Hope springs eternal does it not?

Haha! They ARE taking deposits

Good luck to them. We need more innovation in the market.

I don’t know enough to comment on their engineering predictions, but I will say it seems they have a few of the pieces in place that another bold pressurized airplane was criticized for not having: an easier airframe to develop off of, an experienced designer, and engines that have 40,000 hours in the field.

Haha! They ARE taking deposits

Good luck to them. We need more innovation in the market.

I don’t know enough to comment on their engineering predictions, but I will say it seems they have a few of the pieces in place that another bold pressurized airplane was criticized for not having: an easier airframe to develop off of, an experienced designer, and engines that have 40,000 hours in the field.

I moved from an A36 to an XL RG 5 years ago. Kept the XL for about a year and sold it. It was an amazing plane. 198 kts between 5000 and 12000 ft on 16-18gph. IO550 with no cooling problems. Very roomy and easy to get in to. Easy to work on. She was squirrely on the runway. You had to be on your A game to take off and land, but in the air she handled nicely. She did use a lot of runway and you landed her very flat. Flew her all the way on to the runway. Pretty quiet in the cabin.

I loved a lot of things about her. But in any kind of chop you could watch that canard flap. It could move 4" in either direction so you could watch it flex 8". And while there was never, in the history of Velocity, any failure of the canard, it scared me. Every time. So I'd pull the power back. Until I was flying slower than my A36 with it's rock solid wing would go. So I flew her less and less. Till I realized I was spooked. And sold her. Kind of regret it. But once something's in your head...

If it weren't for that, she was a great, efficient, plane.

I’m not familiar with this issue, but it is an experimental. Couldn’t a more robust canard be built?

Thanks Lance,
I appreciate your input. After reading your post I went back and watched a couple of the videos that were posted and sure enough, even under normal flying conditions the canard had quite a bit of up and down movement. Not knowing anything really about airplane design I can only assume that is normal? I can see where it could be concerning though having that canard right in front of you and watching it flex up and down. Even in my A36 I try to be as easy as possible on my airframe and when it’s rough at all I find myself pulling it back to around 60% power to keep it out of the yellow.

Thanks, Frank

BeechTalker Don Johnston has owned a Velocity XL RG for many years. He was last on a few days ago so perhaps he has not seen this thread. I would think he would have some good practical info about the Velocity.

Here I am...

Stalls. You can stall a Velocity. At least the canard. But the main wing won't stall. The deep stall issue was where both the canard and the main stalled. As mentioned, that was resolved a long time ago. What they won't do is spin. Whenever I took a pilot up one of the things I would do is show them a stall. The response was almost always "That's it?". The nose drops, the plane speeds up, the nose comes up. Lather, rinse, repeat. They call it the "pitch buck". If you're light, the nose doesn't really drop. You just descend in a flat attitude at about 500fpm.

My XL-RG had an IO550 (came out of a Cirrus). I filed for 195kts (6,000-9,000') but depending on weight would usually see 199-200kts. After installing the SureFly on the left side, I was burning between 12.5-13GPH.

I'm 6'5" and weigh 225lbs (really, I do). My seated height is rather tall so I had to make some minor changes to the seat for the pilot side (the guy who did my first flight had to put pillows on the seat).

If you don't like to see the canard flexing, don't look at it. You could definitely make the canard stiffer. More fiberglass of use carbon fiber. I recall someone did that. It rode like crap though. That flexing smooths out the bumps. There's a picture somewhere that shows the canard on a pair of sawhorses with cement bags stacked up on the ends so they are almost touching the ground.

Forget soft field and short field landings though. Soft fields (unless they're like putting greens) will put a bunch of FOD through the prop. I was based out of a 3,300' runway. I could make the midfield turnoff about half the time without trying. If I was trying, I would probably never make it. There are a couple Velocity's with beta props. One was flying off his Phase I at the same time I was. He was getting stopped at 1,500' every time. And he didn't have that many landings at that point. He's based at Summerland Key. Not sure how long that runway is. I know Scott Swing (Velocity president) can land and stop an XL in a very short distance.

If you want more info, fire away or PM me.

And insurance will definitely be more than a comparable certificated airplane. But keeping the hull value reasonable and raising the deductible will help.

But I will say that the higher insurance cost is more than covered by lower maintenance cost. For example, my annuals probably cost $200.

And when you're on a trip, fuel stops take forever! It seems like everyone at the airport comes over and you spend an hour answering questions.

How long did it take to build your Velocity?

I’ve always thought they were appealing, however, I don’t know why most people who build them sell them? Could be the insurance, could be the taxiing in gusty weather issues.

Drew, It took me about 8 years from start to first flight.

Mike, I never had any problems taxiing in gusty winds. It is a skill that you develop though.

People sell them for the same reason people sell any plane. Don't fly as much, need something different, medical, etc.

I was impressed with the giant brass balls of the test pilot who rode that deep stall all the way to splash down.

Can't remember Lear ever putting a chute on one of their planes. And, uh isn't that a Concorde in the photo?

Early Lears had them