On 2007-06-13, Thomas Borchert wrote:
Justin,

starting posts with trying to insult people isn't smart.

Where are you coming from? If you're implying that Columbia owners
are personally insulted by a mere criticism of an aircraft design that
they didn't contribute to, then their egos are obviously too fragile
for an unmoderated usenet group. I certainly did not intend to insult
someone by pointing out what appeared to be an adverse design
characteristic. The systems engineers who wrote the requirements
specification for the Columbia are the only ones who (within reason)
could possibly be insulted. But if they're professionals worth their
title, then they welcome criticism anyway. Perhaps some 17 year old
pilots would be offended by adverse comments toward GA products they
like, but then how many 17 year olds are going to start off in a
Columbia?

If you want to take the time to offer netiquette feedback, there
copious posters in this forum (in fact in this thread) where the
effort would be more appropriate. Just look at any post from Bertie,
who brings us back to the 3rd grade.

then they compromised the aerodynamics of it by using fixed landing
gear.

They did? Says who? By what measure?

I personally don't need to see a lab meaurement to believe that fixed
landing gear compromises aerodynamics. It would indeed be a great
feat to be able to stick landing gear out of the belly of an aircraft
without inducing additional drag.

"They" say we're talking 5 knots speed loss for that extremely
efficiently designed gear (same for Cirrus and Diamond).

That's the sort of response I was looking for. The whole point of the
landing gear component of this discussion was to get an idea of how
significant the drag is. I can almost believe that the compromise of
fixed landing gear might be insignificant if it's designed well
enough. If the difference is trully only 5 knots, then I would agree
that it's a decent trade-off. So far it seems Bertie is the only one
to oppose that, assuming I correctly interpretted his ad hominem that
he directed toward the other gentleman.

5 knots for losing all the weight of the retract mechanism, plus the
maintenance hassle and associated cost. Sounds like a sweet deal to
me.

Yes it does. Now where did you come up with this 5 knot difference?

What you're really losing is macho feel. That's all.

I wasn't aware that there was a machismo aspect to it.. but (according
to you) we're also losing 5 knots.

I can live w/out the 5 knots in exchange for the relief from dealing
with retractable gear, and the additional useful load, though probably
not everyone. Notice that all sportbikes (with perhaps just one
exception from BMW) are chain driven. This is because most sportbike
riders are willing to put up with the extra maintenance effort and
costs and deal with oil/wax fling in order to achieve an almost
insignificant performance gain.

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