Flying Tecnam’s P92 Eaglet
With over 200 Tecnams of about a dozen models flying in Australia and New Zealand and some 3,500 worldwide, the highly successful Italian manufacturer is now focused on consolidating its strong foothold in the fast-growing light sport aircraft market, where pilot training has emerged as the biggest single user of LSA aircraft.
Tecnam’s P92 Eaglet, conceived for exactly that purpose, was designed to address some gripes that beset earlier models whose main market was the more casual private recreational aviator. Ab initio pilot training is a little more demanding because daily/weekly utilisation is higher, low down-time is a commercial necessity, and student pilots can sometimes be less accomplished and less gentle than private owners.
I flew Tecnam 24-5521 at Wagga Air Centre with Chris Cabot, Tecnam’s NSW and ATC dealer, who says he’s finding the P92 popular with both students and instructors.
Eaglet’s cabin is now wider and higher than its predecessor, the Echo Super, and is even just a little wider than a Cessna 172 at shoulder height where it counts if you’re an instructor. The in-flight adjustable seats are on sloped rails, so if you’re not tall you can slide both forward and upwards to your optimum flying position. The intercom is of high quality – an important aspect in flight training.
Powered by the 100 hp Rotax 912 ULS (UL stands for unleaded fuel) the Eaglet has a 600 kg MTOW and an empty weight of 340, leaving a reasonably generous 260 kg to share between fuel, instructor and student. There’s also provision for 20 kg of baggage, and a hat shelf for lightweight items.
Fuselage construction is simple but rugged with welded chrome-moly tube bones, simple riveted skins, a spring steel main undercarriage and a low-maintenance rubber-in-compression steerable nosewheel. All control surfaces are now aluminium, with elevators and ailerons controlled by push-rods, and the rudder by cables.
Getting aboard is relatively easy even for the slightly overweight, and the furniture is very welcoming and comfortable.
The windscreen slopes back at a rakish angle, stopping just above your head, and the wing planform is a little unusual with the leading edges swept slightly rearwards at their inboard ends, providing good vision even in turns.
Standard-fit brake arrangement is a hand-operated taxying and park brake, but independent toe brakes are optional and we’d expect them to be popular with instructors because you don’t really want two pilots trying to operate one braking system when something goes slightly awry. Both control sticks have electric elevator trim and press-to-talk buttons.
Dual throttle positions provide two options for the student/instructor team. There’s one throttle on the extreme left of the panel, allowing the student to fly with the right hand while controlling power with the left. Alternatively the student can fly with the left hand and control the power with the right hand as in the majority of GA aircraft. This makes more sense in most cases because the flap control is just to the right of that throttle, and the throttle friction nut is to its immediate left. It also leaves the right hand free to operate the flaps and radios, set the altimeter and carry out other airborne tasks. When an instructor needs to take control of the throttle, for example if a student hasn’t fully advanced it on takeoff, they can quickly and easily reach the throttle to fix the problem.
The panel on our test aircraft looks pretty spartan with just a single ICOM VHF, altimeter, ASI, turn/bank and VSI, but there were four blanks on the LH panel to allow for a full conventional instrument flight six-pack plus two VOR/ILSs so there’s ample space for anything else that might enhance your flying and navigation.
Also on offer are a range of glass cockpit options says Chris: “We find it better and more economical to fit-up avionics preferences in Australia. The Dynon EFIS system, which is factory approved to be fitted to the Eaglet, includes a HSI and standard EFIS; all the Garmin systems are approved; and we’re just now seeking approval for the Truetrack system, which Jon Johansen’s setting up at the moment. Most people go for a standard rather than a deluxe instrument layout, then they might spec them up with a Garmin pack 296 VHF and a transponder, and that’ll bring you up to around $165,000.00 plus GST.
“With the Dynon EFIS screen system you can do a lot of your basic instrument training in these aircraft, and there are a few night VFR packs around now in VH aeroplanes. The Garmin 430s are an approved installation so I can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be IFR with an IFR pack on a VH registered aircraft.”
Engine instruments are on the RH panel, with the large RPM gauge at top left and easily accessible from the pilot seat. Engine and electrical instruments and the flap indicator are all on the RH panel, and there’s also a fuel pressure gauge.
Master, fuel pump, ignition and choke are conventionally located on the lower left panel, and circuit breakers opposite on the lower right.
The parking brake knob is aligned so it’s OFF if the knob is pointing north-south, and ON if it’s east-west, so you can operate it by feel without looking at the knob. The fuel selector (which is on the right door post) is similarly arranged; it’s ON in the north-south position and OFF if it’s horizontal. The system is designed so that unused fuel is returned to the left hand tank only, so left, right or both tanks can be selected to manage your lateral weight distribution, or to turn the fuel off if you’re parked overnight on a transverse slope.
Starting an aircraft engine using a choke may sound a bit weird when you’re not used to it, but this one’s already warm from the photo shoot so we don’t need it, and the engine starts readily and smoothly, idling quietly at about 500 rpm. Releasing the brakes, we begin to roll and a quick check that confirms the brakes are working. Chris tells me about a little trick: “I normally select the brake while I’m taxying and will require a stop at the holding point; that way all I have to do is pull that handle once and the brakes will lock on.”
Nosewheel steering is direct, light and easy, and the pre-takeoff checks are aided by the logical locations of the check items. Pressures and temps come up in green while we’re taxying. Chris tells me: “The oil temp is a bit slow to come up and it will be just in the bottom of the green while we’re flying because of a very efficient oil cooling system. Tecnam has just approved a Verni-Therm type thermostatic valve that bypasses the oil cooler until the temp gets up, helping the oil to warm quicker.”
10° of flap is normal and selected for takeoff, but Chris reminds me that it needs to be stowed before you reach the relatively low 68 kt VFE, so you need to keep the nose up until you’re flapless. A mag check at 3,200 rpm and fuel pump on for takeoff finishes the checklist and we’re accelerating down the centreline.
“Lift the nose off at around 35 kt, and she’ll start to want to fly away at about 45 KIAS,” advises Chris. Now in a very positive climb, I’m again reminded to keep the speed back until I’ve got the flaps up. Like a lot of other aircraft in this category, the low flap speeds are a bit of an inconvenience on takeoff and also in the circuit in these sometimes very slippery aircraft. Maybe users will one day start insisting on a little more engineering to lift the VFE to more realistic values.
70 KIAS is normal initial climb-out speed and it delivers a startling 1,000 fpm with full throttle at 85 kt, but we ease the nose forward to achieve 90 kt without losing much climb rate at all.
In the air the P92 is a delightful aircraft to handle, stable but responsive with good vision and ample personal space. Checking the cruise speed at 4,000’ in the training area I calculate we’re achieving the advertised 120 KIAS at 70% power. There’s no fuel flow gauge but Chris assures me 20 lit/hr is a consistently occurring fuel burn, and with students on circuit work your burn comes back to only about 16 lit/hr. Both these figures are reasonably consistent with those of other aircraft using the same engine.
Steep turns are another indicator of control response and balance, in which the P92 behaved impeccably. Stalling in all configurations the aircraft is quite forgiving, and even in high-deceleration stalls any wing-dropping tendency can be easily picked up with pedal, and controllability barely changes at all at lower speeds. Chris tells me you can do a “falling leaf” manoeuvre with flaps up at about 43 KIAS, even full of fuel at MTOW.
We tried straight & level low-speed flight and medium turns at 70, 60 and 50 KIAS in all flap configurations, finding the aircraft extremely manageable throughout with ample trim making it easy to stabilise and with good control response times. This will doubtless be an excellent machine in which to train pilots in low speed flight management.
As we head back towards Wagga Chris reminds me of the need to leave some airspace for reducing back to flap speed: “They’re surprisingly clean in a glide. At best glide speed of 70 kt and 5,000’ AGL eleven nm from Wagga, I can pull off the power and still land at Wagga airfield.”
I get the message, reducing the power and turning height into speed on the descent before levelling out to get back to circuit speed. At Wagga we join the circuit for Runway 05 with a light crosswind. I’ve left it a little late to slow down, so I try a mild sideslip with immediate results and suddenly we’re on a 3° glideslope and close to our target threshold speed of 52 KIAS. Some drift prompts a right-wing-down flare from short final, and the light and responsive control when close to the ground makes this a really simple and manageable exercise while maintaining the runway centreline. The outcome is a right-wheel-first touchdown that scores a compliment from Chris.
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As the fleet grows, Tecnam’s NZ-based South Pacific dealer Giovanni Nustrini has been reshaping spares arrangements to meet growing demand, says Wagga Air Centre’s Chris Cabot: “We’ve identified all the high-turnover items, and there’s a large supply in New Zealand which we can normally access in 3-4 days. Anything they don’t have in stock has to come from Italy, but we get a container a month, and if they’re small items we can get them air freighted pretty easily. To cater for ageing aircraft, anything they order in New Zealand for a client is duplicated so they have a spare in stock.”
In training functions this aeroplane performs very similarly to a Cessna 172; it has similar speeds, similar handling characteristics, and equally sedate stall behaviour. Typical flying school hourly P92 charge-out rates seem to be about $150-155 plus GST, while a C172 will commonly charge out at anything from $220 to $250 plus GST depending on the model.
If Tecnam’s P92 and comparable types can sustain that differential, they can be expected to carve out for themselves a notable percentage of the very cost-conscious basic flight training market.
Tecnam is also actively interested in the three-cylinder, six-piston Gemini 100 diesel powerplant; a unique opposed-piston design with two pistons in the same cylinder, and using Jet A1 fuel, which it expects to begin testing first on an Eaglet, in the near future. The Gemini is also expected soon to have a turbocharged 125 hp variant. So there’s plenty happening, and the Eaglet seems to have an even more interesting future.
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