So I've finally gotten enough time in this airplane to get some impressions of it and while it's still fairly recent I thought I'd share it for the benefit of anyone else looking at one.
Most of my flying time has been in a Piper Archer II with a few hours in 172s so that's my only real basis of comparison.
I had a 3 hour checkout with a CFI where I got my HP and Complex aircraft endorsements. Startup procedure going to a fuel injected engine is.... different but following the checklist instructions to the letter makes for a surprisingly smooth startup. Pre-taxi and runup procedures are nothing exciting either, the addition of a quick cycling of the prop lever to the runup being the only real change.
Takeoff is not a big deal either, the one thing I had to be mindful of is I couldn't, or rather shouldn't, throw on the power as quickly as I did on a 180hp carbed engine. The extra power and acceleration is very noticable. Everyone makes a big deal about right rudder and sure you need some more right rudder but I feel like it's over-emphasized a bit, just step on the pedal until the nose centers and it's fine. I was trying for a rotation speed around 65kts per the POH but I'm thinking 70 might work better. At 65 it feels reluctant to come off and takes quite a bit of pull to lift off. Climbout is pretty conventional, raise the gear when no usable runway is left and after you get a little altitude set power for a cruise climb, I was instructed to go with "24 squared" which means setting the prop to 2400RPM and the manifold pressure to 24". The N/A Lance does not have cowl flaps to worry about.
The control inputs on this airplane are heavy, you have to muscle the yoke around quite a bit. That's the most significant handling difference over a PA-28. Trim is a necessity. We performed power off and on stalls and it took a LOT of back pressure to get the airplane to actually stall. It really doesn't want to do it- this particular lance is equipped with flap gap seals, wing root fairings, fairings on the flap linkages, and on the stabilator anti-servo(trim) tab which may contribute to that.
Approach and landing are probably the biggest changes in a complex aircraft but again it's not a big deal. I felt pretty confident with it after a few passes in the pattern. Slow the aircraft to below 129kts on the downwind, abeam the numbers drop the gear and reduce power to 15" manifold pressure, slow into the white arc and start putting flaps in as normal. The prop lever goes full forward on final. Landing and flaring are conventional- I had a decent landing on my first attempt after not flying anything in almost 2 months. The only issue I had was a tendency to get too low initially but I adapted. The Lance will come down and it will come down quickly. You almost want to see 3-4 white PAPI lights when you turn final- don't worry this bird WILL come down. Keep the power in until over the runway then pull it and just land the airplane. It's still a Cherokee and it lands like one. Sweet spot seems to be around 80kts on final.
It really isn't a difficult airplane to fly, a 3 hour session with a CFI and I felt pretty confident in it, I'd have like a little more practice time before heading off on a cross country but weather and schedule constraints didn't allow for that.
What this airplane is extremely good at and what you should consider buying one for is being a family hauler. The extra left rear passenger and cargo doors let you load things easily and there's a lot of room for loading. Our Lance has club seating and one of the rear facing seats removed for easier cargo loading which, the first time you load it makes a bunch of sense. We loaded up 2 adults, one baby in his car seat, one bassinet(portable baby bed), one baby stroller, a large duffel, a large rolling suitcase, my laptop bag, flight bag, and numerous misc bags full of baby and spouse supplies. Not to mention the front baggage compartment full of misc airplane supplies. There was still room and useful load left over for another adult passenger and baggage if needed. With the club seating arrangement, my wife could sit in the back with the baby and tend to his needs during flight. Although this wasn't actually needed, the Lance is so stable in flight that even in light turbulence it literally won't wake a sleeping baby.
Performance was better than expected. I'm somewhat reluctant to claim these fuel burn numbers because every time I calculate it I'm scratching my head because it was supposed to be a lot higher than this. Bearing in mind this is only with a few flights in winter at 4000-6500' I'm seeing fuel burn in 15-16gph range running 24 squared. Some of my calculations of gallons to fill / hours flown say more like 13-14s but I'm going with what the EDM-800 and Piper fuel flow gauge are telling me which is 15-ish. With 94 gallons usable fuel that's a decent amount of range. Airspeeds were 145-150 indicated or around 155 true. Bear in mind this is mostly in air temperatures around 0C so summer performance may vary. Cylinder head temps were in 330-350 range... I was tempted to push it leaner and see what how low I could go but maybe another flight.
I can tell you on my way down to FL I was seeing ground speeds in the high 160s.
This Lance is equipped with an old Altimac IIIc autopilot which I've been told are quirky and it seems mine is too. On NAV/OMNI modes it banks sharply left then right and never actually follows the GPS track. Altitude hold doesn't seem to do anything either, however it does track a heading bug perfectly and I took full advantage of this. Trimmed out with the autopilot on there's little to do. Just make occasional course corrections on the heading bug, switch fuel tanks, and watch the world go by.
This airplane is very stable, on our return trip I had to fly through about half an hour of IMC or likely be stranded for the next week. Set the power, set the heading bug and autopilot up, trim it out and sit back and watch the instruments... easy easy easy. My previous airplane had no autopilot whatsoever and flying IFR just having the wing leveler is a game changer. Half an hour in the soup with light rain and some light turbulence is nothing now.
So overall I'm pretty happy with the airplane, there are a few small squawks that I want to get looked at- some static over the intercom, a bit of a gap around a couple of the doors, and a couple of other little things. I would say that someone looking for a sporty airplane will be disappointed- it's heavy handling and super stable. However if you want a nice comfy stable family hauler this is a great airplane. Looking forward to the next big cross country in it.
