wrote:
Montblack wrote:

("Jonathan Goodish" wrote)
[snip]

I think the Lancair (or Columbia as they're calling themselves) are the
better airplanes. However, neither one has a long-term cost of
ownership or reliability history.


How many Columbias are up? What's Cirrus on ...2,000.

http://www.cirrusdesign.com/
Cirrus

http://www.flycolumbia.com/
Columbia


History teaches that pilots are willing to take chances on airframes,
but not on engines, which is pretty logical. The Grumman fleets are
pretty small and yet there's still enough guys with PMA out there to
make keeping one in the air pretty straightforward. Plus neither Cirrus
nor Lancair have retractable gear, which is probably one of the biggest
bugbears in terms of maintenance.

That isn't logical at all to me. An catastrophic engine failure is a
bad deal, but a very survivable deal in most cases. A catastrophic
airframe failure is rarely survivable. What logic are you seeing that
I'm missing?


Matt