From: Doug - SportAviation: I have some experience teaching people to fly the Zodiac as I’m a CFI and used my Zodiac for a while as a teaching platform. A repeatable characteristic among those who fly high(er)-wing-loaded aircraft and are transitioning to the Zodie is their heavy-handedness on the controls. This generalizes from private pilots to ATPs. In fact, there were two other CFIs I couldn’t sign-off to fly the Zodiac because they couldn’t land it – an almost unbreakable PIO near the ground for both. They were the instructors who spent most of their time in twins. It’s clear (to me) there is a certain kinesthetic sense required to fly the Zodiac which is conflict with those built up in other GA airplanes. This seems to be borne out from the insurance stats. One-finger control to press on the stick to change attitude followed by trim is the drill I would often use.
Another “quirk” of the Zodiac is the location/height of the gear (I’m referring to a 2007 AMD airplane) and the angle of incidence of the wing (lower angle of incidence, not like the 650 is now or the 601 was earlier). This combination requires a deliberate rotating of the airplane for takeoff. Without the rotation the airplane will just continue down the runway never taking off. Given the weight distribution wrt the gear location, the deliberate action required to rotate is too much stick for maintaining the nose angle one wants for climbout. Thus, it almost immediately results in a nose-too-high attitude once the airplane leaves the ground.
The challenge is ensuring folks don’t panic at this point and shove the nose down (gotta ensure you box the stick with your hands!). That can result in a “good belt workout” at a critical altitude. If one takes off at 60 knots, there’s enough kinetic energy in the airplane for a nice easy correction.
Or, the stick was used to remove the wings. As I have related previously, I was letting a passenger, who was a Piper Tomahawk owner, fly. It was a gusty day and on climb out at about 80 - 90 kts, the nose pitched up. He slammed the stick forward to lower the nose and gave the seat belts a good workout. He did not go too far forward with the stick as I blocked the stick with my hand; however I have no doubt, he would have put us through the canopy if not for the belts.
(I still can not believe an experienced pilot would have done something like that!)
I think it is interesting that you choose to use the term "pilot/builder". In fact, the only thing common among all the XL crashes is that NONE of the involved pilots were the builders of the airplane that crashed.
I am assuming that the latest crash you refer to is the one in Utah. It is STRICTLY a personal opinion, but I believe the same thing happened to that unfortunate pilot as the phenomena that ended Steve Fossett's storied life - inadvertent entry into a mountain down draft that the pilot and his airplane simply could not overcome.