"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
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?


Well it may not be logical but even the FAA does it. If I build my airplane
and put in a non-certified engine I have a 40 hour phase 1 test period. If I
use a certified one on the exact same airframe, installed by the same me I
have a 25 hour phase 1 test period.