RE: do you really need a computer radio????
I've been flying for about 10 years now and instructing for a little bit more than 6 years. While having computer radio is nice when you have multiple planes I think that the new pilots should stay with the standard "bare bones" radio for learning to fly. Why?? Plain and simple, the student needs to learn to fly the plane. With computer radios there are a lot of "extras" that make it easier for a pilot when flying. These extras included (but not limited to) aileron to rudder mix, flaperons, end point adjustments, and exponential. While all of these are great features that do help pilots to fly their planes, it can hurt a student while they are learning to fly. The reason for this is because the student quickly learns to rely on the radio to perform things that the student needs to know. If they rely on the radio and never learn the skills then that will become a weakness down the road as the advance to more capable planes. It my opinion that a student who can learn these skills when learning to fly will be a better pilot in long run. Especially true would be a student who learns to use the rudder for more than just steering the plane on the ground..
I'm not saying that it's impossible to use a computer radio and learn the basics, but rather I'm saying that it's unlikely. Come on, we're all human. We like to play with things. A computer radio has all kinds of neat bells and whistles that are very hard to resist. I like to recommend a student to have a plain jane radio because they won't be tempted to play with the bells and whistles because they aren't there to start with. For example, at our field we had a new student come out for instruction. I asked if he was ready to go up and he said he needed to get his plane put together and sat up. He unpacked everything and started to put it together. During this time we saw him fiddling with his radio, we just assumed that he was checking it all. 2 and half hours later he finally came up to use and said that he just couldn't get the aileron to rudder mix set up correctly. Big sigh here!!! We asked him where he picked up that he needed that mix in his plane and he told us that he read it right here on RCU. After clearing that out of his radio we had him in the in about 10 minutes.
As I've said I have been flying for 10 years now. While I do have several computer radios I don't have more than 1 plane on any of them. All told I have 10 radios now. Most are non-computer radios and I use those as much or more than I do the computer radios.
Hope this helps
Ken