They say that in a perfect world the police would be English, the cooks French and the engineers Italian.

A little high wing two-seater caught my eye at an airshow recently. It looked neat, trim and efficient - even pretty. More to the point: It was new. I chatted with Bruce Stark, who had flown the plane there.

Stark is the distributor for these aircraft in the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales, and he told me that it was a Tecnam P92-S Echo. Tecnam was founded in 1986 by the Pascale brothers, formerly Partenavia, producer of the well-known P68 twin and numerous other aircraft.

The P92-S Echo and its low-wing stablemate, the P96-Golf, herald a new era in general aviation. As modern replacements for the aging trainer fleet, such as Cessna 152s, Piper Tomahawks and Beech Skippers, they weigh much less and are powered by a new generation of engine. They outperform these older aircraft by such a margin, and with such a degree of comfort, that they're genuine touring aircraft even though they're only two-seaters.

I met up again with Stark at the private strip operated by the Southport Flying Club, adjacent to Surfers' Coast, for a chance to get up close and personal with both aircraft. The Echo is Stark's demonstrator, and it shares the hangar with the low-wing version, the Golf, which belongs to the Tecnam distributor for Victoria and Tasmania.

Both aircraft are all-metal, although the all-flying horizontalstab is fabric covered. The maingear is a leaf spring, and the nosewheel is steerable. The maximum weight for both aircraft is 1200 pounds, which allows them to be registered as an ultralight in Australia. You can buy either plane with or without navigation lights. Basic empty weight (619 pounds) is also the same for both, giving a useful load of 581 pounds.

Power comes from a 100-hp Rotax 912S driving a two-blade fixed-pitch prop through a 2.4286:1 gearbox. TBO is currently 1200 hours, but this is likely to be increased in the future because overhauls at 1200 hours have shown so little wear. They're also affordable! Standard fuel capacity is 17.5 U.S. gallons, with long-range tanks of 25 gallons as an option. Fuel flow is around 5 gph at cruise.

Both aircraft are available factory built or as quick-build kits. The overall standard of finish in both factory-built aircraft I saw was superb.

Taking the Echo out of the hangar was easy because of its light weight. The preflight was standard. Undoing two catches on each side allows the top of the cowling to be lifted off. This is easily accomplished by one person and gives good access to the engine.

Settling into the cabin was easy. Stark likes to equip the demonstrator with only the basics, so the seats were the "ultralight" ones. I'm only 5 feet 8 inches tall, and I have relatively short legs. Stark is much taller. The seats adjusted individually to accommodate us both. Comfort is aided by a 43-inch cabin width and side windows that bulge outward for more shoulder room and elbow room. The view from the cockpit is excellent because the seating position is higher than usual.

Engine start is a little different than the traditional Lycoming. First, there's no mixture control. The Rotax is equipped with pressure compensating carburetors. Is this a plus? From the viewpoint of simplicity, yes. There's one less thing to worry about and one less thing for an inexperienced pilot to make a mess of, either by leaving the mixture too rich at altitude, using up all the fuel and fouling the plugs or leaning it too much and burning out the valves. On the other hand, a student pilot learning on a Rotax-engined aircraft won't become familiar with "normal" engine management techniques.

The engine was cold, so we used a touch of choke (as in a car) instead of a primer. From this point things were basically standard. The braking system is a little retro, being a hand brake lever centrally located. This is locked to act as a parking brake or activated by hand for braking during taxi. Ground steering is surprisingly precise despite the lack of differential braking - even more so on the low-wing Golf.

Runup is standard, with two magnetos to be checked in the usual way. The flaps are electric. There are full dual controls, including two throttle knobs, so there's one on the pilot's left on the panel. This is military and traditional, but I thought a little redundant, having grown up in GA aircraft with a throttle mounted centrally on the panel, where indeed there is one for the co-pilot. Each pilot has a stick-type control. There's full engine instrumentation, including a water temperature guage for the watercooled heads of the Rotax, but the demonstration aircraft was equipped with basic VFR flight instruments and radio only.

As if to underline that the braking arrangement is just fine, turning onto the narrow taxiway and paved runway at Southport was no problem at all for me, flying this plane for the first time. The Echo tracked straight down the centerline. Stark said to lift the nose at 50 knots, and it would fly itself off - and that's just what happened.

Climbout is at 60 knots, and that's when I got my first surprise. Stark weighs 210 pounds, and I'm about 175 pounds. We had half tanks and my camera equipment as luggage, and the VSI showed 1200 fpm! We skirted to the south of the Surfers' Paradise complex. This is Australia's answer to Flordia's Miami Beach, and it had been a long time since I'd done the tourist thing and flown at 500 feet along the highrise strip.

Once past the high-rises, Stark got me to throttle back to test the lowspeed handling. He surprised me again. There I was at 500 feet and 45 knots, and he asked for a somewhat steep turn. Now that's confidence in the low-speed handling of this aircraft! It wasn't misplaced. The Echo handless beautifuly at any speed. A rapid, steep climb will get you up through a hole in the clouds, and slow flight will find you a spot to land in bad conditions. You won't stall by accident, and if you do, its a nonevent.

Stalls were straight ahead with little shudder. You could hold the nose up, and the only way you know you're stalled is that the VSI indicates a descent. I put the nose down and opened the throttle in the standard way for my first stall, and we recovered with no loss of altitude. Or you can just open the throttle and fly right out of it, or just hang there.

If you aren't familiar with the geared Rotax, it's strange to see 5000 rpm on the tach. I noticed Stark setting power by fuel flow. At 20 liters/hour, we traveled at 110 knots as advertised. Stick forces were light and well balanced.

So it was time to return to the field. Visibility is generally excellent, and this old Piper driver had less trouble with the high wing in turns in this aircraft than in your average Cessna because the seating position is well forward in relation to the wing. The high seating position does mean that your eyes are at the level of the wingroot, so you have to duck your head a bit to look directly sideways. This is annoying for about the first five minutes.

Under Stark's guidance, I made a nice approach at 60 knots to the wide expanse of grass alongside the rather narrow paved strip, and I put it down oh so gently. Just about when I thought I should be pleased at having greased my first landing, I realized we were oh so gently flying again, but soon we were down and stayed earthbound. Stark says that it only takes the average GA pilot three circuits of the pattern to get used to the Echo, and most, like me, don't quite appreciate just how light this bird is to land. Despite this, the demonstrated crosswind component is 15 knots, but Stark has landed the Echo in a crosswind in excess of 20 knots.

It was time for a sandwhich in the clubhouse, then checking out the low-wing version, the Golf.

At first glance the Golf is quite similar to the Echo and has the same weights, but there are significant changes. The cabin is covered by a backward-sliding bubble canopy. This isn't bulged outward, but cabin space is maintained by a slightly wider fuselage. The wing is smaller in span, so the Golf is a few knots faster, but although we did coax 1000 fpm out of the climb, it's 200 to 300 fpm less than the Echo. There's a step similar to that on a Cherokee to get onto the wing and into the cabin. Unlike the Cherokee, this step is infront of the wing, and the forward seating position relative to the wing gives a superb downward view for a low-wing aircraft.

The Golf had a slightly different front on the cowling, minor differences around the engine and a clutch in the prop drive. It was a newer aircraft, with only four hours on the clock. Current models of the Echo incorporate these changes.

The Golf is as stable in flight as the Echo and retains the same light and well-balanced controls and gentle stall. If anything, it's a touch more reesponsive, and with the narrow nose, bubble canopy and sprightly performance, I couldn't help feeling for the firing button on the stick as I resisted the temptation to point the nose at the other aircraft we saw nearby. I ws in the right seat in the Golf because it wasn't Stark's aircraft. After I flew it by the high-rises and felt it out at altitude, Stark showed me how to land once per flight, and much to my regret we taxied back, shut down and put this delightful aircraft to be in the hangar.

There's also a retracable-gear version of the high-wing Echo available. Stark feels these aircraft will have a strong appeal for older pilots because they're affordable, and easy to fly and have good cross-country capability, but they don't require an aviation medical if registered in the ultralight category.