With Wings As Eagles: Craig P. Steffen's Blog

something old and something new

2007 September 19 09:12

The October issue of Flying Magazine has an article about the new Cessna 162 Skycatcher. The Skycatcher is an aircraft specifically designed for pilots to train and fly using the new sport pilot rules for pilots and aircraft that have been enacted in the past few years. The idea of the sport pilot rules is to lower the bar for people wanting to become pilots, to get more people involved in aviation with less effort and money if their interests are more casual. The Cessna 162 is specifically targeted at that market. The article states that they will fly it for the first time in 2008 and plan to start delivering in 2009.

Interestingly, the engine chosen for the 162 is the very very venerable Continental O-200 engine. The O-200 is the powerplant of the Cessna 150, and in the years since the 150 went out of production, has also become staple of experimental aircraft, like the Q-200 tandem-wing. The January 2007 issue of Sport Aviation magazine has an article on the O-200 which states over 25,000 of those engines have been manufactured, and it has never gone out of production.