what did the demo flight entail Kate. I have a friend who got checked out in a DA42 in Arizona and he described the handling as very good, and really sweet with an engine out. Whats your impression?
Well first of all I had heard the plane is very quiet and smooth running, which proved to be true. That was the first thing I noticed even before leaving the ground.
For the first part of the flight, my coworker was in the left seat with the instructor in the right. The main thing I learned from this part of the flight was that so much of that plane is automated. (G1000, FADEC, etc.) The instructor talked us through the startup and runup procedures. We were surprised to learn that the runup involves switching computers, not mags... because there are no mags. And the runup is very simple.
The elevation there was about 4,500 feet, and with four aboard and I don't know how much fuel, our takeoff roll was a couple thousand feet. The plane still climbed at 1,000 feet per minute or more. We took it up to 10,000 feet and flew around. My coworker did some steep turns. Then the instructor had my coworker do an emergency descent so we could see how easy they are to do in that plane. You can go pretty fast with the gear down.
When we landed and switched seats, I realized that I really need a cushion to see where I'm going in this plane very well. I had the instructor do the takeoff. I took over later. I thought the plane was responsive. There was just something too cool about flying a twin engined plane with a stick. I could see just enough over the panel to fly OK. (G1000 helped too!) I thought the rudder pedals were on the stiff side and at the same time I had a little trouble keeping the plane coordinated. There were a few bumps so maybe that wasn't all my fault. Otherwise I thought the plane flew great. I am just used to Cessna rudder pedals.
I did a bunch of turns and had a big smile on my face from all the scenery combined with flying this cool plane. We headed back to the airport. I descended and entered right traffic for a touch and go. The instructor talked me through the power settings, flaps, and gear. I thought the plane was very easy to control throughout power and configuration changes... maybe more so than any complex plane I've flown. It was easy to achieve a stabilized approach right on target airspeed. I did two landings which were both very soft, so I surprised myself. The instructor did one trip around the pattern himself just for fun, so he could get a chance to fly.
We didn't do any engine-out simulations. Maybe next time.
Overall I loved the visibility in this plane and how easy it was to fly. I loved how smoothly it ran, and of course all the nifty gadgets it has. With scenery like that out our windows, I wished we could take it on a long cross-country flight.
