ORIGINAL: tuwood

I just had the opportunity to maiden a PTS (RTF) for a friend of mine today. We pulled the speed brakes but left the droops on & flaps down.

We had a fun time getting the engine to run. The low speed needle valve was almost 2 turns away from anywhere that would let it run at anything lower than 1/2 throttle.

Once we got the engine running halfway decent it was flying time. There was a 5-10 MPH crosswind which didn't bother my Sig Somethin Extra so I figured we'd be OK. As soon as I hit the throttle the tail popped up & it weather vaned straight into the wind & full right rudder was all but ignored by the plane. It did get airborn & the flight was uneventful from there on but I was absolutely shocked at how difficult it was to take off in a crosswind.
The overall flight characteristics were very graceful & forgiving. I personally felt the control surfaces could have used a little more deflection, but hey it is a trainer.
The landing was extremely graceful right up until touchdown. It greased right in but as soon as it started to slow down that darn crosswind again spun it around like a top. No damage because it was after it was on the ground. just annoying

We did 3 more flights & every single takeoff & landing did the exact same thing. I even went full right rudder prior to gunning it & it shot left (wind was from left) every time. It also spun out on every landing.

So from my intermediate experience opinion it did everything a trainer should do in the air and on approach and landing, but the ground handling was worse than any plane I've ever flown. I was doing some major clinching on every takeoff because we have a row of trees to the left of our runway, I headed straight at them every time. [X(]