Lear 25D: Pros and cons please

[Rick1128]

The Lear 31a and 45 can be hand flown with no yaw damp (not required) all the way up to FL510 and I have done that with no problems. Which Saberliner can do that? ....LOL

You don't want to fly the 20's off the autopilot for noise abatement purposes.

 

[fokkerjet]

As for the Sabre, I don't know about the 65, but the 40 and 60 didn't have any wing deice/anti-ice. And with the step down into the cabin, women tend to dislike the aircraft.

The Sabre 60SC had anti-ice (hot wing).

 

[Tristar]

The worst system on the 40/60 was the nosewheel steering.

I had forgotten about about the nose steering - we never had any problems with ours, but we were very careful to disengage it before we stopped moving. The fixed nose axle does put more stress on the steering linkage than other designs.

Avbug is correct about the corrosion issues being a major player on Sabres. Again, we never had any significant issues with ours, but we had a late serial 40, and kept close tabs on it. He is also correct regarding much of it being intragranular. I wouldn't let this deter me from a Sabre, but you need to have any prospective aircraft thoroughly inspected by someone who is very familiar with the type and knows what they are doing (this is true of any aircraft type, particularly older ones).

The Sabre is a nice flying airplane...but so is the Learjet. The Lear isn't that much of a challenge to fly at altitude with autopilot and yaw damper off...even with full tips in a 20 series.

In fairness, I never flew the Lears, so I don't have any first hand knowledge. I always understood the 20's and early 30's (pre-Delta fins) had two yaw dampers and both were required for dispatch - I may be mistaken.

Avmats still does.

They provided us with outstanding support for our Sabre. We purchased our aircraft from Sabreliner, and they did an excellent job on the aircraft.

Nothing against the Lears, it's just always seemed to my that for similar models, the Sabre offered more aircraft for less money. Again - as a disclaimer I've been out of the corporate world (aside from occasional forays to fill in for friends) for over ten years now - so my info is dated.

 

[Apache06]

Lear 31's are cheap and plentiful. It's a 2.5 hour aircraft so range is not one of it's strong points. Poor airconditioning system. Great aircraft to fly and good performance. Tight cockpit. Loading bags a hassle. Easy and fun to fly.

 

[avbug]

In fairness, I never flew the Lears, so I don't have any first hand knowledge. I always understood the 20's and early 30's (pre-Delta fins) had two yaw dampers and both were required for dispatch - I may be mistaken.

A common error in the Learjet 20's and 30's for someone just starting out is to overcontrol in roll, and get into a dutch roll or roll oscillation. I've seen people roll the airplane inverted in three cycles, and nearly had a new guy put me in the ground twice that way. It's easily controlled, and really isn't any different than flying a Cessna 310 with full tip tanks.

At altitude, the airplane is more touchy without the autopilot, but it's more tedious than anything. The lear is a very nice flying airplane. The autopilots on the early Lears weren't stellar, and finding one's self without one at altitude wasn't unheard of...autopilot or yaw damper requirement not withstanding, the need to hand-fly did indeed present itself from time to time.

 

[FlyingPieceOfSt]

A common error in the Learjet 20's and 30's for someone just starting out is to overcontrol in roll, and get into a dutch roll or roll oscillation. I've seen people roll the airplane inverted in three cycles, and nearly had a new guy put me in the ground twice that way. It's easily controlled, and really isn't any different than flying a Cessna 310 with full tip tanks.

At altitude, the airplane is more touchy without the autopilot, but it's more tedious than anything. The lear is a very nice flying airplane. The autopilots on the early Lears weren't stellar, and finding one's self without one at altitude wasn't unheard of...autopilot or yaw damper requirement not withstanding, the need to hand-fly did indeed present itself from time to time.

From my past experiences, a Lear 31 is 3 and a half times easier to fly than a 310.

My .02

 

[con-pilot]

The worst part of the Sabreliner line is the structure. If most pilots flying them, or who have flown them, had any idea of how much corrosion exists in every one of them, they'd shudder and run away.

As for the corrosion problem with the Saberliner, with the 65 they fixed that problem. Last time I heard, not that long ago, there has not been any of the old type corrosion found in a 65. In my experience with the 65, the major maintenance problem was with all the relays in the electrical system.

Corrosion or not, there have been damn few, if any, Sabres fall out of the sky because of structural corrosion. I flew a 40 for a couple of years without any wing de/anti-ice and never had a problem.

Now as for single-engine performance on the Lear 24/25. Admittedly it is good, until you lose an engine with all the anti-ice bleed air on, then things become very interesting, trust me on this.

I'll still take a Sabre 40 over a Lear 24/25 any day of the week. However, I still say get a non-CJ-610/PW-12 powered aircraft.

Oh, Avbug is very correct about the nose-wheel steering problems on the Sabreliner, even the 65. I never had a problem in the 65, but I did in the 40 and the 80, more than once. However, I did have two 'hard overs' in the 80 models and it was nowhere as severe in the actual aircraft as it is portrayed in the Sim.

 

[NCherches]

...Saberliners are like mopeds... You know the rest.

 

[Tristar]

...Saberliners are like mopeds... You know the rest.

My only response would have to be that at least Sabreliner only had to build two models of wings for the aircraft - the original slatted wing and the SC wing. Neither of them covered with aerodynamic nonsense like vortex generators, boundary layer energizers, alternating pan head screws and so on. I'll grant you the SC wing does have a stall fence.

The Lears had what, 47 different wings? It seemed everyone of them I saw with all sorts of garbage all over it to make it fly right. If it took that many tries, and they still had to glue garbage all over it...

 

[stupidpilot]

And from what I can see you've never flown a Lear......