I have a good friend who has decided to pursue his sport pilot license. He decided to buy a 2016 Tecnam P2008 turbo to train and fly in. He asked me to go with him to Salisbury, NC with him to pick it up and fly it back to Fort Worth, TX. I had never seen a Tecnam and I had never flown a Rotax engine.

I downloaded the POH online and reviewed it before we fly to Charlotte commercially Sunday afternoon. A local instructor gave me a check out Sunday night and we flew the airplane home yesterday.

My main impression is that this is the airplane that the Cessna Skycatcher should have been. The Tecnam is equipped with a Rotax turbo 914 engine, Garmin G3X avionics, and a parachute. It has a real stick and a full castering nose wheel. It is light on the controls with good response in every axis. It climbs well even when loaded, and it is very comfortable for the size aircraft (it did get a little tight by the end of our trip-9.2 hours).

The Rotax was the easiest engine I have operated. The is no mixture. The max power is limited to 5 minutes. The throttle is gated so you have to affirmatively push past the gate to get max power and pull it out of the gate to get to max continuous. This was an ingenious (and simple) solution.

The G3X and autopilot are great. I particularly liked the angle of attack indication (much better than a traditional stall warning). There is envelope protection that I couldn't figure out how to disable. It did not like one of maneuvers when I was trying to load up the airplane to bleed off speed when entering the pattern. I think it is a good idea for a new pilot, but I was creeped out by the autopilot trying to correct my flying.

We saw cruise speeds in the 110 kt range. I think at lighter weights it could do 115 to 120 kts on 5.5 gallons per hour. My friend said we spent $200 on gas to fly 853 nm in 9.2 hours with headwinds most of the way.

I think this will be a good and economical cross country machine for my friend. It should be very easy for him to learn to fly in.

Ed

Thanks for the report Ed, it sounds like a good airplane. The RV-12's have the Rotax, and it will take getting used to hearing them run, about 5800 max RPM I think, and when they shut down it's with a clank sounding like somebody jammed a wrench into the crankshaft, seizing it. Still, the Rotax is a popular engine.

Hi Ed,

I think your friend made a great choice, but I'm a bit prejudiced as I've owned a 2016 P2008 for 2 years now. Before I bought, I flew 8 or 9 Light Sports and most were less than impressive. Some just had down-right spooky flying characteristics. Where is your friend getting trained?

The G3X Touch is amazing. I wish I had it in my F33A. The "assistance" from the autopilot that you found annoying as you flew the pattern has many settings. They are all adjustable in the configuration settings but my memory says the "assistance" can't be disabled. It's always monitoring for over banking, going to fast or slow, etc. The envelope can be expanded so as not to be a nuisance. The average light sport pilot doesn't have your experience and never will.

FYI, the nosewheel is not meant to be full castering. If you found it rotating 360 degrees, something is broken. I hope your buddy finds a good qualified and certified Rotax mechanic (not just any A&P). He can search here https://www.rotaxirmt.com/ or better yet, he can attend one of the training centers and get certified as an Independent Rotax Maintenance Technician (that's what I did) and do his own engine maintenance.

Hi Paul,

Yes, there are many good reasons why Rotax engines are so popular but the sound of them either running or shutting down is not among them. That does take some getting used to.
I like my Rotax.

Hi Paul,

Yes, there are many good reasons why Rotax engines are so popular but the sound of them either running or shutting down is not among them. That does take some getting used to.
I like my Rotax.

Glenn,

He is looking for an instructor. He was planning on using an instructor from a local flight school. The airplane is based at Fort Worth Meacham for now.

Who do you use for maintenance that you are not doing yourself? Any good rotax mechanics in the Fort Worth area?

Ed

Open question, Do all the Rotax engines have a strong throttle spring that pulls it toward open throttle? I did the initial flights on an RV-12 and even taxiing the friction was not enough to keep it from speeding up. The builder put slightly weaker springs on it later.

Yes , the theory is if the throttle cable breaks, it goes to full power. My friend changed the springs on his RV to lighter ones.

I'm curious what the useful load was on a P-2008 with the 914 and a parachute.

It's like 500lbs... or a bit under.

Tecnam is doing some interesting stuff, and I think Ed was bang-on with his analogy that the P2008 is what the Skycatcher (which everyone around here calls the Skycrapper) should have been.

I've met their US sales director a few times and they are on a roll. At SnF, their booth was the busiest manufacturer's booth by far - even over Cirrus. Certainly not the only measuring stick, but a fair one. Their twin burns 9gps (total) - admittedly only going 150ish kts, but still.

Some manufacturers are trying to evolve, and unfortunately many of the manufacturers we all grew up with are not.

Fun to fly and it looks great too! No parachute in mine for a little more useful load.

When I went through the 912 Service class at Lockwood Aviation, the instructor (Dean Vogel) warned us about that spring. The default/normal Rotax configuration is for the spring to command full throttle. I've forgotten the name but Dean said he knew of one LSA that installs the spring opposite from the normal Rotax configuration.

Rotax idle speed is very important. The Rotax should idle smoothly for the health of the gearbox and sometimes the idle is set on the high side. 1400 is the lower limit and almost always results in too much vibration. When the aircraft is parked with engine running, the throttle should be advanced to between 2000 and 2200 and some techs set the idle at 2000 for that reason. When my idle was set at 2000, I seemed to float for way too long on landings. So at the next carb balance, I adjusted the idle to 1650. I just make sure when I stop I always advance the RPM to avoid low RPM vibration.

Glenn

Ed,
Any decent instructor should be fine. The P2008 has no bad habits and is easy to fly. I don't instruct much anymore or I would volunteer. There is a CFI that I would highly recommend flies out of Addison. I'll contact him and see if he'd like to drive to Meacham.

I have used US Sport Planes in Denton for the yearly condition inspection.

Glenn

I couldn't resist posting a picture.

Glenn