Pilots......opinions please.
 

Self evidently some aircraft require greater skill to fly than others.
Assuming cost no option, what is the easiest aircraft to fly once on solo, and why?
I'm mainly curious about design features that make it easier: nose vs tail wheel, canards, v-tail, etc. (Flight means A to B type stuff, not acrobatics)
Thanks guys / gals.

Just to putter around on the weekend? Cessna...

Tricycle gear is a lot easier to taxi and control on the ground (many inexperienced pilots have "ground looped" a taildragger which is sorta like driving a 911 - once the center of mass trailing behind the front wheels gets outside of them... Well...)

C152 / C172 are very simple and forgiving - personally I like the PA28s because that's what I learned in and I just personally think low-wings look cooler but they're both good airplanes to learn on and capable enough to actually go places / do things in. Both are pretty inexpensive to operate relatively speaking.

Personally I'd say go with the venerable C172 if you're looking to learn and eventually take kids / family places. Very forgiving, good visibility, simple, etc. it's pretty hard to screw it up in a Skyhawk (although I've had a few students who managed!)

Get a good CFI and go learn. Soloing is a good goal but if you're going to do that then why not get your PP cert?

Pop and other are your go to folks here on private pilot affairs. His post is excellent.

I have a lot of helo and fixed wing time as well as instructor time across a broad set of stuff: NVG's, shipboard quals, instrument, etc. but it was all military.

What I will add is that just about anyone can be taught the physical skills to pilot an aircraft safely. Judgement is the great discriminator.

The most benignly design aircraft with excellent fixed tri-gear, great stall performance, perfect power response in the pattern, a generous landing profile is a lawn dart if the pilot fly's the aircraft in regimes that are inherently unsafe or exceeds his or her skill level. Lack of situational awareness and judgement have killed far more folks than any single mechanical failure point.

I fly once a month or so with my neighbor. We fly off his grass strip in his Cub. I am always grateful for the opportunity because my neighbor (also a retired Navy pilot) have the judgement to prepare the aircraft and ourselves to fly safely.

That, Sport's Fans, is the key.

Just to add to what the others have said - you can't go wrong with a Cessna. If you're on the smaller side I'd say a 152. A 172 if you need a little more room. They will practically fly themselves. As far as design features, the common designs haven't changed in decades because they work and are well proven.

And as Seahawk states, judgment is critical but is something that can't be taught. In the beginning you just have to soak up what your instructors and the more experienced pilots impart to you until you gain your own time and experience. Much of it, though, is plain 'ole common sense.

When I used to instruct (foreign students) I was fascinated by how they would learn everything by rote but when it came time to make a decision in the pilot's seat they were a little lost. You wouldn't usually see that with the domestic (US) students which I gather must boil down to cultural differences.

I have know and met many pilots in my lifetime. Heck my dad was a high time pilot in the USAF.

One of my friends that fortunately lived to retirement has returned to the ground 8 times with no engine. He was not flying gliders, but small civil aircraft. He is just lucky to be alive.

Another friend and my former boss took his last flight as pilot in command on his 92nd birthday. He started flying in the early 1940s. He was wearing a brown Army-Air Corps uniform and received orders to put on the new Blue uniform for the USAF. He was an instructor during the Korea's war. He flew so many hours he quit logging his time. He never ever even once had an emergency landing. He was very careful and experienced. He owned his own airplanes and hired the top mechanics from 1947 until he retired in 2006.

As a flight instructor for 35 years and 95% of my flying is tail wheel, I have come across a few licensed pilots who just could not get proficient in a tail wheel plane. A Cessna 150/152 or a 172 would be my suggestion or a tail wheel plane and you start at Zero hours with a good tail wheel CFI.

Oh, and when I said foreign students - they weren't Aussies!

Gotta go with the Cessna 172.

I'm not a pilot any more. It's been years. But I have about 50 hr in a PA 28 and about the same in a Cessna 172, plus some random hours in other planes. With it's low wing the PA 28 looks cooler - like a real airplane. But I liked being able to look out the window and see the ground in the Cessna. I was 6'2" and about 200 pounds when I was flying and I found the Piper Tripacer and the Cessna 150 to be too tight a fit to be comfortable.

Do it natures way.......High wing........never saw a low wing bird.

-Tricycle gear is much easier that taildragger on the ground. Ever push a shopping cart backwards? Having the steering in the back is unstable.

-[oversimplified] A relatively fat airfoil has gentle stall characteristics. Flies nicer at slow speeds, can use shorter runways. A thin airfoil has a higher top speed, but has a "snappy" stall. [/oversimplified]

-"Wing loading", the amount of weight each square foot of wing has to carry makes a big difference. A lightly-loaded wing has a shorter take-off run, is easier in calm winds, but will be affected much more on windy days, bouncing around, needing constant control inputs to maintain the desired path. A heavily-loaded wing will give a smoother ride in turbulence, but doesn't make a good trainer as it needs more speed/runway length.

....There's a start.

Just as in car design, every airplane is a set of compromises.

If cost is no issue, learn in a 172. Then buy a cirrus or bonanza.

Or a Mooney. ;)

I think it might eventually come down to Mooney versus "nice" P-car (not my aged, perpetual-project P-cars like today) like a 997 or a 993 or RS America or something. If that happens, I'm going with the Mooney (no offense to the crowd here but I like the thought of blasting along at 160 kias rather than sitting stuck in traffic doing 20 in a car that should be doing 120!)

Yep !

C-172 is Most popular GA Airplane for this reason.

Cessna's 172 is kinda the benchmark of how an airplane should fly. Doesn't excel in any area, but does everything adequately.
Doesn't have any "Gotcha" things to be feared.

Simple and safe to fly- It can just barely kill you!

Of the two I think the 152 is easier to fly. I haven't flown any conventional gear planes but I would think if you are capable of taking off and landing in conventional gear airplane a Cub or Champ would be easy to fly.

The 172 does not like to land if it is lightly loaded. I prefer to fly Piper aircraft because I like how they feel when you fly them. The visibility is much better in a high wing Cessna though.

My daughter has flown a Glasair Sportsman and said it was easy to handle but she only had one flight with the Young Eagles program.

I guess it all comes down to what do you mean easy to fly? Take off and landing is much easier in a trike. In the air I guess it depends if you are checking on the cows or going cross country.

I have several hundred hours in both V-tail Bonanzas and straight-tail Bonanzas.
They fly the same. Gotta look back out the window to see which one you're flying.

V-tails are known for having the infamous "tail waggle" in turbulence, but the straight tail airplanes waggle, too. Maybe not quite as much, but it's there.

Front seaters don't feel it much, as the front seats are on the pivot point. Passengers in the rear are going to get more of a side-to-side ride that can induce motion sickness in those so inclined. Simply resting a foot on one rudder pedal damps 90% of the wiggle out. it's a non-issue unless the air gets really rough.

lollllllllllll....bonanza...the original doctor killer. now the cirrus is the new doctor killer. if you're going to jump up to big boy airplanes, I'd say learn in a low wing such as a warrior/Cherokee, then go to the other high performance low wings. then again, buying a cirrus or a bonanza isn't a smart thing at all to begin with. I learned on low wings...but bought a 172. owned that for a while...then decided it was too costly, and it would be significantly cheaper to own an old Ferrari, several porsches, and other cars. HA!

-former airline pilot/airline instructor pilot/FAA artcc controller
-current air traffic manager at an FAA tower

Bonanzas don't kill doctors. Doctors kill Bonanzas.

Bonanzas are among the easiest airplanes to fly. Sure, they have higher performance than most General Aviation airplanes (which is why they're attractive to high-income people), so things happen faster than a 172, but if the pilot's brain can keep up, they are wonderful airplanes to fly. While fast, they have a relatively fat wing that also has very good flight characteristics at slow speeds. Benign stall with the flaps up, dramatic stall with flaps down. They are known as robust, handle short/rough runways well, and easy to land.

The reputation for the Bonanza and Cirrus to be "doctor killers" is when one with more money than either the time or patience to receive proper training buys one and heads off into the wild blue yonder.

The GA accident rate would be cut in half if pilots stopped doing two things:

-Quit flying into bad weather
-Quit running out of gas.

Pretty simple, huh? At the airport, it's known as "Stupid Pilot Tricks".