Although this is a seven-place aircraft, you wouldn't want to jam big folks into the back as the seats are fairly narrow. Up front the seats are big and comfortable, and the broad expanse of the instrument panel can be well equipped with engine instrumentation and a deluxe suite of avionics with room to spare. Because the aircraft is all-composite, the wing panels can be sealed to hold almost as much fuel as you could ever want to carry up to the maximum gross weight of 3770 pounds.

Similar to the PT-6, the temperature and rpm increases are monitored to keep them within limits, and like the Pratt & Whitney, the temperature seldom reaches anywhere near starting limits. Ron Lueck and I, plus a big buddy for ballast, taxied for the active runway at Sun ‘n Fun’s Lakeland Airport. The Comp Air 7 handled predictable during taxiing, and the beta range and reverse thrust were always available to control the taxiing speed, which tends to be quite high as the turbine produces lots of thrust even at idle.

Lueck warned us about the abundant thrust prior to firewalling the throttle. This device is also known as a thrust lever or power lever and other names on various turbine installations. At any rate, it’s easy to forget how quickly a lightly loaded turboprop aircraft accelerates, and it was all I could do to count the couple of taxi lights that seemed to be in a rush to get behind us.

A healthy crosswind was blowing, but the takeoff was so quick that it had no time to affect our directional control. Lueck quickly rotated the nose to an impossibly high angle, but the airspeed increased until he pulled the power back somewhat to produce a cruise climb of 175 mph and 2000 fpm!

We didn’t get to climb long as the weather moved in to

In turbulence, I generally teach my students to place their hands in their laps and raise dropping wings with a light touch of rudder or let the next bump bring it up on its own (it usually does).

We checked pitch stability at this high cruising speed by displacing the elevator control and letting go – and fount id quite good with the aircraft gently porpoising through three cycles to reach its trim speed. We were also able to fly hands and feet off the controls for a prolonged period with the Comp Air 7 showing no tendency to depart from its heading.

The –7 possessed such gently stall characteristics that we were prepared to push the envelope at the low altitude forced on us by the overcast. Even aggressive maneuvering or attempts to get the aircraft to depart at steep angles were unsuccessful; the –7 just nodded its nose gently downward under all stalling conditions we tried.

We returned to the traffic pattern quickly, but on the way we played with sideslip angles and control separation between rudder and aileron and found the airplane behaved quite well.

Lueck greased the Comp Air onto the runway and then apologized for the landing; he must have landed on something sharp as a main gear tire went flat as we taxied off the runway.

By the time we had finished, our evaluation flight had lasted only half an hour, but it had given us a fair sense of the possibility a turbine can add to a homebuilt. With a power loading of only 5 pounds per horsepower, the Comp Air 7 is an impressive performer form the moment the brakes are released until cruising altitude is reached a few minutes later. This airplane promises an absolutely minimum takeoff run and an obstacle-clearance climb that could only be compromised by a barrier such as the Empire State Building.

Similarly, with that big propeller disk and the ability to put the propeller into reverse, you don’t really have to worry about runway length because you can just land across it and use reverse to stop in a few aircraft lengths.