#5 - DV20 - Diamond DA20 Eclipse, Katana, Evolution

The Diamond Aircraft Company, along with Cirrus and the no longer independent Columbia, has been instrumental in reinvigorating small, piston engine, general aviation.  All three companies started with a clean sheet design, using well understood, but underutilized composite materials.  Diamond, an Austrian company, had the oddest airplane parentage.  Their entry into the small plane market started out as a motor glider.  Sometimes called self launch gliders, these very long winged, lightweight two seaters, are a staple of European general aviation.  The Dimona motorglider became the Katana, a two seat trainer and that morphed into the Diamondstar, the four seat fiberglass airplane that my brother owns.  By his lights the flights in the Katana, the Evolution and the Eclipse DV20s were our first forays into the air in a real airplane.  He never really considered buying a tin plane, and the Cirrus and Diamondstar were the composite front runners from the moment he realized he was as obsessed with flying as I am.  

One of the two seater Diamonds I have flown sitting on the ramp in Santa Paula

My brother and I learned to fly together.  It is really not a practical method for most folks, since it is hard to find a training partner, but boy did it make the whole experience a blast.  We took nearly every lesson together.  The airtime was split with one of us sitting in the back seat while the other flew. Watching the other guy make a set of mistakes was really educational and it was also a huge plus to get to go on a pleasure flight as a passenger a couple of times a week.  In any case, we finished flight training a few weeks apart and set a date to get checked out in a Katana at the Torrance airport for a  celebratory hop.  What started out as a planned trip to Big Bear became a ten airport hop to practice VOR skills.  We decided to split the flying duties, swapping PIC roles after every landing.  Since it was a pain to jump in and out on every landing my career as pilot in command from the right seat was under way. 

The transition from a metal plane designed in the 50’s to an all composite airplane designed in the 80’s was not difficult but it was a big adjustment.  The very first thing you notice walling up to the Katana is the very narrow cross section of the fuselage aft of the seats.  Wasp waisted about captures the way a two person canopy swelling necks down to a round section beam that can be encircled with one arm.  This would also be my first t-tailed airframe.  The horizontal stabilizer, usually set in the middle of the cross section of rear fuselage sits up on top of the vertical stabilizer.  The clearest effect of this t-tail configuration is that the elevators, which control the pitch of the airplane are not in the prop wash and so they are not affected by increasing or decreasing power.  Bringing back the throttle as you come in to land will not drop the nose nearly as much as it will with a conventional tail.  There is no doubt that the plane is also just flat out gorgeous.  Though small, it has the flowing lines and swoopy curves of an Italian sports care.  It looks fast tied up on the line waiting for us to unleash its 80 hp Rotax engine.

Did I mention some things are a little different than we are used to?  Well the first thing you do in the Katana is make sure it will not melt while you are out gallivanting.  This entails pulling back the seat padding to reveal a section of heat sensitive color that will change a ‘no go’ red when the composite heats above a certain point. The Katana is a low wing with a tilt up canopy so entry is similar to the Grumman American Yankee.  There is very little room behind the seats for luggage as the gas tank sits below what looks like an outsides hat shelf behind the pilot and co-pilot headrests.  After firing the engine up the gearing of the Rotax made me do a double take a few times since the redline on the engine was over 5,000 rpm, a solid 2300 rpm faster that the more familiar Continental and Lycoming power plants.  The nose wheel is castering, just like the Yankee and taxing is dead simple with differential braking.  Pushing the throttle foward it is immediately clear that this airplane dearly wants to be airborn.  That will prove to be the most challenging thing about it.  Every other plane I have flown is perfectly happy to stagger into the air, but the Katana hits aflyable airspeed quickly, then it is all you can do to hold it on the ground. 

Cruise flight and navigation is very straightforward, but on landing we discovered an interesting thing.  This son of a glider does not want to stop flying.  The wings are long and thin and the airframe is very light, and the whole fuselage is remarkably well streamlined.  This means that slowing down to land is non-trivial.  If you are spot on with your approach airspeed the beast will drop softly out of the air as you crank in the small bit of nose up that counts as a flare in this plane.  When you find yourself high on final in every other plane I have flown you have a poorly explained and not often recommended option.  You can point the nose down and start picking up speed while losing altitude.  Then, because the plane is usually pretty draggy just leveling out will scrub off the speed without gaining altitude.  This is a perfectly acceptable alternative to a slip in many airplanes though it can cause palpitations in your passengers so it is not often performed.  Try a similar trick in the Katana and you will find that the plane is so well streamlined that when you pull up from your little dive the plane will maintain most of the speed leaving  you way to hot to do anything other than a low pass at the runway.  It took a bit of practice to learn that the over the fence speed had a lot tighter tolerance than in does in the other trainers I have flown. 

The Rotax engine is not the only power plant for this plane and I have flown a total of four engine configurations.  They were all pretty good on gas, much better than the other two seaters I have flown and they were all remarkably quick (130 knots/156 mph) given the tiny engine.   The used market for these planes reflects the cool factor of the composite airframe, the high cruise speed and the often sophisticated electronics.  The asking price will be 3-10 times the price of a similar quality Cessna 150/152 and I suspect that it is the availability of these lovely airplanes that keeps a lid on the resale price of the 40 year old Cessna technology. 

#4 - DR400 - Porsche Robin

There is no way that a recently minted pilot with my level of enthusiasm should be allowed out of the country until the initial private pilot ticket is well and truly scuffed up.  It is just plain irresponsible. But, a couple weeks after the check ride I had to go get some data in Germany.  Before I even left I was looking for smaller airports in the Stuttgart area.  I began shamelessly emailing flying clubs asking if I might take a ride in one of their planes. I emailed several glider clubs and one motorflugzeug club. I had only one response, and it was from a very nice fellow who said that he would take me up on Saturday if I had time. I quickly returned to that club’s website and found they were flying a Bölkow and a Robin HR200. I had never heard of the Bölkow, but I knew the Robin to be a fabric and wood airplane of French design. From the photographs I assumed that the flying club was sponsored by Porsche, since the bright red Robin had a prominent Porsche stenciled on the bow.

At the appointed hour I waited outside the institute and Andreas arrived to take me to the airport. On the way he explained that Porsche was just getting out of the airplane engine business after making a hundred or so 911 engines airworthy. The plane we were flying was one of the few Porsche powered airplanes left and after this week it would get a conventional Lycoming power plant because Porsche wanted their hardware back. 

The distinctive bent up wingtips of the Robin DR400

When we arrived at Nabern the Robin was sitting in the sun seemingly covered in children. On closer inspection it was just two rapidly moving youngsters belonging to another club member, Gerd. Before I could go flying the Robin would be used to tow a glider up into the thermals off Teck. This area is one of the world famous glider spots, with yearly appearances in the aviation rags as a competition spot. A key piece of equipment was missing – the tow-line for dragging the spindly winged glider aloft. We all (Gerd, Andreas and I) hopped into the airplane for a short trip to Hahnweide where the line might have been stowed. It was a goose chase that not only gave me a great view of Teck but also introduced me to the concept of glider avoidance. They were hanging around the steep slopes of the Swabian Alps like a kettle of vultures. We dodged them on the way there and back and then Andreas and I headed to the Schloss Neuschwanstein.

Neuschwanstein is familiar to anyone who has seen the opening of a Disney movie since Walt copied the castle for his cartoons. It is a wonderfully ornate structure of white stone and blue roofs constructed by mad king Ludwig of Bavaria in the 1850’s. Though the castle was never finished the outside is perfect and the setting, in the steep crags of the foothills of the Alps, is unbelievable.

We flew right to the castle, a journey of some 50 minutes at 220 km/hr. The whole way Andreas and I plotted our position and talked about flying. I had the opportunity to fly the plane a bit on our way back. With the tailwind we were cranking along at 240 km/hr and the plane handled really nicely. I did not try any steep turns, but when we circled the castle Andreas had her right up on her right wing so I could get a look. It was a 60 degree bank and we lost no altitude. Closeness of the cliffs that surround the castle were a real incentive to keep the bank in.

We flew back to Nabern, a grass strip at the edge of the Swabian Alps and Andreas made a very nice landing. At some point during the pizza dinner we enjoyed at the airport Andreas mentioned that he had been taking English lessons with his wife every Monday for 8 years. The lessons surely worked because we had no difficulty in understanding each other. He went on to say that the only reason he emailed me back about flying was that his teacher insisted it was good homework. I was the first native English speaker with whom he had conversed.

Andreas wrote me that the Porsche engine is out of the plane and the Lycoming plan is dead. They will sell the DR400 and buy a new plane. It was a real treat to take the Porsche on its last flight and I hope the club gets a new plane soon because I am coming back to Germany in the spring.