We can all agree that the LIV is a handful in departed flight.  However, *hearing* about a *story* 10 years ago with such negative inferences is not, in my opinion, appropriate to perpetuate without substantiation.

As an example, there is a story of a guy who went inverted flat (intentionally) in a Yak-50 and it took him over 5000 feet to recover.  I have done inverted flat spins in the Yak-52, which is MORE difficult to recover from an inverted flat with than the -50, and with proper technique it can easily be accomplished inside of 1200 feet.  Yet I have had more than one person tell me about how difficult a Yak-50 is to recover from an inverted flat spin.....

Moral of the story is just because a pilot reports a horror story about flight characteristics, doesn't mean that the plane is the culprit.

Cheers,

Barry

PS  Interior on 122LL is done - even Jim G. the master himself is excited about how things came out, can't wait to see it!  I'm headed to Bend tomorrow to pick up my baby.  Taking her to OSH....hope to see you guys there!  She will officially go on the market....hate to do it, but with the chance to pick up the distributorship for new build Yak-3U's (that's 1450 h.p. worth of Mustang whippin' drool hitting my keyboard), something's gotta give.  If anyone is interested in a Legacy with everything but the Cappuccino machine, let me know!  Mustang killers available in early '07... ;)