Kingfish wrote:
Anbody learn to fly in a high performance complex aircraft?

Tho' I was a lot younger, and it was a long time ago, ... I earned my
PPL in a T-34 (paid for it myself: $5.00 wet in the Aero Club at USAFA).
I believe that my flying skills have been better because of it. I had
a few more hours before flying solo (14 hours, as I recall) than if I'd
started out in the Cub. But I learned from the start how to 'get out in
front of the airplane', and to be -further- 'out in front', because
things do happen more quickly.

As a side anecdote, because USAF revoked the waiver for student pilots
to fly T-34s just days before I was scheduled to take the Practical, to
get the 20 minutes of cross country time that I needed, I was checked
out in a C-172 - the checkout took 20 minute: take off, the usual
stalls, steep turns, etc., then landings (we hardly left the pattern) -
the C-172 was -so- easy to fly. The instructor must have been
satisfied; he sent me back up solo for 3 landings and signed me off. I
took the cross country the next day - from AFA to LIC at back for 1:10,
and I passed my check ride a week later with 50 hours in the log book.
(I might have done it with fewer hours but I took a 2 year break after
the initial 18 hours.)

Oh, as a side note: AFA is now AFF; it wasn't called Falcon Field back
then; and the runway was unpaved. To those of you who haven't been
'west of the tree line' (or as Marianna Gosnell would say in her book
"Zero Three Bravo" - west of the 'chain line'), -unpaved- means dirt and
gravel; none of the 'green stuff' we see 'back east'.

Wish I had a T-34 at hand to fly again.

george