New Plane - Diamond DA40

01/05/13

    Craig's friend owns a Diamond DA40. My mom and I were invited to take a ride in his plane. My mom's gets bad motion sickness and isn't the best flyer so I was a little nervous. She was fine the entire flight so I was proud of her. 

    As I was getting in the right seat, Craig asked what I was doing. I told him that I was getting in. He said, "Oh no, you're flying left seat." I was kind of dumbfounded at the moment. I was just expecting a sight-seeing ride mostly. I didn't even bring my logbook! My first impression was that I couldn't see out the front. All the pretty, digital instruments get in the way! The airplane is equpped with the Garmin G1000 system. I was happy to finally see and use them up close rather than on my flight simulator! 

    So Craig taxiied and took off and once we were crusing I took the controls. The diamond is controlled by a stick rather than a yoke. And flying left seat requires the pilot to fly with their left hand. At first, I thought it would be difficult, but then I remembered that I fly the Cessna with my left hand too! "It's all just stick and rudder," as Craig would say. The airplane is also very heavy on the controls. In the Cessna, a little muscle goes a long way. But, in the diamond, I felt that I was having to push and pull hard on the stick to get any movement. Maybe that's just because I'm small. 

    A good thing about the plane is that it's crusie is a little nose down. That compensates for my visibilty issue on the ground. While on the topic of visibility: the Diamond has a canopy which allows for excellent visibility for other traffic.

    We flew around a little bit doing some turns and climbs and descents. I was being spoiled. And then it was time to land. We turned north back to JXN and I even got to do the radio transmissions. I was a little scared at first to be honest. But then I realized it's just the same pilot to tower communication as it is in the Cessna.

    We landed and then taxiied back. That was that. An experience in a new airplane and I even get to add it to the logbook for instuction time. Fun Day! Fun Flying!