Piper’s Perfect Trainer

DDAC Member • March 13, 2021

The infamous "Tommy"

DDAC has been operating Piper’s little PA-38 Tomahawk for quite a while now, putting thousands of hours onto the airframes while training hundreds of students.


Powered by Lycoming’s ubiquitous O-235 flat four-cylinder engine, the “Tommy” as she is affectionately known, is a little unusual in one sense, in that she has an empennage which slopes upwards from the cockpit area, topped off by a ‘T’ tail. The sloped up back end means the rear section of the aircraft neatly fits above the wings, thus you can “stack” the aircraft saving a lot of hangar space.


With a well-designed cockpit, low wing, big forwards opening doors, wide track tricycle undercarriage and enough space for two medium-to-large pilots, the Tommy makes an ideal trainer with docile handling, good gust response and a demonstrated cross wind limit of 22kts, just what’s needed in turbulent Toowoomba!


As the club’s long-serving (now ex-CFI) Graeme Geraghty used to say, “If you learn to fly in a Tommy at Toowoomba you’ll be able to fly virtually anything, anywhere!


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