On 3 Jun 2004 07:18:25 -0700, (lowflyer) wrote:

"Peter Gottlieb" wrote in message . net...
"lowflyer" wrote in message
om...
(Badwater Bill) wrote in message
...

You sound like the guy to answer a question I've had for a long time.
You know the old saw about doctors and Bonanzas. I've always wondered
if it was true.

That would be a complex study indeed.

Do you know many doctors? Many of them do indeed make a lot of money, but
they also work long and stressful hours. This tends to result in pilots who
don't fly enough yet can afford expensive fast airplanes. A fast plane gets
"ahead" of you much quicker than a slow one. Now add in complex avionics

I know a lot of doctors and know what they earn, but that's another
thread. You've re-stated the mantra, which on the surface seems
logical, but is it true? In many walks of life we accept things as
truth never knowing the origen of the "truth", only to discover on
analysis that it's false.


Oh, I have to tell ya, I took a shot at the doctors on that one. It
may be unjustified at this point in time. I don't know it to be a
fact. In fact, doctors don't make the money they used to make in
relation to other businessmen. It's just that I've been a CFI for 30
years and I've never met a medical doctor who remained proficient. As
I sit here to day and think about all my doctor friends who own
Bonanza or Cessna-210's and 310's I can't think of any of them I'd put
my wife in the cockpit with. For some reason they just don't stay
current, proficient or even safe.

Staying proficient in a high performance airplane is a tough thing to
do. It requires you to go flyin a couple times each week and not just
for fun either. You have to go shoot approaches, do some maneuvers
and stay on top and ahead of the machine. If you can't do that , you
have no business owning that level of airplane.

I have a buddy who is a doctor who doesn't fly much at all but what he
did was convert his Cessna 210 into something quite docile in order to
compensate. He put speed breaks on it, a Robertson STOL kit, Flint
tips to increase the aspect ratio. The ailerons droop when you lower
the flaps, etc. He did everything he could to make the airplane into
a C-172 when you slow it down. And I'm here to tell you, it worked.
That old airplane is like an old horse. If you fell asleep, it would
find its way back home. You can't stall it at all (I mean it's hard
to do). With the ASI reading 55 knots and the nose up 20 degrees, at
full flaps it just parachutes down into the runway at about 300
ft/min.

My buddy survives this way because his business is just too demanding
for him to go fly twice a week and stay proficient. So, this airplane
is not beyond his cabability to cope with. The Lancairs are a
completely different ball of wax. You don't have the extra useful
load to install all the safety stuff that makes that wing well behaved
at low speed. So, you has what you has. One hundred knot pattern
speeds and 90 over the fence. More like flying a fighter than an
private airplane. You must stay proficient. Even then it still might
bite you.

BWB



With the