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<< Lancair Builders' Mail List >>
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Dear Marv & Mail List Subscribers,
My wife and I flew down to Lancair HQ in my Beech Sierra yesterday to pick
up a bulky part I'd purchased for my IVP. My experience was so positive
that I have to mention it - especially after the extremely negative comments
made about Lancair on the LML a couple of days ago.
Vern Pifer assisted by me showing me the part - weighing it for me (it's a
carbon fiber overhead console) and then he replaced for no charge a bolt
that was missing from the kit I'd ordered 3.5 years ago. He also cheerfully
filled orders for a couple other miscelaneous parts. After that, he was
gracious enough to provide transport to a nearby restaurant so we could eat,
and he connected me up with a new Lancair technical adviser (Mark) to help
with a problem I was having with the door latches.
I expected to hear the following: "Oh, so how'd you screw this up like this?
Well, don't do it that way, just do this, this & this." etc Instead, Mark
looked the latches over carefully and discussed with me the details of the
mechanism - showing where it was ok to alter the brackets if they don't
travel smoothly, etc. Then he took me into the machine shop and assisted me
for about an hour making sure the problems I had were solved.
Bottom line - Lancair is a great company to work with. The kits are about
the best you can find - from design to fabrication; A to Z.
Are they perfect? Of course not! Are there things I wish they'd made
differently? Of course. Have I made changes to the design? Dozens - I
hope the percentage of good ones comes close to those in the original.
Isn't this why they call it Experimental? Is Lancair attentive to
complaints and are they improving the kits? You bet! I walked through the
factory and looked at the new fast build IV kits. I'm amazed at how
complete and well built they are. But you can bet that Lancair isn't going
to respond to every suggestion or complaint I make - not even if I did have
some credentials to back me up. Think of the balls these folks have to keep
in the air full time - new designs, marketing, tech support, improvement of
techniques, manuals, etc etc etc. This is what the LNN - LML, Fastpackets
and Forums are for. We get to improve an incredibly wonderful airplane to
make it even better.
If there was one thing I'd ask it's that Lancair be a little more
forthcoming about the information they put out when things go wrong. Case
in point: One Lancair service bulletin discussed cracked windows in the
cabin door. What they never said was that the entire window took a powder
and left the airplane. In my mind, this could mean the difference from your
radio transmission going up half an octive to two or three octives - a
considerably greater pucker factor. I think builders might tend to take
the SB in a more serious vein if they got the story unadorned. I'm sure
it's tough when you're the marketer and the safety captain all at once to
wear both shoes evenly.
But other than this one minor suggestion, I can't think of much to say to
Lancair other than "Keep up the Great Work"
Regards,
John Barrett
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LML homepage: http://www.olsusa.com/Users/Mkaye/maillist.html
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