Compared to pa28 and da40 i usually fly with, Dr400 is fine, lands short and easy to fly and it can carry a lot, but i’m 1m77 and doesn’t really like to have the knees on the ears, and second row has very little legroom (in addition on sensitivity to turbulences). Same apply to 180cv of course but this last climbs like hell. Still not a plane for 2+ hours fly with family.
It’s a matter of what yoyo like to fly, vut u w8yld not place dr400 in the comfortable category.
I will add a need for constant right foot on the 180 to fly balanced, which is not so the case on pa28. I am not voting for, pa28 are slower and Iron heavy, but to bring people in, it’s for me a good recipe. Juste need a fast enough one.
Surely any certified plane which doesn’t have a rudder trim and which needs a constant right foot in cruise has something badly wrong with it e.g. a bent airframe?
When I was looking for an Aircraft with similar profile to you, an Engineer who owned and flew his own PA28-180, told me to work out the time you save on the average trip with between an Arrow and a PA28 -181 – Then leave 5 minutes before! (It wouldn’t work for Peter with his long missions).
His exact words were “If you buy an Arrow, either the gear seizes up due to lack of use or the bearings wear out if you use it too much”. Also you can’t do your own 50 hour check on an Airfield as you need jacks to test the gear. He guessed that you buy a retractable then you need to add £ 1,000 per annum to cover extra costs and I think that is a good estimate
I know that am totally biased, don’t worry about fuel costs as you have just saved £ 1,000 on the Annual. Perhaps go for a PA28-235 and budget to sort out the leaking glass fibre tip tanks. You can get in and out of short grass strips and I have had a few Annuals with a PA28-181 that have come in at less than £ 1,200.
He’s right about the time saving being small, in the context of the actual range.
However the bit about the landing gear is not correct. Well, it may be correct in many cases but not because the gear is retractable. The Arrow is the cheapest in its class (retractable SEPs) and thus tends to be bought by people who are looking for …. the cheapest retractable SEP! That’s why we see so many in such poor condition. And if you don’t do basic maintenance on a retractable, it will soon start costing you dearly. And the converse applies: if you do, then it won’t. My TB20 landing gear specific expenditure is negligible – probably under £1k total over 17 years. The secret? One of these:
and one of these will last you at least 10 years
Take a look at this and you will get my drift.
There are more angles of course, as always. Maintenance companies don’t like retractables because the only way to properly lube the mechanism is with grease, not oil, and that needs some dismantling, which …. you’ve guessed it … most owners are unwilling to pay for. The “£2.5k+VAT standard Annual for a TB20” doesn’t include any gear lubrication (how do I know, you can guess), beyond what a grease gun will do. The GT is much better in this respect, with a lot more grease nipples.
Very true about needing jacks, but
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And then it starts to rain…So, yes, it is often correct to rubbish retractables, but it is for the wrong reasons
The DR400 rudder trim is a fixed tab so the owner has to decide on his preferred cruise power setting and set the tab to give neutral rudder at that power setting.
This having been said the DR400 rudder is quite powerful so even if you decide to cruse away from the normal criuse very little pressure is required to keep the aircraft in balance.
The only time it dose become a little bit of a PITA is during a long climb, if you are chasing a big tailwind at FL100 keeping the aircraft in balance during the climb is tiresome. However in the summer in Southern Europe you are likely to be step climbing in order to keep the oil temperature in check so you will level off and go to the cruise to cool the oil before you take another bite at the cherry.
Peter makes a good point about lubrication of PA28R landing gear, the most critical lubrication point is the main gear trunion bearing.
The big problem is the Trunion requires a right angle grease nipple adaptor or to jack the aircraft and half retract the gear so you can get a straight grease gun on to the trunion grease nipple, as the task of greasing the aircraft usualy falls to the hangar rat you can guess how often the most critical greasing task on the aircraft gets missed.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
can’t speak for the DR400 but I did sit inside a HR100 once. I had to tilt my head to the side to close the canopy and I am not that tall (ok 1.86 m but still…) Never had that problem with any other plane
I don’t have that problem in the DR400 or the DR250. I have it in the D121 though, but that doesn’t meet the requirements anyway.
The GY80 could be another candidate, although most need an avonic update.
Peter wrote:
Surely any certified plane which doesn’t have a rudder trim and which needs a constant right foot in cruise has something badly wrong with it e.g. a bent airframe?Not necessarily when you have a fixed pitch prop as the amount of trim depends on the engine speed… E.g. a C172 has a fixed (ground adjustable) trim tab on the rudder. If it is set for a typical low altitude medium cruise (≈2400 rpm), then you have to apply constant right foot at FL100 with the same power (≈2600 rpm).
Aircraft have a rudder neutral speed, which in some aircraft can be quite low. With an American engine that means some right rudder below the neutral speed, and left rudder above it. The early Super Cub is rigged for quite a low rudder neutral speed, so little right rudder in the climb, but some left rudder pressure in the cruise.
