Initial impression as I walked toward the plane. Very nice looking, the canopy is huge. Looks good. Interior, although not finished, looked spacious and well laid out. getting onboard was tricky, but once settled into the seat, it was very comfy. Plenty of room, more than a 172. Slide the seat back and I couldn't operate the pedals. Once the seat was positioned, the legroom was very good. Start up was typical Rotax, turn the key and it's running at 1800rpm before you can blink. NOW taxiing was the toughest part of the whole Demo. I have never been in a swiveling nosewheel plane. I need some time to learn the proper technique to tap the brakes at the correct time without using rudder. Slid the gigantic canopy closed and all was quiet. Nice. Full power and the plane zips right along, rudder becomes effective fairly quick. I don' recall all the numbers but I think we climbed out at 80mph, 500fpm. leveled off at 6500. DA was 8150', we were indicating ~117mph at 5gph. The plane seemed heavy and needing more power. I'm 6' 240#, my demo pilot was Randy(MR. Rans) in the rightseat and I assume 6' 180#. He said we were at Max gross. They are working on trimming ~40# weight.
The controls were light and balanced. Rudder?, what rudder? it wasn't needed. Turns stayed coordinated with my feet on the floor. Steep turns were effortless. Pitch stability was excellent. Stalls were a pussycat. Power off gave plenty of warning and the nose just fell forward. Power on stall put the nose very high, if you still didn't realize you were screwing up, the stick would shake/shudder, prior to pitching forward. . West Desert Airpark is a 24' x 2600' so being a brandnew prototype light sport I followed Randy thru the landing. Approach was about 80 power off and seemed to land with no effort.
Rans has a couple of details to work out, but overall the S-19 will be a winner. Very nice handling, solid, 2 seater.
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