Does anyone know about these planes? Are they solid,safe,well built,? Handling characteristics? Seems like a lot of plane for the money with a turbine. I had heard about one coming apart on a guy in florida recently. Just through the grapevine tho. Don't know the reasons.

There was a piston one based around here a few years ago. And a turbine stopped in once. Seemed like heavy turds at the time. No STOL at all.

While at Sun N Fun one year, I was asked to do a demo flight in an amphib for a French flight test engineering pilot. Mostly, I just sat in the back while he introduced himself to the seaplane world. He'd never flown a seaplane, but I was amazed at how quickly he figured out both the airplane and float flying.

We landed at Browns near Winter Haven, and there was a turbine Comp Air 7 parked there on floats. This flight test engineer walked around the airplane and studied it carefully. I'd always been curious about these machines, so after a while, I asked him what he thought of it.

He thought about that for a moment, then replied "How can I say zees....If zees airplane were in flight, I would not stand under it." Ouch. He then proceeded to show me several structural issues with the design. My eyes got big, and we retired to the airshow.....

MTV

There's a turbine-powered CompAir taildragger that's been sitting on the ramp at Skagit airport in WA for over a year. The powerplants off it now, but it sat there for probably six months with a major-league q-tipped 3 blade due to a prop strike. No airframe damage that I could see. My guess is that the pilot either let the tail come up on takeoff or else tried to wheel land it -- with that long nose & large-diameter prop, you could do the geomoetry in your head & picture where the prop tips would be if the thing was up in a level flying attitude. Ouch.

This one looks to have had a similar problem. Only looks to have popped out the windshield...

There's one somewhere around here, during and after a trip, had some loose tail problems-rebuilt the whole aft end from door back, likes it now. Don't know any more details.