Originally Posted by III Corps

Our -23 had no autopilot so you had to hand-fly it even at 410. It took some attention and finesse but it was not an overly difficult task.

Contrary to what many assumed by looking at the -20 series, it did require FULL rudder and quickly on a V1 cut. When I instructed in them, the rule was go to the floor with the rudder and then see if you could reduce the input a little. Invariably students found out best course was to put it in and leave it in.

The -23 was the one that required the most attention. The -24 felt like a larger airplane than it was and the -25 was almost sedate compared to the -23. All would HAUL! We used to ask pax if they wanted transportation or an airplane ride.

AND if he was talking about a '-26', the guy was peeing on his own shoes as there WAS NO -26. There were some -28s and -29s which were the first civilian machines with winglets after the Air Force had decided to not put winglets on the KC-135.

As for nav equipment, it was VOR/DME, ADF and ILS with an FD-108 flight director. We didn't know what an FMS was... <G>

The airplane was not dangerous but there were lots of guys who were going into Learjets who had not had good training and/or had little jet experience. For them, the Lear 23 was MORE than a handful. One we had later went to an outfit in RIC and they dug a hole with it practicing single engine approaches.

The 31 was a much more docile machine than the 20 series and the 45 and 60 are sweet rides in my opinion although I only had a few flights in each.

Yes, you had to pay attention to the -23. Dangerous it was NOT. It did have problems. At night if you had the cockpit lights low enough to not cast a reflection on the windscreen, you could barely seem them. To see them well, you had them bright enough to reflect. Also, if you didn't heat the windshield on decent and you went into a high moisture environment (MIA, FLL), expect to go woxof after landing due to fogging of the windows. Also, you had to be careful with fuel as it could be a problem if you got out of balance, especially when ground refueling.

FWIW, you hear this stuff often from guys, 'It is a real killer' or "It is a serious machine'. I heard it about the 727 and that was one of the sweetest most honest machines I ever had the privilege to fly.