Originally Posted by
own nav
I would add nose wheel steering, aileron control, and braking action to your list of things that were hard to adjust to on the Metro. Free turbine engines on our other planes have far less aborted starts as well. There are many points where I would agree that "it's not complicated," but I would definitely advise against letting that allow a complacent attitude going into training, or any day flying it for that matter.
Respectfully own_nav, but I would disagree on your implication that we have a high rate of aborted starts in the metro. As long as you ensure that the propellers are on the "start locks", I have seen very few aborted starts and none of the ones I have ever had have been related to the engine being a direct drive. The only aborted start I have had recently (as in, the past couple of years) was in BLI about 3 weeks ago. That was because of a bad ignitor box and so there was no ignition and hence no light off. Nothing to do with it being direct drive.
Your other items of concern I will agree with. We have had a few instances of steering issues lately. The roll rate is a bit slow due to the wing extensions and the ailerons not going all the way to the wing tips. (Though the plane still rolls well enough if you just lead the turn with a bit of rudder.) And the brakes on the "light" airplanes leave something to be desired. Though, again, I have never found it to be much of a problem as the plane slows down pretty well just by going into Beta. Several times I have had tower ask me for a braking report and I have had tell them I didn't know because I never touched the brakes.