AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2018 - 75

If you're the type of pilot who's worried about an engine failure (and who's
not?), the Cougar provides nearly worryfree flight at night, over long stretches of
water, forests, and mountainous terrain.
Throw in a roomy cabin, large bins for
luggage, and voluminous fuel tanks, and
the Cougar bests the complex singles in
range, loading flexibility, and comfort.
Naysayers will point out the potentially dangerous handling of the twin
in event of an engine failure, but in the
case of the Cougar, this argument is
largely a nonstarter. Unlike the twin
trainers of the 1960s-such as Piper's
Twin Comanche and Beechcraft's
Travel Air-the Cougar was designed
to stall prior to losing directional control. Some flight schools don't like
using Cougars for multiengine training because they're so docile that
students don't learn adequate respect
for engine-out handling in twins.
In addition, for those who think
twins are maintenance hogs or
expensive to insure, the Cougar has
proven otherwise. Christian Smith of
Murrysville, Pennsylvania, first considered a complex single before he
stumbled upon an article about the
Cougar. "I had not heard of the Cougar
before," said Smith. "I loved the idea of a
second engine as I wanted to fly at night
over the mountains of West Virginia
quite often. The more I researched, the
more I wanted a Cougar."
Lycoming 's 160-horsepower
O-320 is mounted on each wing of
the Cougar. Both propellers turn the
same way, unlike the Piper Seminole
and Beechcraft Duchess competitors,
which both have counter-rotating
props to eliminate the "critical" engine.
All three twin trainers were designed
and launched around the same time,
but the Piper and Beech models
roundly outsold the Grumman.
Only 115 Cougars were built
over two model years, 1978 and 1979.
Grumman American was sold to
American Jet Industries in 1978 and
became Gulfstream American. Not
only was Gulfstream's timing awful in
terms of the looming general aviation
downturn of the 1980s, but the company had never dabbled in production

of light airplanes. Finally, it didn't take
Gulfstream long to realize there was
also a lot more money to be made in
jets than in light airplanes, and the little Grummans were swept aside.
There were some efforts to revive
the design, the most intriguing being
when Socata, maker of TBM turboprops
and TB-series light singles, planned to
round out its product line with a twin
trainer called the Tangara (see "Tangara
Tango," page 76). Socata bought the
tooling and type certificate in the late
1990s and built a single prototype with
180-horsepower Lycoming O-360s. The
aircraft never entered production.
Today, the Cougar is far from an
orphaned airplane thanks to two
shops in the United States: Air Mods
NW in Granite Falls, Washington, and
FletchAir in Comfort, Texas. Between
the two, nearly every Cougar part can
be obtained. It's estimated that there
are 60 to 70 Cougars still flying, several in Europe.
Unique among Grummans are the
bonded wing skins. Wing bonding, a
controversial and relatively new procedure in the 1970s, has held up to the
test of time as these airplanes reach
their 40s.
Originally, the Cougar's designers
were planning to install 250-horsepower engines to create a six-seat
Cessna 310/Beechcraft Baron 55/
Piper Aztec-caliber airplane that
owners could step up to. With the slippery bonded wings, the Cougar likely
would've made a worthy challenger.
Cougars sit tall on the ramp, like
a Cessna 310. The Cougar's engine
nacelles are long and streamlined, similar to the more compact but speedier
Piper Twin Comanche. There are no
wing lockers, however. The wing is a
constant-chord slab. The lack of rivets
somewhat offsets the wing's simple,
Hershey-bar look.
Compared to its Piper competitors,
the Cougar gives the pilot excellent visibility thanks to the high seating position.
The windows are large and the cabin
roomy. With the entry-level model having only 320 horsepower, six seats aren't
really doable. Without that third row, it
makes for a roomy four-seater with a
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2018

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