Your rental Cessna 172 is like a pretty close friend, thanks to the many hours you’ve spent getting to know it. And flying it has become…well, if not boring, exactly, perhaps something closer to routine.
Maybe it’s time to get checked out in something different. Something a little faster, or something with the wings at the bottom rather than up top.
A checkout in a different airplane presents some learning opportunities, particularly if it’s a different make and model. While all airplanes fly under the same aerodynamic principles, they do not all handle exactly the same way.
Moving up from 150 or 160 horsepower to 180 horsepower is one thing, but if the object of your desire has 200 or more horsepower, that constitutes a high-performance endorsement—which is different from a standard checkout. Similarly, anything with retractable gear, flaps, and a controllable-pitch propeller requires a complex endorsement (see “After the Checkride: Go Faster or Get In Gear,” May 2014 Flight Training).
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