New License, buy a retractable?

Welcome Winston and congratulations on the PPL

Naïve question: what kind of damage does a gear-up landing do to a glider?

Enjoy the C172. In this case the people are a lot more important than the aircraft.

Back to the original question. I first flew variable pitch straight after my PPL and didn’t have any problem with it, but several of the older aéro-club members who had always flown fixed pitch struggled with the new aircraft. If you learn the procedure for the propeller and gear early on, it will be easier than re-learning after x hours flying not thinking about them. To repeat what others have said, don’t let it stop you, but make sure you follow the checklist.

Thank you

Re the landing: Very little damage. You’d usually use the grass just in case of a gear up landing. Gel coat scratches are a given, maybe loss of one or both of the gear doors. In this case it was landed on the tarmac but it was flying the next day, and fully repaired (sanded, a bit of fibreglass lay-up and recoat) within a month. The benefits of (then) being outside the certification regime!

I’ve chosen to adopt after takeoff and before landing checklists even through they’re redundant at the minute.

I set climb power (full for what I fly!) and I do “red, blues, greens” at the start of finAl. Hopefully this will stop me doing any negative learning at this early stage.

Landing a Nimbus glider on smooth grass gear up costs one 35 beers in the cloud-house (after gathering 7 people to lift it, lower it and calling Clyde to inspect & sign), not me but I witnessed a friend doing this, funnily enough Nimbus has 1:60 glider ratio and it’s impossible to forget the gear, I fly a draggy Astir with 1:38 and it’s just impossible to forget…

On aerodynamics reminder, the gear on the Mooney comes naturally if one keeps throttle WOT with hot CHT on their descents, you won’t slow down without dropping the gear but I almost forgot it on the Arrow once, the reverse is true: it’s impossible to forget to raise the gear in the Arrow, it won’t climb from the surface, but in the Mooney I did forget to raise it once…

Hah! I got beers all evening from the pilot who’d landed it gear up. I had it hired for the next 9 days for my first competition and he was an ex-RAF fast-jet pilot and (I think) an airliner captain. I had maybe 70 hours. I’ll never let him forget it!

The editor in chief of the German PuF magazine used to own and fly one for many years and said exactly the same thing: same cost as a big single. But then he was a bit biased of course. Still, a fabulous machine.

Definitely a step up from only just getting the PPL, though.

The operating cost of any plane is strongly related to its history of past (and present) blind neglect “defect rectification deferment policy”, so this is perfectly possible.

The Twin Comanche has relatively small engines, only 160hp each. It’s operating costs and fuel consumption is in fact not far away from a comparative single. I was close to buying one myself, in particular because the Turbo Twin Comanches come quite capable. But I stepped back from a Twin at the moment.

There seems to be no other comparable Twin on the market. They’re typically well equipped, fast, and don’t drink too much AVGAS.

There are loads of information to be found in the internet.

lukepower wrote:

I guess the twin will cause higher maintenance costs, albeit not for sure where those might come from.

For starters, you have two engines, two props and all the ancillary systems x 2. Most twins also have additional systems like heaters, inflatable door seals, ant-ice, etc. It adds up. The DOC of a PA-30 is prob90 in the same ballpark as a high-power complex single (Bonanza, C210, etc), however I doubt the ongoing mx will be.

The upside of course is that you can buy piston twins for relatively little money. So, if you want to keep the initial outlay low and don’t mind somewhat higher ongoing mx costs, then a twin makes a lot of sense. All that said, in your relatively low-hour situation a conversation with your insurance is in order before committing to anything.

Sorry, what is DOC?

Definitely you should talk to an insurance company before. Don’t know what is the case in Italy.

By the way, the Comanche 260 single has far more payload (at least 200kg) and higher climb rates than the TwinCo. Fuel burn book values are quite similar, 170KTAS in the 260 single will burn about 14Gal, in the TwinCo about 17-18 Gal total. However the single can be operated LOP, the Twin not so. But in the end, fuel costs are only a small fraction of ownership..