I don't think military jets to homebuilts is a fair comparison. How many
military jets do you know that fly at 200 mph at 8 gph? I think
homebuilts operate under a much tighter equipment, budget and powerplant
constraints.


"s3" wrote in
:


"lowflyer" wrote in message
om...
(Badwater Bill) wrote in message
...


Most of the rich guys who buy them are
doctors, not test pilots. And, it's those weekend types that get
killed when the thing departs from it's normal flight
characteristics.

As a test pilot (military trained) I ended up working with a civil
airworthiness authority and have test flown about 50 hombuilt types.
There are a large number of homebuilts out there with appalling
handling characteristics in terms of stability, control, and stall
characteristics. In many cases the homebuilt community considers that
these characteristics are the price you pay for "performance".
In fact, many have characteristics that the military would simple not
accepted in their aircraft unless the performance boost so far
outweighed the flight safety issues that national defence was deemed
more important. The characteristics would certainly not be acceptable
for civil certification.
I have flown, stalled and spun high performance jet aircraft which are
pussy cats compared to some homebuilts.
The not so competent "rich" will kill themselves irrespective, but a
number of competent pilots will die in homebuilts simply because the
handling characteristics of many of these aircraft are well below that
acceptable for even hot shot military pilots.
While many people think of these homebuilts as "high performance"
don't forget that plenty of 18 -19 year old kids with a couple of
hundred hours total have successfully flown aircraft with far higher
performance than the odd Lancair or Glassair etc during military
flight training. Even a test pilot should not have to demonstrate test
pilot skill and ability just to go and have fun in a "high
performance" homebuilt. Irrespective of the above, I have no opinion
on the Lancair accident.

Cheers,
Chris