Ab initio on a complex aircraft

You could just ask them to taxi Chipmunk in a windy days you would have got your anwser? (I am describing my first Chipmunk flight with no tailwheel experience !)

I don’t think kind of aircraft/training military has is anywhere relevant to the intial question, you will come across pilots who learned on Texans or Chipmunks, for most of them it did probably took ages to solo? that does not make any financial sense compared to civvy operating models in C172/PA28?

In the other hand you will come across someone who failed to make it on jets after 200h and will end up flying real missions on AB205 helicopters after a quick 10h conversion by one of his colleagues who failed on jets the year before ;)

While it is doable, I don’t see much the point if one wants to “learn to fly for fun”, but I will understand if someone doing his PPL/IR in a TB20, DA40, SR22, PA46…in one go and then stick to it for touring ;)

Last weekend I just come across someone who bought a Harvard and planning to do his PPL on it, that will not end very cheap or easy but has a long standing charm ;)

Ibra wrote:

I don’t think kind of aircraft/training military has is anywhere relevant to the initial question, you will come across pilots who learned on Texans or Chipmunks, for most of them it did probably took ages to solo?

A Chipmunk was designed as a basic trainer, and I believe its a pretty good plane for the job. The reason to learn to fly in a Chipmunk might be because you bought a purpose designed primary trainer and would like to use it for that purpose Obviously 145 HP on a good day is not going to break the bank in fuel consumption.

A T-6 (meaning an SNJ, Harvard, Texan etc) would be a completely different experience: more than four times as much power and designed to transition existing pilots from tailwheel basic trainers into WWII fighters. I’m sure its possible to learn to fly in a T-6 but it would be much more challenging than (for example) a Marchetti SF-260 – a current military primary trainer that is well aligned to the initial question.

In relation to the initial question, if I wanted to own and fly an SF-260 (which happens to be the case, perhaps 10 years from now ) I would learn to fly in something that burns a fraction of the fuel, has a fraction of the wing loading and will teach me to use the rudder and fly the wing. Then I would get some hours in at least one other intermediate type in order to learn that (in the words of an instructor friend to me, in this circumstance years ago) “the throttle is a control”… then I would finally transition into the SF-260. That progression has been proven unnecessary by the Italian Air Force if the objective is to fly only high wing loading, powerful planes… but it would be (is) my choice, because doing so is an educational luxury that I think and hope builds good skills and broad understanding.

Silvaire wrote:

A Chipmunk was designed as a basic trainer, and I believe its a pretty good plane for the job. The reason to learn to fly in a Chipmunk might be because you bought a purpose designed primary trainer and would like to use it for that purpose Obviously 145 HP on a good day is not going to break the bank in fuel consumption.

Yes, it was designed as trainer but still 145HP on tarmac will still give a lot of headache vs 65HP/95HP on grass for a cadet

Bringing this back to topic, a bit late to the thread…

I actually had a student who bought an Arrow (T-tail IV, but not turbo) after his first solo in a PA28. Did the conversion training & solo on that one, too, and he finished the PPL on it. Other than the obvious time needed (a bit below 5 hours, IIRC) to do the VP and rectractable bits, he did nicely. While he was at the more talented end of the ability spectrum, can’t see why others shouldn’t do it, if they can afford it. As an instructor, I share the slight worry about the turbo in a s*tty fixed wastegate set-up, though.

There are a few non-obvious gotchas for the school / instructor to keep in mind.

• None of the usual training routes will work. Teaching someone to navigate at 135 kt is different from teaching someone at 90-100kt. The routes need to be longer to be meaningful
• You need to allocate some time for the extra kit (care and feeding of autopilots, mostly) or extra capability (fly a couple one nav legs at FL100, using radio nav / GPS, descent planning and engine care)

so some post-PPL stuff will creep in.

Cobalt wrote:

so some post-PPL stuff will creep in.

Which, to me, would kind of be the point of such an exercise – same logic as training for the IR in one’s own plane.

tmo wrote:

[this] would kind of be the point of such an exercise

Indeed.

There are a few questions the student should ask him/herself before doing this, but none of them have anything to do with the training itself.

• Can I afford this?
• Can I deal with the hassles of ownership, or will I pay someone to do it for me?
• Am I really sure that this is the aircraft that I want to fly for quite a bit once I am done?

If the answer to any of these three is not a clear “absolutely!”, I would recommend to find a school which is happy to train you for your PPL on a school-operated Arrow, and only buy at the point when you are sure about all three.