Mr. Ayers,

Your argument is that one plane might be less safe than another.  My
argument has been (and continues to be) that the pilot has more effect on
the safe outcome of any particular flight than the aircraft he/she is
flying.  The bottom line is that our arguments (yours and mine) are based on
opinion born of rhetoric and emotion, which may be disputed with more
rhetoric and emotion; in other words a complete waste of time.  Who
prevails?  Whichever of us manages to present his opinion most cleverly?  No
amount of rhetoric may change another's opinion, especially if that opinion
is based on rhetoric.  If that were the case we would only have one
political party in our country!  What we are in need of here are some facts.

Let me try to clarify what I've been hearing from you: Lancair aircraft are
SO UNSAFE that no one can fly them and Lancair has been deceiving it's
customers (by outright lying or lies of omission) in order to continue
selling poorly designed kits.  The only logical end to this argument is that
Lancair should stop selling kits, all those in the process of building
should stop and those flying should be grounded.  If this IS your argument
then you're gonna need more than rhetoric.  This list is a great resource
for folks that are building, thinking about building or have built a Lancair
aircraft.  It is (or should be) a vehicle for sharing information.  Opinions
are unavoidably presented, after all, because not everything about flying
airplanes is strictly factual -- how would we justify the cost?  But, if
you're going to offer an opinion suggesting that someone (Lancair) is
deliberately ignoring the safety of others (their customers) for personal
gain, then you MUST offer some FACT to back up that OPINION.

Consider this: you obviously believe strongly in your opinion -- but you may
be wrong!  If you ARE wrong, you are trashing a reputable company that's
done much to advance the state of the aviation art, and making a lot of
people very nervous for no reason.  Additionally, you just may succeed in
driving prospective customers away from Lancair, and how would that sit with
your self-professed need to conduct business with honesty and integrity?
If you're right, you've done nothing to advance your position because of the
suspicious way in which you've presented your opinion (devoid of fact,
without initially identifying yourself as a business competitor).
Additionally, the water is so muddied now you may have great difficulty
getting the strongly opinionated to believe the facts.  You must have heard
the story of the boy who cried wolf?  How would you feel about having
delayed a legitimate effort to save lives?

I submit that continuing to offer unsupported opinion unnecessarily damages
not only your own reputation, but that of Lancair as well.  Indeed, if you
have information (data and fact please) that might save lives which you
refuse to share, then you are as bad as you are making Lancair out to be.
Until you find yourself in possession of fact that you may share with the
rest of us, I respectfully ask that you keep your opinion to yourself.


Regards,

Mark Sletten