Good and Bad

Publications devote special issues to naming the best cars of the year, and Consumer Reports and others carve out lucrative businesses from telling us what not to buy. Why don’t we do the same with airplanes?

About a year ago I wrote a short story for our sister magazine, AOPA Pilot, giving examples of a few maligned airplanes. These weren’t my opinions; it was a compilation of airplanes that cost less than their competitors, have poor support, or are odd outliers. By the passionate way owners responded, you would have thought I shot their dogs.

With few exceptions, most pilots are reticent to declare an airplane bad. It’s possible there aren’t any truly bad airplanes. Certification standards are very expansive, and virtually nonnegotiable, and airplanes must meet them before coming to market. Established to provide a base level of safety, these rigid certification standards have in effect created a bland soup that makes most aircraft generally similar in performance.

That is evident by peeking into the world of experimental aircraft, where the lack of strict regulation allows for more creative designs and a much greater variety of performance, safety, efficiency, and cost. Yet the mere fact that someone can take the time and effort (and let’s face it, the guts) to build and fly their own airplane dissuades us from knocking their choice of aircraft.

Then there’s physics, which gives us hard limits on knots per horsepower. A hundred years of tweaking and playing with aerodynamics have given us marginal improvements in speed and efficiency in the piston world, and nothing like what’s happened in cars and motorcycles.

But I think the real reason we don’t malign airplanes is that what we do is special. If someone has poured $10,000 into their private pilot training and $30,000 to $3 million into their airplane, we want to be supportive of that investment of time and money. Not to mention the countless hours studying and training.

I get all those arguments, and generally I’m just as supportive as the next pilot when it comes to encouraging people to fly whatever they can, whenever they can. But I think it’s time we as a community are honest with each other and admit there are some stinkers out there.

The Cessna 150/152 is better than the 172 as a trainer, for example. The 172 isn’t a bad airplane, but the controls aren’t well balanced, and the stall break is weak and mushy, which is bad for students who need to learn how to identify and avoid stalling. The Piper Cherokee series is slightly harder to land well, the oleo strut is more prone to mechanical issues than the Cessnas, and one door is harder for student and instructor.

Some of my desire to declare good and bad is probably a justification for a situation I got myself in when I decided to declare the best classic tailwheel airplane for an upcoming story in AOPA Pilot. Spoiler alert: I think the best airplane in terms of numbers is also the worst of the bunch. I’ll be answering those emails for the rest of the year.

As much as we don’t want to malign each other’s airplanes, there are signs that, privately, pilots agree some airplanes are just better than others. Look at the used airplane market and there are clues. Just like that clapped out Saturn sells for a fraction of a used Honda Civic, so too do some airplanes show their desirability (or lack thereof) in sales prices. Look at a Cessna Skymaster versus a Piper Twin Comanche, or a Piper Cub versus an Aeronca Champion. The Skymaster and the Champ might not be bad airplanes, but buyers clearly think there are better choices.

I’m not sure if the Saturn owner had a fondness for defunct early 2000s American-made econoboxes or if it was a marriage of financial necessity, but it’s not wrong to say there are objectively better choices for the poor sap. Airplane owners may not say a particular airplane is a bad choice in mixed company, but they do the talking with their checkbooks.

Ian J. Twombly owns a Piper J–3 Cub, the best airplane of all time.

[email protected]