AMD Alarus

[Ralgha]

Does anyone have any experience or know anything about the AMD Alarus airplane? From what I hear it was designed from the start to be an IFR trainer, and as a result it is very cheap to buy and operate. The panel pictures I've seen look pretty good, but the only things I've heard about it are from people promoting it, so obviously they aren't going to say anything bad. Can anyone here give any thoughts on it?

Thanks.

Oh, it has a website too.

 

[great cornholio]

The school that I used to instruct at bought 2 of them just weeks after I left. When I went back a while later and visited I took one of them up and I thought the plane was pretty nice. The Garmin 430 is standard on it from what I hear and the inside is pretty nice. Its a little roomier than a 152 and from what I saw the performance is slightly better than the 152 as well (its been almost a year since I've flown it so I'm a little rusty on the specifics). The one thing I did notice is that it seemed like it was built kind of like a homebuilt aircraft. I also remember that the yoke did not move much when the ailerons were full scale. So that felt kinda weird. Also the rudder on it is crazy effective. From what I heard from my buddies they seemed to like it overall. Oh one thing that I just remembered is that the brakes on it kinda suck. You can slam them and they don't stop you too fast.

 

[Seahawker01]

I worked at a school that had one. From what I have herd we had a Lemon but I flew it once and will never fly one again and I have flown some scary planes in my day that I still love. Nothing about the airplane impressed me. If I remember right the airplane did start as a homebuilt. I think Zenith A/C then produced it and somehow AMD wound up with it. I’m sure the history is available for it and it has been a while since I herd the sales speech but the claim that it was designed for a trainer is bogus. My personal philosophy is that airplanes should be built to withstand time making them a decent investment and most are. I however will be surprised if the AMD's last 10 years. They are very cheaply built. Ours had what looked like wall-mart bungee cords for nose wheel steering and the brakes bothered me. The unshielded brake lines were plastic tubing held to the struts by plastic clips that were glued on. I was worried that a rock would cut them and somebody would have loose brakes but they were ineffective anyway. The most serious problem we had with ours was the was a very strong engine vibration that ate two spinners in under a hundred hours and cracked a carburetor that led to one of our instructors first dead-stick landing. He was lucky in that fact he was on his way to the airport when it happened and had just enough altitude to make the runway. The only time I flew it I had to take my feet off the rudder pedals from T/O to landing because of the vibration. An engineer friend of mine that flew it said it was more then likely the engine was mounted slightly off the aerodynamic something it should be one, not my field of expertise. We also had to replace the tail because when you get in the plane’s the cg moves aft and the tail strikes the ground and students have tail strikes on T/O and Landing. These buckled the whole tail assembly. But like I said it could just have been ours. The reasons I don’t like the design is first the tail flys like a T-tail on take off which is fine students which natural ability or have a few hours and understand how to control an airplane but it gets interesting for those who don’t. I saw one student-instructor pair almost crash because of this. After several almost 25 degrees nose up/down osolations just feet above the runway the instructor finally recovered from the series of stalls. The ailerons, like the previous post said, feel funny because the yoke does not have full travel and in my opinion the ailerons do not have enough effectiveness however the rudder sure makes up for this. The only problem with the rudder being so effective is that the fuel system is not up for it and when you step on the rudder you unport the fuel and loose the engine for a few seconds. This is not the big of the deal most of the time but I am not completely comfortable with it. To summarize personally I don’t like the plane I think it’s a death trap I have seen to many close calls in it for me to get in it again. The only time I flew it the plane was uncomfortable and did not fly well. The maintainace cost for a school operation is in my opinion high. The factory handles most of it but you still loose revenue when its down. It might be the perfect airplane for somebody that does not have a lot of money and has to have a new airplane but in my opinion you would be much better of with either an old Piper for trainer or maybe a Grumman for personal use.

 

[great cornholio]

The unshielded brake lines were plastic tubing held to the struts by plastic clips that were glued on. We also had to replace the tail because when you get in the plane’s the cg moves aft and the tail strikes the ground

Yeah I totally forgot about those brake lines like I said I only flew it once and it was a while ago. At least you can see that the fluid is red. haha. But like you said it wouldnt really matter much if you lost the brakes anyways cause they are way ineffective. Also forgot that you can only get in 1 person at a time. When you step on the back of the wing to get in the tail will hit if both of you are there, same thing also happens if you both try to get out at the same time. Although how the doors open were kinda cool, but if i remember the latch is kinda sketchy. Actually the more I think about it and remember the more it is like a homebuilt. I still thought it was a fun plane to fly though.