Liberty XL-2: A Modern Two-Seat Trainer

Based on Ivan Shaw’s cult classic Europa homebuilt, the Liberty XL-2 had great flying manners and FADEC power to boot. How could it possibly fail?

The Liberty XL-2 is a great little two-seat trainer or runabout. And it came at a time when everyone thought we needed a new one of those. It made sense. The old faves, the Cessna 150/152, the Beech Skipper and the Piper Tomahawk, to name a few, were all long out of production, and many flight schools had defaulted to using four-seaters to do training flights, the vast majority of which carried two people aloft, the learner and the instructor. Once a new, affordable alternative is available, people will beat a path to your hangar door, right? Not really.

The Liberty was unusual, though not unprecedented, in being a development of an Experimental category plane, the Europa XS, designed by Ivan Shaw. I flew the Europa with demo pilot Pete Clark in Florida in the early 2000s. It was one of the best-handling airplanes I've ever had the chance to fly. It was, indeed, capable of some advanced aerobatics, which Pete, a test pilot with long experience, demonstrated for me. It was fabulous. The Europa featured an all-composite airframe and a Rotax 912 for power. It also had a single landing gear, a center-mounted one with wingtip thingies to keep you from dinging the tips should you go a little off-kilter. The design is common in sailplanes.

The XL-2 did have its quirks, including a funky ground-handling setup and high interior temps on warm, sunny days, thanks to the greenhouse canopy.

The Liberty took the fuselage of the Europa, made a similar planform wing out of sheet metal, and swapped out the Rotax for a FADEC-controlled Continental IOF-240. The slow speed handling is remarkable, approaches are aided by 30-degree Fowler flaps, and there are control sticks for flight control instead of yokes. A pair of gull-wing doors allowed easy in and out, and the seating area offered spectacular visibility.

So, if you build it, they will come, at least according to Hollywood, but in this case, not so much. Despite a succession of seemingly smart pivots, including diesel and auto-fuel capable engines, partnerships with investors and licensed manufacturers, the Liberty never got much traction.

My theory is that the premise was flawed. Those two empty seats in the four-place planes flight schools were buying and operating as basic trainers had some intangible value to students and to operators, value that more than makes up for the difference in purchase price and operating costs. So the world, apparently, didn't need or want a next-gen two-seat trainer. It's too bad because the Liberty is a nice airplane. Maybe you'll run into one sometime. The company built 132 of them before closing up shop for good.

Do you want more Aviation Breakthrough, Oddities, Milestones articles? Enjoy, "Top 8 Aircraft Electronics innovations Of All Time."

Three Epic Aircraft Development Programs

J BeckettWriter