Quote Originally Posted by Buzz View Post
I guess if one's goal is to be an airline pilot, one should have learned to fly in a 737. LOL
I'm sure you know that I am not advocating that someone has to learn basic in a 737. I'm simply pointing out that commonly after training a new pilot to decides he wants to purchase a plane (especially since UL's are not typically a rental item). The usual choice is to get the aircraft that they trained in, or the next step higher. Hence, 74,500 Cessna 150/152/172's were produced.

There aren't any new 2-axis aircraft available to purchase that I am aware of, and no used ones that you wouldn't have to modify for standard controls. So, when you are complete with the training there is no usable aircraft that someone can purchase. I'm thinking this is some of the point in Jedi's early 3-axis aircraft questions.

So we are left with three options, or some combination of them:
#1. You train people in older/modified 2-axis aircraft and hope that some of the UL manufacturers start producing 2-axis planes.
#2. Every instructor now has to purchase two planes, and modified 2-axis for initial training, and a 3-axis for final transition.
#3. You find a 3-axis that will work.

I noticed that one common mod on the Quicksilver MX line is to replace the flying wires with ones that will give you a lower dihedral. As opposed to having a manufacturer completely re-tool and start producing another model, possibly a MX Sprint-T (trainer) could be produced which uses a different set of wires for a higher dihedral? Training would still be done initially with 2-axis controls (aileron-neutral), and then after the student gets in the air, they can start adding in aileron movements. Obviously with the high dihedral, the inputs are going to be fairly muted, but they can get the idea of what the controls do. When they are finished with training, they can purchase a trainer, which they could update to a normal Sprint later with a new set of wires, or they can buy a normal Sprint and understand that it is the next step up and will require a little more training (like the 150 trained student who buys a 172).