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I've been following this thread with interest and, while I
certainly don't have any thoughts that the professional pilots among us haven't
brought up, I have a couple thoughts/questions. First, I don't know if
it's proportional but it must be taken into account that there are a lot more
Lancairs getting into the air every year. We seem to have some
accomplished statisticians in the group and perhaps they can find out how much
the flying fleet is increasing year by year. Also, I'd be interested in
knowing whether the accident rate is higher for original owners of the planes or
is it biased to secondary owners. Another thing that is changing a lot
over the years is that more and more Lancairs are being sold and I wonder if
someone who'd rather buy than spend the time building has a different mind set
about flying than someone who is involved enough to go through the challenge of
building. Checking the registration on Lancairs involved in accidents will
show who the original builder was. Perhaps second owners are less likely
to get appropriate training because they haven't been following all the
conversations we see on the LML and may regard a Lancair as just another
airplane. Just a thought. Another factor may be that in many cases
builders tend to not do much flying during the building process and may not be
as sharp during the initial flight testing as they should be.
As I said, I have more questions than answers. Perhaps
others have some numbers to apply to these situations. Might be
interesting and enlightening.
Leighton Mangels
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