AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2011 - 66

to build a trainer for the next generation of student pilots. “Our goal from the beginning was to get more people flying by lowering the cost of flight training,” said Cessna’s Oliver. “Flight training is part of our DNA. It’s part of our pedigree. We had to find a way to make it more affordable to increase the number of pilots.” Company officials said they had to look abroad, and China won the competition. Cessna’s most recent trainer, the 152, went out of production in the early 1980s. And new Cessna 172s with inte-

grated Garmin G1000 avionics suites carry retail prices of about $270,000. The Skycatcher is meant to give new students a way to learn to fly at less cost, and hook them on Cessna products with Garmin avionics from the beginning. A new pilot today can step up through the Cessna product line from Skycatcher to Citation Mustang—and every airplane in between (172, 182, 206, Corvalis, 208) is likely to carry a similar avionics suite. “We’re making real progress at fulfilling Skycatcher orders,” Oliver said. “And we expect to see our order book

grow again as the cadence of deliveries continues to accelerate and people get accustomed to seeing these airplanes in the field. All indications tell us it’s going to be a very popular airplane.” In the field John Sterling, operations director at Downtown Aviation at Gen. DeWitt Spain Airport in Memphis, Tennessee, said the Cessna 162 Skycatcher is attracting new students who come specifically to become sport pilots. “They came to us because they heard about the Skycatcher and they wanted to pursue the sport license,” Sterling said. “It’s definitely creating demand.” Downtown Aviation took delivery of its Skycatcher, serial number 11, in September 2010, and the airplane logged about 200 hours of dual instruction in its first four months of operation. Downtown Aviation charges $112 an hour for Skycatcher rentals, compared to $87 an hour for a Cessna 152 and $149 an hour for a 2005, G1000equipped Cessna 172. “We’ve had Cessna 150s and 152s in our fleet for years and our costs on them are extremely low because the airplanes are paid for,” Sterling said. “We’ve had some preliminary discussions about possibly selling the 150s and 152s and buying more Skycatchers. But we really want to get at least one full year of operational experience with the Skycatcher under our belts before we make a decision. If we could get our costs on the Skycatcher down to the level of our 152s, we would have bought several Skycatchers.” So far, Sterling said the Skycatcher and its new Continental 0-200 engine have held up well to the rigors of the training environment. Other than a weak plastic ring on the oil door fastener, the airplane has been completely trouble-free, he said. And pilots seeking to learn to operate the complex avionics suites in integrated G1000 systems have begun flying the Skycatcher and its far simpler G300 first. “Several of our customers have made the transition from G300 to our 172s and 182s with the G1000 system, and they do so without any difficulty,” Sterling said. “The operating logic behind the two systems is so similar that it makes the transition much easier, and there’s less frustration and less expense.” E-mail the author at dave.hirschman@ aopa.org.
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2011