Advice on flight training, please.

[Fitzy_flyer]

In England I was pleased to see the ATC Cadets get some flying in every year, they were all entitled to some time in a Chipmunk and a Sedburgh or T31 Cadet glider. It seemed a better deal than I had in Montreal.

yeah i was actually on a cadet exchange over there with my sqn. this summer. they really are more lucky and treated better than canadian cadets. the Sqn. we exchanged with (church fenton) had they're own air port that they shared with a university training school. not to mention they used grob tutor's, unlike our stupid cessna's.

[MichaelP]

I believe Grob Tutor's are used by the Canadian Forces for primary training at Portage Le Prairie as well.

[Fitzy_flyer]

they are? lol

[AntiNakedMan]

Actually, looking into my gliding log book from my exchange to england, the motor gliders that the ATC used when I was there was the grob vigilant, which is quite different than the grob 120 used by the CF in Portage;

the vigilant was a neat little thing; it had no flaps but spoilers, and something i can only describe as a pull-chord to change the pitch of the prop from fine to coarse. We even shut the engine down and glided for awhile, I still have a picture somewhere of the prop stopped. A little odd on a single but it still glided quite well.

The grob 120, as far as I have been told is a 260hp a/c with a constant speed prop, retractable, and air conditioning; a little bit of a step up from the vigilant.

[MichaelP]

The Grob Tutor is not the motor glider you flew, it is the same airframe as the Grob 120 used by the Canadian forces at Portage.

I flew a Grob 109 motor glider in Japan, and the predecessor of the Grob 115E - 120 series, the Grob 115 when it was brand new in England.


Grob Tutor


Grob 115


Grob 120

[Hedley]

Anyone else reminded of the Slingsby Firefly?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_T-67_Firefly

disaster in the United States because of fatal crashes, and problems with engine failures ... Three Air Force Academy cadets and three instructors were killed in T-3A crashes attributed to spin recovery procedures and engine malfunctions. The British-built planes had been purchased for $32 million, and $10 million was spent on fixes to make them airworthy after grounding. "The Air Force found the cost of getting the aircraft or any of the aircraft's components in airworthy condition for resale was prohibitive"

The entire fleet was chopped up into scrap.

[MichaelP]

The Americans insisted on putting the 260 hp engine into the T67M airframe and it couldn't take the heat!

The T67M has a real spin problem... You often need full forward stick to recover.
One pilot I flew with was really really confused in the spin, "I can't do it, I can't do it" he shouted... 'I have control' I said, and we recovered no problem at all.
The aeroplane is not a Cessna.
USAF instructors used to training in the C172 military variant (T41?) would easily come unstuck in a potent T67M-260 (T3A).

The first certified T67M had the 160hp IO-320 with a Hoffmann constant speed prop, its registration was G BKTZ and it's first civilian operator as far as I know was...... me!

I did outside loops in this aeroplane and had a lot of fun in it... It had a fuel trap and a flop tube to fly inverted for 3 or 4 minutes depending on the power setting.
It was one aeroplane that didn't need 260hp!
The T67M-200 was as far as it should have gone.

I checked your link, and the same aeroplane was flying in 2004!
I'll have to check the logbook... I got it when that awful Lycoming engine in the T67A G BIOW bust a piston, Slingsby's loaned me the T67M for a couple of months. It was great fun and I would have another one!