John,
Before buying my Cirrus SR-22 some 11 years ago, I was looking for a replacement for my Mooney 252 and its meager payload. But, I didn’t want to give up the speed (~160 KT at low altitude), so the SEL choices weren’t all that many. Unlike some pilots, I was willing to entertain the possibility of building/buying an Experimental. So, I found a builder in the Phoenix, AZ area who had a Lancair IV-P that he had build himself and was willing take me for a ride. I flew over to meet him in my Mooney.
The plane was drop-dead gorgeous. And, it had sexy looking winglets. At that point, it was the first time I had seen a side-stick. That was cool. IIRC, the leather front seats were fixed in position and somewhat recumbent. They were very comfortable. Despite the owner/builder being a CFI, he preferred that I sit in the right-seat which was certainly OK with me. He said that I could fly once we got in the air but that he’d do the takeoff and landing - OK by me. Soon, we were climbing out of the KPHX area, and I was flying the plane. Although the plane felt nicely responsive, the stick pressures were quite high. Still, I thought that it would be a great cruiser. After doing some easy turns, I asked the owner (remember he’s a CFI) about the aircraft’s stall characteristics. Dead seriously, he looked at me and said “we don’t stall this airplane”! Then, he shared that stalls tended to quickly turn into spins in the IV-P… After that simple statement, he mentioned that there was a IV-P owner that stalled while flying up in the teens. It took the guy 10K’ to recover from the ensuing spin! I didn’t even ask how owners getting a Flight Review demonstrated that they could still recover from a stall…
Back at the airport, the owner landed the Lancair … flying final faster than anything I had ever flown at the time. But, there was plenty of runway, no wind gusts, and he was a pretty smooth stick.
Although I still lust after more speed occasionally and the Lancair certainly had it, I don’t want to fly something with stall characteristics like a IV-P. The seats were comfortable though…
Craig