Like many other motor gliders, the Falke as a type comes with a choice of engines, with the C model’s Type Certificate Data Sheet listing no less than nine! Most of these are converted VW air-cooled four-pops from the 1.7 to 2.1 liter range (either by Limbach or Sauer), but there’s also the option of fitting the garden variety Rotax 912 – and even the turbocharged 914 of 115 HP (in which case the aircraft is sometimes known as the Rotax Falke). The key differences (apart from the polish!) are dayglo markings and a dayglo rudder – as well as the installation of modern LED navigation/strobe lights on the wingtips Not only does jumping from the mighty Q400 into an aircraft that is it’s polar opposite promise to be quite an educational and humbling experience, it could also make for an interesting read – particularly on the peculiarities of the brain and the frequently amusing lack of love between the conscious and subconscious…įuture DHD in its original clothes, taken not long after delivery. Since the approach to flying TMGs does differ somewhat from that of conventional aircraft, I decided to have a crack at an interesting mental exercise: try to anticipate what I’d struggle with during training – and then, having gone through the actual course, compare notes. And while I had initially planned to do another of my “amateur flight reports”, I soon hit upon a better idea. Unsurprisingly, this had Achtung, Skyhawk! written all over it.

Thus, I decided now’s a good time as any to kill two birds with one (cheap) stone, and do what I’d been wanting to do for ages: get a Touring Motor Glider (TMG) endorsement 🙂. Since I usually spend my time in light aircraft joyriding around at low altitude with, at most, one other person on board, it dawned on me (belatedly!) that my usual Cessna 172 is quite a financial overkill – and that if the point is to just soak up the scenery and not actually go anywhere, I could do that for a lot less. With the financial situation at the airlines still worryingly precarious, I recently came to the conclusion that it’d do me good to become a bit more efficient with my GA flying (a #firstworldproblem right there).

Scheibe motor glider manual