Peter,

If what was meant by Stealth is as you describe...... establishing
NORMAL climb speed similar to a soft field T.O., I'm with you.

However, if climb out is NOT established at NORMAL
climb speed as soon as practical....

I gotta stick by my original guns. :-)

P.S. All this discussion is rather moot for me,
after reading Rich Isakson's comments.


Barnyard BOb - the devil's in the details

I have always thought that the BD5 was a "very cool looking" little
airplane, and it is certainly interesting on how it might have turned out if
the original engineering team had been much more lucky, or possibly
insightfull, in troubleshooting their drive line problems. I also really
think that much of the behavior to which Rich Isakson alludes is more
related to pilot expectation and the relationship between the center of
trust and center of drag than it is to the relationship between the center
of thrust and the center of gravity.

However, in a practical sense, these are really semantic arguments. They
would make a great discussion over a keg of beer; but in the end, I would
never atempt to fly that airplane equipped as described--because I don't
know how to balance it within the weight that the wing can really handle
and, combined with the change in pitching moment from power on to power off,
the damned thing would attempt to kill me.

The bottom line is that we all agree.

Peter