Gary, I guess I still don't understand? If a plane has such exceptional flight characteristics, as the Kingcat does, why would people care about the design specs. The first question someone always asks you after the maiden flight is "HOW DID IT FLY" and not " How did it fly with that engine angled all funny"? We are end users, not designers, so all we should really care about is how it flies. Is it just that you don't like the looks of the engine at that angle or ??

I do agree that BV has a very good reputation for building superior quality planes but far more important is the fact that you see a lot of them at the events. As I mentioned above, that is why I bought mine and the reputation was secondary I think. Since I had already owned several BVM planes I already knew they produced quality airplanes from an engineering standpoint. The specific flight characteristics was what I was looking for and was able to see for myself at the events. Seeing is believing and I think that is far more likely to sell airplanes than anyones reputation.

I was not able to observe these characteristics with the Hustler and at $4-5,000 for a finished kit it is a lot to ask I think to just "assume" that it had the flight characteristics I was looking for!!

I also would not "assume" that just because the Firebird can land on a 600' runway that the Hustler is also capable of this as well. I guess you are referring to the other post (mentioning the 600' landing) which also shows the modifications to the leading edge slats on the Firebird, so I am not sure that is fair statement if the slats also have any effect on the landing speeds. Just my opinion, Gary