On Feb 7, 8:03*pm, "Ian D" wrote:
"Mxsmanic" wrote in message

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Cirrus is the "fork-tailed doctor killer" of our era. The old V-tailed
Bonanzas tended to attract low-time, low-competence, high-income pilots,
and
Cirrus aircraft are doing the same thing. I don't know if Beechcraft ever
deliberately tried to target that market as Cirrus is doing, though.

I remember that back in the mid 60s, Flying magazine had
an article on doctor involved accidents. *At that time doctors,
as a group, were involved in about a third of all fatals in
private GA aircraft. *A lot of these doctors were experienced
pilots, and the majority their accidents involved weather.

The conclusion as to why this was happening came down to
one word... arrogance. *Being in the business of saving lives
these individuals felt that they could handle any situation.
Oh, and I seem to remember that Bonanzas were involved
in some of the incidents.

This is mostly true. I had many doctors and lawyers as students during
the Bonanza accident period.
In many there was indeed an arrogance, and coupled with their natural
desire to achieve a short time line on anything taught to them, many
had retention issues.
The real killer in the Bonanza craze wasn't arrogance per se but a
general lack of proper training in handing an airplane with a VERY
clean wing in instrument conditions. Many of the Bonanza crashes were
the result of pilots getting the aircraft into weather they couldn't
handle. The Bo, being extremely clean, was exceptionally capable of
getting nose low in turns. Many of the fatals involved pilots applying
back pressure when sensing a nose low condition instead of swallowing
the bank FIRST or SIMULTANEOUSLY, thus swallowing the bank before
applying a positive pitch input.
This VERY BASIC ERROR in a nose low condition just served to increase
the nose low condition. It didn't take the Bo long at all to reach Vne
and beyond. At that point many Bo's lost wings to the high g loads
that became available with the greatly increased airspeed.
The Bonanza was and is a fine airplane, but like any airplane,
especially with a slippery wing, on instruments you need to be VERY
careful when recovering from a nose low condition. Arrogance and lack
of basics in a Bonanza nose low on the clocks was a killer equation!
Dudley Henriques