No, that's Jim Viola's job, not mine. I'm the Safety Director, and my well-known-to-members triple objective is to make sure:
AA-1 had a little longer span than the BD-1, but the same airfloil. AA-1A and all subsequent iterations have the cuffed leading edge, same as the AA-5 series. Yes, the AA-1 and AA-1A do handle differently from each other.
BD-1 span was 23.5 ft; AA-1 series is 24.5 ft. And Bede designed his version to have removable wings for towing. Insurance companies would have loved that.
Yeah, that's an issue in the earlier ones. AA-1B had a little higher MGW.
No, it was not designed as a "cheap flight school aircraft." Jim Bede designed it as a low-cost sport plane for private owners -- sort of the niche that RVs occupy now. He intended to market the BD-1 with a range of engines, from a remanufactured A65 (with a fly-away-from-the-factory price of $2,500 in 1964-era dollars) up to the same new 108-hp Lycoming that powered the production AA-1.
No, it was not designed as a kit plane. See Bede's letter to prospects, below. Here's the spec sheet (in Jim Bede-style accuracy) for the various engine options.
No, it was not designed as a "cheap flight school aircraft." Jim Bede designed it as a low-cost sport plane for private owners -- sort of the niche that RVs occupy now. He intended to market the BD-1 with a range of engines, from a remanufactured A65 (with a fly-away-from-the-factory price of $2,500 in 1964-era dollars) up to the same new 108-hp Lycoming that powered the production AA-1.
He also intended that it be certified for aerobatics and that it have removable wings for towing. He had a good basic design, but Bede needed to get out of the way so that grown-ups (American Aviation Corp.) could make the changes necessary to actually get the airplane certified and into production.
The AA-1, introduced in fall 1968, was not primarily marketed as a trainer, though it did offer a "Trainer" package of options like the C-150 and Cherokee 140. The AA-1A of 1971 had gentler stall characteristics and lower approach speeds, at the cost of a few knots of cruise speed. It had no chance competing as a trainer, though, because in those years Cessna and Piper were at the peak of their power in the market. No way did American Aviation have the resources to develop a dealer/flight school network to compete with the giants. When Grumman bought out the company in 1972, their attention was directed more to the four-seat family touring models.
Still, I can't think of another start-up GA company in that era that did as well with an all-new trainer -- can you?
I enjoyed instructing in the AA-1, and they were in demand with our students and renters. It was roomy, comfortable and economical, with fantastic visibility. It had a modern instrument panel. It was a joy to fly. (I once gave an AA-1 demo ride to a WW2/Korea ace with 18.5 kills in P-47, P-51 and F-86 -- he loved the AA-1.) My only gripe about it was that it was noisy inside, and those were the days before we routinely used headsets.
I thought it was a good trainer for those intending to move right up to higher-performance aircraft.
It was never offered or intended as a kit. It was to be a factory production model from the get-go.
Flying, May 1963, p. 103:
Aircraft of The World by William Green, 1965:
Flying, May 1965:
“Promises, Promises, Promises” by Arthur H. Sanfelici, p. 79 ff.
Et ceteRA, et ceteRA, et ceteRA
Like I said, a typical Jim Bede deal. Not one BD-1 was delivered IIRC.
The BD-1 was never certified. Bede was forced out in August 1965. The company became American Aviation Corp. in 1966; the certification prototype AA-1 flew in February 1967 and it was certified six months later.
Yes, when given a choice I always seek out a flight instructor with less, or better yet no time in type. I definitely don't want one who has owned one like this, or participated in safety and maintenance seminars with others, and studied type-specific accident reports. If he's spent years exploring the flight envelope of this type he might do something extreme like demonstrating it to me or asking me to learn it. By golly, I want somebody who can tell me everything I need to know about my newly-purchased airplane just by looking at it. Otherwise, how will he show me how skilled and brilliant he is? What is so unique or dangerous about my new airplane that he'd need to read the POH, even?
Then after nothing goes wrong on our comprehensive twenty-minute checkout flight, I can spend the rest of my flying career reinventing the wheel on my own!
, but he was a great man! Wally Olson at Evergreen Field, Vancouver, WA.
I'm thinking it would have had to have been 1968 or early '69. If you can find it in your logbook, I'd be interested to know what the reg number was. The first two AA-1s to the West Coast (to Torrance, I think) were N5605L and N5606L, s/n 7 and 8.
Norris is a good guy. His T-hangar is two doors down from mine.
Without an established dealer and flight school network, and lots of advertising dollars, no new trainer had a chance in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Cherokee 140 was not an exceptional trainer, but it succeeded because of Piper's resources.
On this we agree.
I don't think it is typical of all aircraft, and neither do the brokers I've asked about it. If you need to know, ask a broker who knows the numbers. However, when someone new to ownership buys a 172 or PA28, they usually have a bunch of time (or even learned from scratch in it). This is true much more rarely among new Grumman buyers, so perhaps the issue arises because so few new Grumman owners have any experience in type going in.
What "extra training" is that? Did I ever suggest that someone would be safe in any plane new to them with no prior experience in type? And I believe I also mentioned the Bonanza and Cirrus as airplanes where insurers want significant time in type or a checkout with an approved instructor familiar with the type (such as an ABS BPPP or COPA CSIP instructor, respectively).
It did initially, but when the AYA was formed and the PFP was developed, that changed in a hurry for those who had completed the program. And the insurers picked up on that quickly, waiving the higher first-year premiums for those who completed the program. Ask Grumman insurance expert Norris Hibbler at Aircraft & Marine about that.
True for the AA-1A/1B/1C with the cuffed leading edge, but not the original AA-1 with the symmetrical airfoil. Fly an AA-1 like a C-150/152 (or even an AA-1A/1B/1C) and you'll get yourself in trouble in a hurry.
Total hogwash. And they're not classified -- their available to all AYA members, and there are no restrictions on membership.
Right. I've lost count of the times I've re-trained someone in a Grumman after some "mediocre" CFI had them kick the tires, light the fires, and go.
Perhaps not, but if you're looking to fly much higher performance aircraft later on, it would be an excellent trainer. In fact, Van's used to recommend getting training in a slick-wing AA-1 before getting into your newly built single-seat RV (there being regulatory barriers to getting training in a 2-seat RV provided by the training provider, and few people willing to let others use their RV to get type training).
