artp wrote:
I think you are blinded to the faults of the plane. Clearly neither one of us will be able to convince the other.
i do tend to think more in terms of compromises than faults. an example would be that if you added more engineering to the nose gear you would also add weight and subtract useful load.
the ctsw is well designed and engineered and has few outright faults but i do see them, an example would be the location of the throttle/choke friction lock. if it gets loose you need tools to adjust it. seems dumb.
because i can't agree that the fuel system is faulty doesn't mean i'm blind it might just mean that i have a lot of experience with it and know it to work well.
i'll admit that i am blind to your safety/landing issues but after all of these months of pointing at this problem(s) you have failed to point at 1 single problem.
you keep pointing at the number of ntsb reports but discount what they say in order to shift the fault from the pilot to the design. you haven't established that their is enough data to be meaningful. you haven't established that the ctsw has an incident rate greater than other slsa (early data on other designs suggest similar rates)
you would like me to open my eyes and see what you see, well it would be a lot easier if you could see what you see.
it all boils down to who am i going to believe "you or my lying eyes"? since you have no specifics, an example might be, you could point out that when the design stalls in a landing configuration it is prone to drop a wing suddenly without warning. now if this were true ( it isn't ) i would have something concrete to confirm. but you have nothing.
along with my experience flying the ctsw i have a bit of experience observing people landing the ctsw on their demo rides or in their transition training. a few have the ability to land the ctsw well right from the first attempt but many need to adjust their target sight picture.
the guys that have trouble fall into two categories.
1st catgegory is weak stick and rudder skills that leads to over controlling and often they have forgotten how to use their feet and the ctsw requires rudder input. this category is observable from the cockpit and until the skills are improved the pilot shouldn't and doesn't even attempt landings.
now the landings, this is very observable from the ground and i've seen it many times. the struggling ctsw pilot's landings tend to run out of energy to far above the runway. without a visible cowling the picture must be judged with references that you can see. this low energy state if not countered with the throttle results in rapid sink and a hard landing or a bounce. prior to the bounce the pitch attitude was too high and now it is even higher and the energy state is even poorer and if the pilot doesn't abort the landing attempt he is now well over his head.
if the pilot has a good sense of where the ground is and a good sense of his pitch attitude and doesn't fail to advance the throttle if he balloons a bit the ctsw become very easy to land.
so art, until you can point at a problem as opposed to just knowing that there is a problem color me blind.
your habit or requirement to disregard the input of hi-time ctsw pilot/owners but in stead to rely only on ctsw pilots that crashed on an early landing attempt defies logic. you say this input indicates a problem and you are right but you refuse to believe the problem is a lack of training in favor of condemning the design with no specific problem.
i'm not trying to convince you art, i'm trying to defend the design from an unfair, powerful public attack.
regards,
ed cesnalis