As an instructor, I get to fly a lot of different airplanes and talk to
a lot of owners. I'm convinced that the only people who hate Beech
airplanes are those who haven't flown them.

I didn't say I hated Beech -- far from it. Although none of their
birds fits my current mission, which requires lots of economical
lifting capacity and a wide CG range -- I would LOVE to own a Bonanza
some day.

What I said was that they have become irrelevant. They sell a tiny
number of aircraft each year (thanks to their outrageous pricing), and
the last new aircraft design to come out of Beech was....what? I
can't think of anything new since the Starship debacle of the early
1980s.

Since that occurred right after I graduated from college -- and I'm now
48 years old -- I think I'm safe in saying that Beech has become
irrelevant to aviation. If they went away tomorrow, we would all shed
a tear for the Beech line -- but it would have zero impact on general
aviation.

The same cannot be said, for example, of Cessna, Piper, Cirrus or
Columbia.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"