Yes MSFS is bigger than anyone can use ...
Matter of interest: these are 70-year old aircraft, the Jaguar Mk1 is the same vintage.
Are they seen as "Vintage", and what's their expected life?[/COLOR]
Cheers for the interest guys, yeah our 152 is a little long in the tooth at 44 years young, but she's having some spar work done and I expect to be teaching aerobatics again in a few weeks! Archer is 2000 model, the 172s are S models from 2005 so quite new, there's a reason they are the most produced aeroplane in the world and still rolling off the line, I call them the toyota corolla of the skies - they don't excel at anything, but they have no real shortcomings - hitting average in every category in aviation is practically unheard of
Now the poor little 162 on the other hand, that was always gonna be a painful existence.. They tried to do too much with it, make a 152-killer with the known and trusted Cessna values of aluminium skin-on-frame, little continental up the front etc. while also shoe-horning it into the LSA category. Result, the same useable load issues as the 152, traumahawk and our old Grumman AA-1C (loved those things!) 205kg useful in the modern world doesn't go as far as it used too.. Plus expensive as azflyboy points out, and whipping production off to China cost them some sales. Add to that poor factory corrosion proofing, doors that destroyed themselves if they came open in flight (cue a mandatory secondary door latch) and root ribs getting doublers at Cessna's expense due to bolt hole wearing, it failed from the get-go. Which is a shame, as it had some promise. If they'd doubled-down on LSA with some composites and a Rotax, the useful load would have been better (and maybe spring for some sound-proofing????), or stuff the LSA market and make a real 152-killer. Either would have been better.. I've mixed feelings at 830 hours on type, they're ok to fly, good to puddle about with for lower hourly rates than the four-seaters, but are challenging to fly well unless you have a smooth hand, tiring to flying for a long time, and tedious to teach in due to thin seat cushions, noisy, twitchy controls, and refuelling every flight.
Don't know about the Sport licenses in the States, in NZ we have the DL9, it's a commercial driver medical with Passenger endorsement, as an alternative standard to the CAA Class 2 medical for the Private license. For a short time we had a Recreational Pilot License on that medical, which was so much of a waste of time that it got rolled back into the PPL. 162 can be registered as a microlight so it can be flown on our Advanced Microlight Certificate, they go to their general practice doctor to get a medical, similar to the DL9 but a different form, and not a drivers' medical.
Hope that waffle has been of interest, now I'm gonna go explore virtual Norway, which way to Tromso?
