RWolf99@aol.com wrote:

Who will be the first company to offer us the SAFEST kitplane, not just the highest performance or fastest to build?  You'd think there would be a market opportunity here.

The only way to market a safe airplane, kit built or certified, is to restrict who you let fly it and restrict their freedom.  Yes, I am serious.  Lets look at two airplanes, Boeing 737 and Cesna 172.  While I have never flown a B737, I am sure that it is a lot harder to fly than a C172, which I have flown.  Any one of us can get in a C172, do a takeoff and landing and have a very high likelihood of surviving.  How many of use could actually land a 737 simulator without any training?  I am talking about the real thing, not MS2004.

Yet, by any metric you choose, be it accidents per flight hour or accidents per landing, the B737 is a lot safer than the C172 or any GA airplane for that matter.  The secret to the 737's phenomenal safety record is who flies it and how it is flown.  It is flown by two highly trained and retrained and retrained.... professional pilots that have a few big brothers looking over their shoulders.  These pilots do not just get flight training, but are also put through psychological testing.  Then they continuously receive recurrent training, have very conservative operating limitations and fly all the time.  The result is that they rarely crash (I think the last two fatal 737 accidents in the USA were the rudder hard-over accidents 10+ years ago that were actually airframe faults).

So Rob, you can create Robair, and sell Lancair-IVP kits but have the requirement that all owners/builders must pass a psychological profile, must be monitored during building, must fly at least xxx hours per month all of which are monitored by a big brother, must get approved simulator training every 6 months, must have conservative operating specifications that must be adhered to and must operate like they would if they were operating under a part 121 certificate.  I guarantee you that you will have the safest kit plane in the world, when measured in terms of number of accidents per flight hour.  At the same time, the same exact set of parts sold by Lancair to anyone who can pony up the cash will continue to rack up fatal accident after fatal accident.  

Guess what, Lancair has already discovered the Robair model and are trying to implement as many of those things as they can possibly do through their insurance program.  Builder inspection, initial training, recurrent training......  You wanted the SAFEST airplane?  Lancair heard you and is trying to deliver, but the complaints from the market are rather loud (see the insurance thread).  Does the market REALLY want a safe airplane?

Regards,

Hamid