Lancair is vigilant concerning service bulletins, it's
in their best interest.
Randy: Really??? The last LIV service bulletin was issued on
8 Aug '03. None of their service bulletins or notices or info-mercials
deal with accidents, probable cause (other than the tried and true "lack of
training"), or exceeding Vne. If you are relying on Joe's company to
keep your butt out of trouble as you randomly push the edge of your envelope,
you are one brave soul.
This macho stuff has been interesting, but also disturbing. When
mother Air Force was paying me to explore the unknown (after accumulating an
engineering BS, masters, several thousand fighter hours, 300 combat missions,
a year attending test pilot school at Edwards, a few years teaching at same,
more supervision than you can dream of, months in simulators, decades of
meetings with project engineers and managers, etc) people were always watching
screens and charts when ever I did anything to insure I was NOT entering
uncharted waters unknowingly. The overriding theory was in
case of a major accident they could always replace me, but another one of a
kind test airplane was hard to find. And still we had problems: a
fine colleague discovered that a rolling pull out in a F-117 excited a
yet unseen flutter mode in the verticals which caused one to disintegrate
in nano-seconds. Fortunately an earlier increase in the area of the
verticals (actually slanty things on the back of the bird) to add directional
stiffness provided enough control power for him to safely return to base, kiss
the ground and review the data. And yet I read here from one of your
fellow fearless pilots about pushing his toy Lancair to 300mph
INDICATED (WOW!!) and pulling 7.5gs (WOW again!!). Yea someone put
sandbags on wings once on a bird built when Reagan was president and declared
+9, -6 just dandy so you all have fun out there. Well get a little
aileron in that pull to 9 (or 7.5) gs and you will be in a very untested
regime. Check the materials used in the construction of that early LNC
and your's and learn not everything is the same. Compare empty weights,
equipment lists, fuel loading and learn some more.
Now Randy, you seem dead set on continuing your Bravo. OK,
but I would emplore the rest of our aviation world to think long and
hard before deciding to go where no one has gone before. Planes and
aviation are complex. +9, -6 G limits come with lots of conditions,
as the above was met to illustrate, as do the rest of the Lancair
published and builder established limits (yes you the builder should have an
operations manual with your particular plane's tested limits before you invite
anyone else aboard) like Vne, or limits on acro. Your plane is indeed
unique, and so is your skill so treat both with care and dial back
the macho. Remember: kids are always watching...
paul, LIV N94PT and others