Hey everyone.
Been a while since I have flown due to me living away from home for uni but today I decided to indulge a bit and took a flight with the local GA flying school, in a Piper Warrior or Cherokee 140 to be specific.
It was an interesting flight, you can definitely notice the difference when the type you are most used to is the Foxbat. It was the first aircraft I've flown with more than 2 seats, even if you need to be a contortionist to get into the back seat.
Startup seemed a little more involved, and loud with those gyros spinning up. Taxiing was also a bit harder than the Foxbat as I found it easy to let the speed build up. The strange thing was that the trim was in the roof and you wound the lever around in circles to adjust trim.
We backtracked and lined up, then I applied full takeoff power. My immediate thought was "Is that it??!?" as we slowly picked up speed. I couldn't believe how much runway it used to get off the ground! But then again I am used to the Foxbat mainly where you're airborne in about 5 or 6 seconds. Even the LSA 55 had a much shorter ground roll than this.
In the air was nice, seemed to sit very nicely, not need much rudder and I was liking the view with the whole low wing setup. After a bit of a flight we returned for a couple of circuits. Another major difference is the necessary use of power on approach - on my solo flights in the Foxbat it worked out that I would pull the power to idle turning final and not touch the power lever again all the way down. A powered approach was definitely needed in the Cherokee and power needed to be left on right down to the flare.
I actually found landing fairly easy, a lot of back pressure needed but it seemed to land nicely with minimal effort involved.
Overall I enjoyed flying the Cherokee, and would love to fly it again but I think I'll focus on trying to get my RAA cert in the meantime! It is actually within reach now!