Today’s Top Pick is a 1992 SOCATA TB-9 Tampico Club.

Sometimes the most basic airplanes also are the most practical and economical for first-time buyers who are—officially or not—acquiring an aircraft to continue their aviation education.

One possible downside is that there is not much variety in that market segment. Whatever you find is likely to come with a Lycoming O-320 on the nose, fixed-pitch propeller, fixed gear, and an overall design that is not too exciting.

One exception is the SOCATA TB-9 Tampico, which, despite sharing specs with basic Cessna 172s and Piper PA-28s, manages to look alluring on the ramp. The stylish, upward-opening gull-wing doors certainly help. So does its more modern shape, which, in my opinion, clearly did not emerge from a domestic drafting table.

The Tampico and its siblings, the more powerful TB-10 Tobago and retractable TB-20 Trinidad, simply look European, which they are. They are not orphan designs, though, as SOCATA’s parent company Daher, known today for TBM turboprops, continues to support these piston singles.

The Tampico is sure to be a superior icebreaker for any pilot flying into an unfamiliar airport. People will ask what kind of airplane you are flying and you will have the opportunity to share the model’s interesting details.      

This 1992 TB-9 Tampico has 3,611 hours on the airframe, 1,531 hours in its 160 hp Lycoming O-320-D2A engine since its major overhaul, and 71 hours since the engine underwent a top overhaul. Additional equipment includes strobe lights, heated pitot tube, and alternate static system

The IFR panel includes a KMA 24 audio panel with markers, Garmin GNS 430 GPS/nav/comm, NSD-360 HSI, KT 76 transponder with encoder, two-place intercom, and wing beacon with ADS-B Out.

Pilots searching for a more stylish four-seat personal aircraft that is versatile enough for training, building time, or traveling should consider this 1992 SOCATA TB-9 Tampico, which is available for $69,500 on AircraftForSale.

If you’re interested in financing, you can do so with FLYING Finance. Use its airplane loan calculator to calculate your estimated monthly payments. Or, to speak with an aviation finance specialist, visit flyingfinance.com.

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The post This 1992 SOCATA TB-9 Tampico Is a Stylish-But-Economical ‘AircraftForSale’ Top Pick appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Today’s Top Pick is a 1976 Grumman American AA-5A Cheetah.

It is safe to say that the story behind the popularity of Grumman American’s family of compact AA-5 aircraft lies in the details.

Innovative design elements, such as bonded wing skins and honeycomb fuselage construction, eliminated the rivets common on other GA aircraft of the same era. The company continuously made small aerodynamic improvements to raise the aircraft’s cruising speed and fuel efficiency. The sliding canopy, while a practical convenience for ingress and egress, is also a cool feature that pilots love.

The four-seat AA-5 series that includes the basic 150 hp Traveler, the faster 180 hp Tiger, and the Cheetah for sale here developed from the American Aviation AA-1 Yankee, a two-seat Jim Bede design that traced its origins to Bede’s BD-1 kit concept of the early 1960s. Success with the Yankee compelled American Aviation to add a four-seat model, which would become the Traveler. Production began around the same time Grumman acquired American Aviation.

The Grumman American line, especially the Cheetah and Tiger, have a following among pilots who like their light, responsive handling and lively performance on relatively low horsepower and fuel consumption. People often draw parallels between the airplanes’ appeal and that of lightweight sports cars.

This 1976 AA-5A Cheetah has 2,850 hours on the airframe and 380 hours on its 160 hp Lycoming O-320 engine and Sensenich propeller. The panel includes dual Narco 122 navs, Garmin Aera 660, Garmin 225 and Icom A220T comms, single channel EGT/CHT, and digital OAT gauge with ice warning.

Pilots looking for an economical, efficient traveling airplane with responsive, engaging flight characteristics should consider this 1976 Grumman American AA-5A Cheetah, which is available for $90,000 on AircraftForSale.

You can arrange financing of the aircraft through FLYING Finance. For more information, email info@flyingfinance.com.

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The post This 1976 Grumman American Cheetah Is a Responsive, Rewarding ‘AircraftForSale’ Top Pick appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

When the airplane was, he thought, 500 feet above the ground and three-quarters of the way down the 4,500-foot runway, he returned to his work. A few minutes later, one of the others, who had not watched the takeoff but perhaps heard an impact, alerted him to what turned out to be the wreckage of the Trainer in a farm field not far from the end of the runway.

The instrument-rated commercial pilot, 61, was killed. The National Transportation Safety Board’s report on the accident does not mention whether he had obtained a weather briefing for the flight, which was bound for an airport only 40 nm away. An AIRMET was in effect for occasional moderate turbulence below 12,000 feet, with a potential for low-level wind shear below 2,000 feet over an area that included both the departure and destination airports. But the pilot could have guessed as much while walking out to the airplane.

More cautionary, perhaps, would have been two pilot reports that unfortunately came too late. A pilot who landed at an airport 22 miles south of the accident site reported an indicated airspeed drop of 20 knots, caused by wind shear, 150 feet above the ground. The runway orientation at that airport was almost the same as at the accident site. A little later, a Northwest Airlines DC-9, scheduled to land at an airport 16 miles to the east, turned back because the steady crosswind component of 31 knots exceeded company landing parameters. As if a 31-knot crosswind component were not enough, the tower reported a 42-knot gust while the DC-9 was on approach.

The two-seat Grumman was a bit of a hot rod. Originally equipped with a Lycoming O-235 of 108 hp, it had been re-engined with a 160 hp O-320. The engine power is significant because, although its gross weight was less than 1,600 pounds, the stock Trainer, with a 24-foot wingspan, was never a strong climber, as it could do no better than 600 to 700 fpm at sea level. The more powerful engine adds credibility to the witness report of the airplane being at 500 feet well before the end of the runway.

The airplane, manufactured in 1973, was not equipped with the electronic recording equipment that now allows us to anatomize some accidents with second-by-second precision. We do know, however, the pilot had logged 2,400 hours, but fewer than 22 of them had been in the Grumman, which he had acquired less than a year earlier.

The takeoff roll would have been short—probably under 400 feet—but tricky, with a 20-knot crosswind component pushing the airplane to the left. The pilot would probably have wanted to get the wheels off the ground as early as possible. He was light, so, say he rotated at 60 knots, then turned 15 degrees into the wind to maintain runway heading and accelerated to 75 knots. The airplane could certainly climb at better than 1,000 fpm, which is 17 feet per second, and its ground speed along the runway was about 55 knots, or 92 feet per second. In the 30 seconds needed to gain 500 feet, it would have progressed about 2,800 feet along the runway. Add 400 feet for the takeoff roll and you get 3,200 feet. The witnesses’ report was only a guess, and the small size of the airplane might have made it appear higher up than it was, but there is nothing physically implausible about it being at 500 feet three-quarters down the runway. We know, at the very least, that it was not close to the ground.

The NTSB’s “probable cause” was bizarre: “the pilot’s failure [to] maintain climb and his failure to maintain clearance from the terrain during initial climb after takeoff.” Only a bureaucrat bored to distraction would describe an abrupt fall from 500 feet as a “failure to maintain clearance from terrain.”

The wreckage lay 100 yards west of the runway and 300 yards short of its end. Whatever happened must have happened mere seconds after the witness who watched the takeoff turned away. It can’t have taken long. The airplane’s path must have been more vertical than horizontal, since the wreckage rested not far from where the airplane was last seen. The orientation of the 150-foot-long ground scar leading from the point of initial impact to the main wreckage was 10 degrees. The reversal of direction would be consistent with a stall and incipient spin. It may also be significant that the destination airport was to the north-northwest. The Grumman could have been beginning a right turn to on course. Banking steeply would raise the indicated airspeed at which a stall could occur.

Strong, gusty winds produce constantly fluctuating airspeed and vertical speed. The pilot who reported an airspeed loss of 20 knots at 150 feet was descending from a zone in which he had a headwind of a certain velocity into one where it was suddenly 20 knots slower. Assuming that a comparable shear might have existed at the accident site, it would have manifested itself as a similar airspeed loss to an airplane climbing on a downwind heading.

• READ MORE: The Down-Low on Wind Shear

An airplane does not instantly recover airspeed lost in a wind shear. That takes time, and it takes a particularly long time when all excess power is being used for climbing. Assuming that in a 30-degree bank the Trainer’s stalling speed was 60 knots, the difference between that and the best rate of climb speed was around 20 knots. The airplane would not stall instantly if those knots suddenly disappeared because its angle of attack would not instantly change. But its nose would drop, and a pilot trying to maintain a constant pitch attitude in turbulence might react to that by instinctively pulling back on the yoke.

It’s common practice in gusty conditions to add some knots to your normal approach or climbing speed. Those knots are often said to be “for grandma”—probably because she was always urging us to be careful—and they seem to come in multiples of five. To be logical about it, we should add airspeed in proportion to the reported gust or wind shear fluctuations. When those numbers are of the same magnitude as the difference between the airplane’s climbing speed and its stalling speed, grandma would become justifiably nervous, and it might be best to honor her by remaining on the ground. If that isn’t possible, favor airspeed over climb rate and, if the nose and airspeed drop at once, push, don’t pull.

Editor’s note: This article is based on the National Transportation Safety Board’s report of the accident and is intended to bring the issues raised to our readers’ attention. It is not intended to judge or reach any definitive conclusions about the ability or capacity of any person, living or dead, or any aircraft or accessory.

This column first appeared in the October 2023/Issue 942 of FLYING’s print edition.

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