As for the funny thrust angle , I would assume that it is to correct a pitch up problem. The Hustler's thrust line is on the C/L of the air frame and does't change the pitch of the aircraft under power up or down situations
The angled thrust line has absolutely no affect on the Kingcat when throttling up or down. There is no pitch effect at all, it is very smooth and for the life of me I cannot figure out why people keep bringing this up in these threads. There are no poor flight characteristics as a result of the thrust angle so why does it even matter?
for all out performance the Hustler has it over the Kingcat from all I've seen.
Jeremy, I'm not sure why you say this but the Kingcats are easily capable of the 200 mph speeds that are allowed here in the U.S. so anything beyond that is useless for most of us anyway.
I also looked at buying one of the Hustlers when I purchased the Kingcat but for me the deciding factor had the most to do with where I intended to fly my new jet. I saw Kingcats making very short landings at events and then accelerating to 200 mph, and what I was looking for was something that I could fly at my local field with a 20 x 600' paved runway. This is not much runway for a jet to land.
At all of the jet meets I attend each year I had never seen a Hustler make a short landing approach like the Kingcat. I am not saying it is not possible but I have never seen it done.
My point is think about why you are buying the new jet and make the choice based on that because they are both very high quality planes and I think you would be happy with either of them. I have around 125 flights on my Kingcat so far and have been very happy with both the reliability and performance. I am sure I would have been just as happy with the Hustler but I am not sure I would have been able to fly it from our 600' runway.
Keep in mind that it is a requirement that you land
on the runway every time you fly, not every other time. And, if you have a short runway where you want to fly then you need a plane that is suited to landing in that distance because it does not really matter how well the plane is built, eventually you are going to destroy the undercarriage or worse by either missing or overshooting the runway. The faster the landing speed, the greater the potential for damage.
Deciding where you want to fly this plane may help your decision. Gary