The weather was so good and my instructor had 8am openings for Sat and Sun
so I flew twice this past weekend. On the Sun lesson though I decided
that I wanted to contrast the 172 with the DA-20 so I reserved one
for Sun. I had flown that for my discovery flight but I had forgotten
how different many aspects of it are. If you haven't flown a Diamond
(and if you're interested) some of the differences are:
pre-flight is noticeably different (I definitely needed help from my instructor)
fuel is in a single tank behind the cockpit (so half the fuel and no left/right/both selector)
trim is on the stick and the selection indicator is a set of LEDs that show gross movements only, I kept hitting the trim to get the indicator to move for a while before I realized that the trim was actually moving each time I hit the switch even though
the LED was not changing
rotate and best climb airspeeds different
has a fuel pump that is on for the entire flight
has a stick rather than a yoke which really doesn't make any difference (originally I thought it would)
no steerable nose wheel and I did a bad job of steering using the brakes, it required much more finesse than I expected and the brakes didn't seem to have much travel
I tried to get familiar with the DA-20 checklists Sun night but didn't do a good enough job on it in advance
low wing and canopy definitely make a difference in the in-flight view
gauges are in a different position (on the right) and harder to see quickly
radios are different and I fumbled with them each time I had to tune
gps also displays other traffic which is neat but the practice area was busy and it was a little distracting
cockpit definitely a bit tighter and it would be difficult to reach anything you've stored behind you while in flight
All in all it was very interesting to contrast them but I'm happy with the 172.
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