In Belgium the main airline company was the Sabena which went bankrupt in a dark age and disappeared completely from the skies. I am proud to fly the last aircraft showing the Sabena logo. These aircraft trained quite a lot of Sabena pilots and I can not refrain a thought for them when I sit where they sat in the past.
Diamond Da-20 OO-SAA
I had the choice to learn to fly in a Cessna 150 or a Diamond Da-20. I tried both initially but the choice was made 30 seconds into the DA-20 flight.
OO-SAA is very reactive, light, sporty and a pleasure to pilot. It is a low wing stick aircraft powered by a Rotax 100 HP engine.
Most of my dual flight time has been done with this training aircraft and I still fly it regularly for short flights.
Cockpit is all steam gauges with one VOR and a GNS-430 GPS.
I love its quick reaction to pilots input, the high glide ratio and its relatively low hour cost of about 130€. I love a bit less its vapour lock making starting a warm engine a little bit more complicated. on the other hand, no carburetor heat to manage.
Piper Pa-28 Archer III OO-SAG
The Diamond is like a sport car: you cannot bring your family with you. So after obtaining my PPL licence I got checked out in a 4 seat Piper Archer III.
Compared to flying the Diamond, flying the OO-SAG is like driving a large loaded pickup. Its heavier and reacts much slower with plenty of inertia. Still it is very comfortable to fly as it is much less prone to bumpy rides than the Diamond and features an autopilot for “long” leg travel.
Cockpit is all steam gauges. Old fashioned but effective and very well equipped with double VOR, DME, pitot heat, autopilot and a very old GPS.
I love its comfort and its autopilot and it is always easy to start unlike the Diamond. Being able to load up more passenger has a price as the flight hour is about 180€
What is next?
My short term goal is to move to more modern avionics aircraft and I would like to get checked out in a DA-40 G1000. The DA-40 represents my current mission aircraft and if I would buy an aircraft today I would not want anything else than a Diamond. The G1000 modern avionics would probably give me a glimpse of my ultimate goal as a private pilot: get an instrument licence. But that is another story.