Extra 200 or 300L

[Colonel Sanders]

That sounds good, but if you aren't really interested
in being the next Sean Tucker, just buy an Extra 300.

Pussycat to land, easy to fly acro in it. You won't be
able to jump into a lesser aircraft and fly acro in it, but
then again, you're not the next Sean Tucker, are you?

Extra is an old man's airplane. If you can afford one,
get one! Get two!

There are two types of acro pilots. One type is the
next Sean Tucker, who can fly anything. You don't
need to be the next Sean Tucker. The other type can
only fly his airplane - and I mean his airplane, not
even a similar one of the same type. There is no
shame in being the latter. We could use a lot more
of them, frankly. You really don't need to be the
next Sean Tucker to fly acro.

[akoch]

what makes an airplane "an old man's aeroplane"? How do we categorize which is which?

To me Extra or Sukhoi looked more like a sports aeroplane, less of a toy.

[Colonel Sanders]

what makes an airplane "an old man's aeroplane"?

Is that a trick question? The people who own it

I don't go to contests - their urbane participants are
far too litigious for my rural taste - but in Sportsman,
you will find many older gentlemen flying Extras,
struggling unsuccessfully to stay in the box and scoring
at the bottom. Double facepalm.

But who cares. As long as they don't hurt themselves
or their airplane, more acro is better acro.

[akoch]

flying Extras,
struggling unsuccessfully to stay in the box and scoring
at the bottom.

Is this because the Extra needs more space than a Pitts, or is it pilot issue?

[Colonel Sanders]

In first year university calculus, we derive that
at a constant acceleration (G), the radius of
a turn (either horizontal or vertical) is a function
of the velocity SQUARED.

So, talk to me about what happens when you
double your airspeed, and try to fly the same
maneuver. There's a reason guys are flying
+/-12 G's.

IIRC Red Bull had a +12G limit on the 1/2 cuban
eight reversal to avoid people really over-doing
it ... until they figured out it was faster to turn
flat, which resulted in a very dangerous, very
high G turn at very low altitude. I mean, what
could possibly go wrong?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkwKqD9ylLo

There was a guy at Sarnia a few years back in
a Sea Fury that didn't have this figured out. He's
dead now.

[cgzro]

Extra is a beautiful plane but a bit of a robot... Not much personality,goes where you point it ..now.. Not hard to fly but hard to fly very well. Very slippery and can get you into a corner where you need a lot of G to recover. Generally you need to be very wealthy to own one and that means older.

[Colonel Sanders]

Get one these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yMXwIT35wk