Regarding the recent vitriolic postings about redundancy, reliability, safety and imagination, I say:

"Calm down, boys"

I have read Brent and Hamid and Jeff's postings for years now, and I first met Paul Tackabury almost thirty years ago.  They are all worth listening to, but their different backgrounds make them comfortable at different points on the risk/benefit spectrum.

Brent and Hamid have much sound advice based on years of working on avionics certification programs.  I'm equally certain that Jeff's advice stems from years of professional flying and many accident investigations.  These three have a well-intentioned bias towards eliminating all possible risk.

Paul's background is as a test pilot.  When I met him he was an Air Force test pilot at Edwards AFB.  I lost track of him for a while, only to discover that he had been flying experimental stealth fighters at an undisclosed location.  He later worked as a VP at Northrop.  He's worth listening to as well. 

Paul has flown many aircraft which I suspect carried far greater risk than our Lancairs.  I'm certain that, regardless of the risk, all of these flights were undertaken in as safe a manner as possible.  I know this because I also worked for the Air Force Flight Test Center as a flight test engineer.  I was extremely impressed with the caution with which the organization approached hazardous flight tests.

We all accept some risk in flying any airplane.  More so in flying experimental airplanes, whether they be Lancairs or stealth fighters.  We minimize this risk until the risk drops below our personal comfort threshold, and that point is different for all of us.  I welcome the offering of suggestions as to how to minimize risk, but don't want to read name-calling if one of these suggestions is considered and rejected by someone else.  It cheapens us all.

Thanks for listening.

- Rob Wolf