I could write a small book on how much I disagree with this statement. I believe you are confusing "better handling qualities" with "easier to fly". I have about 20,000 hours now, most of it in transport category (Part 25) aircraft. If they were truly easier to fly, then we should be allowing Private pilots to fly them. I've got a couple hundred hours in a DA-20 (the smallest aircraft I've flown) and a DA-40 plus thousands in airplanes weighing 150,000 pounds or more (up to about 400K for a B767-300ER). I don't know how much experience you have in large airplanes, but I suspect it's minimal.CFIDave wrote: In many ways, the bigger the aircraft, the easier it is to fly. Landing a light-sport aircraft in gusty crosswinds is far more demanding than landing an airliner (one of the reasons too-confident experienced pilots coming from larger, more-complex, higher-performance aircraft sometimes have accidents in LSAs). My DA42 is easier to fly than my DA40 was, and my DA40 was easier to fly than the DA20 in which I soloed and got my PPL.
I agree that transport category airplanes generally have better flying qualities and certainly are better equipped, but landing a C-141B in a 35 knot gusty crosswind (high wing, outboard ailerons only and no roll spoilers) is every bit as (I would argue more) challenging as landing a DA-20 in a 12-15 knot crosswind. I've done both. I've had multiple simultaneous systems failures - hydraulic failure, which caused a bleed trip, which in turn caused loss of pressurization - failures that would never occur in a small plane. Yes, we have a crew to help deal with these failures, but there was nothing "easy" about this emergency.
I also have a degree in Aerospace Engineering with work experience in Stability and Control and Flight Test at both Boeing and Lockheed. But I recognize my limitations. I am not fully qualified or comfortable in the G1000 on our DA-40, so I will not fly in low IFR in the 40 without someone with more G1000 experience.
No, airline pilots are not superheroes, we are not infallible and we all make mistakes. Hopefully we all learn something each time we fly and we fly within our own and the airplane's limitations, regardless if it weighs 1320 pounds or 1.2 million.
Krea Ellis
DA20-A1
DA40-XLS