren't facetious, observe that a typical twin is faster. Cirrus SF50 has a folding gear and it's a single from Cirrus. So it's like the gear arrangement is a question of religion.
Meanwhile, in Russia, someone ordered 12 of these babies (and promise to buy 330 more if things go well):No point in producing a new retract trainer airplane when not many will buy it.
Meanwhile, in Russia, someone ordered 12 of these babies (and promise to buy 330 more if things go well):
The topic came up in one of interviews that I've read. It was not with the actual designer of Columbia, but an engineer with Cessna (before Textron). He claimed that the additional drag of the round strut was not significant enough to think about a complex fairing. I suspect that if they tried to work around it, the front leg would look even goofier than the one at Tecnam P92. The front strut is quite practical. Look how many people end with a prop strike on Diamond DA20.A tiny bit off topic... but does anyone else think the TTx has an odd looking nose gear?
I didn't bring those up because neither of them is the initial trainer, whereas Yak-152 is intended for students flying their first hours. Their previous workhorse, Yak-18, was also a retract for some reason. Note that I don't have stats for Russian cadets landing gear up. It may be a significant number.Here are some other retract trainers! (Beech, Pilatus, Embraer)
I didn't bring those up because neither of them is the initial trainer, whereas Yak-152 is intended for students flying their first hours. Their previous workhorse, Yak-18, was also a retract for some reason. Note that I don't have stats for Russian cadets landing gear up. It may be a significant number.
What in the world are you talking about? Gyros are absolutely booming all around the world. It's just the regulatory regime in the U.S. is unfriendly to them, thanks to FAA Rotorcraft directorate. In fact, someone even certified Calidus in the Primary category a few months ago, only because it became clear that S-LSA isn't happening. This is something Cessna could not do with Skycatcher.For endangered I would honestly put things like gyrocopters, canards, and oddities like that.
Piper still builds the Arrow although it's generally in larger orders for flight schools.
The reality is there are plenty out there. My flight school just bought an Arrow from the 90s and it's like a new plane. Very few flight schools buy new...
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Two of the three fastest certified piston singles are fixed gear. The Cirrus 22T and TTx are fixed gear new designs using the new materials. And the Mooney with it's retractable gear is an old design. It's cheaper to add HP than to build, maintain and use retractable gear.
I really don't get why people think retracting the gear is a hard thing
And the low end of the commercial fleet isn't losing retracts. Just the 4/5 seaters which are personal planes and trainers. And Caravans are a special case... you won't see fixed gear twins. Hell only just recently did Europe allow commercial flying with even a turbine single like the pilatus. (Retract)
You don't understand the physics of the situation. Drag goes up exponentially. Can't just keep bolting on more HP. And no, retractable gear are not hard to build and maintain.
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You don't understand the physics of the situation. Drag goes up exponentially. Can't just keep bolting on more HP. And no, retractable gear are not hard to build and maintain.
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Bolting on more hp is exactly what Mooney has done since the original Lopresti airframe cleanups. Now their fastest plane has a twin turbo 550 in it. You think they made it go fast some other way?
The better question is will the FAA ever remove the retract requirement from the Commercial license?
They have also continued aerodynamic refinements with every single generation.
They've maxed out both at this point and they are the fastest...
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What in the world are you talking about? Gyros are absolutely booming all around the world. It's just the regulatory regime in the U.S. is unfriendly to them, thanks to FAA Rotorcraft directorate. In fact, someone even certified Calidus in the Primary category a few months ago, only because it became clear that S-LSA isn't happening. This is something Cessna could not do with Skycatcher.
Very very few. And they are utility planes not fast twins. This whole thread is silly, retractable gear is not going away.
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Yes, they are all doing gearups and getting scrapped