Sport Pilot Talk

N918KT

Today, I went to Aero Safety Training for a flight training consultation. I got a chance to meet up with the owner again and the first thing she did when we get there was that she let me go take a look at their Cessna Skycatcher.

I only moved the stoke around and it may take a little bit of getting used to. I know that sometimes I practice with my hands and going through the motions before I got a chance to try the stoke for real. I wanted to try to operate the flap handle but she wouldn't allow me to. I was thinking of turning on the G300 avionics but I didn't ask because I thought she would say no to that too.

After playing around in the Skycatcher, me and my stepfather talked with the owner about their sport pilot program. Yes the rates are definitely more expensive than what I get at Royal Karina but there were club memberships and a starter up program for students called "Test Your Wings" and "Test Your Wings Gold" programs. The in the latter program, I would get discounts on rental and such, a CPC Kit, and a club membership with the initial fee discounted over 20%.

We talked about CFIs and insurance. The school's insurance policy would require me to purchase rental insurance from my solo onward because the Skycatcher is a new plane and all.

The school hasn't started their SP program yet and probably wouldn't for another month.

Overall, a very expensive school to go to but closer to my home. They have some discounts but I will see if their discounts would lower the overall costs. I may consider Aero Safety but there's a chance that I might want to stick with Royal Karina.

RyanShort1 · Joined: 17 Aug 2010 Posts: 101 Location: San Antonio, TX

N918KT wrote: I only moved the stoke around and it may take a little bit of getting used to. I know that sometimes I practice with my hands and going through the motions before I got a chance to try the stoke for real. I wanted to try to operate the flap handle but she wouldn't allow me to. I was thinking of turning on the G300 avionics but I didn't ask because I thought she would say no to that too.
Good call on not turning stuff on without permission. I probably would've asked, though!

I flew the Skycatcher for the first time this week. Put 0.8 in the plane with an instructor in the right seat. The "stoke" took me about 10 minutes to get used to, after that it was fine. It doesn't behave quite like I expected it to, but it worked fine once got it down. I'll admit that I was apprehensive about my first landing, but tower asked if I could do a short approach and I decided to give it a try. It went fine. You have to be a bit more careful with your pitch, but apart from that, I thought it was a nice bird.

N918KT wrote: We talked about CFIs and insurance. The school's insurance policy would require me to purchase rental insurance from my solo onward because the Skycatcher is a new plane and all.
You need to do that anyway. Insurance is cheap compared to what happens if you don't have it and anything goes wrong.

Ryan