Extra 400

I have first hand information about the recent forced landing. It was not a fuel pressure issue but rather the infamous disconnect of the turbo to intercooler duct.
This is a well known weak spot of the Extra 400 which also bit me ( I was lucky to make it to an airport, land safely, fix it and take off again).

Here the details:
The intercooler of the Extra 400 must be slotted into a rail in the lower cowl, while being already assembled to the engine intake ducting.
This and the sheer weight of the cowl make it VERY difficult to reinstall. Ill informed mechanics will push and pull on the intercooler to make it fit and if the ducting is not very solidly secured it can go loose. Then when one reaches cruise altitude, the pressure differential is enough to pop it loose.
You then have an over rich mixture and immediate engine stoppage with loss of pressurization. Mine disconnected at FL190 IIRC.

And with regards to take-off and climb-out: mine does have an EDM930. climb-out is at max continuous power (37.5/2500) with a fuel flow of 125-130 liters and TIT of 1500 or so. CHT around 250 (yes 250 F).
An Extra 400 “only” needs a 800 meter runway at SL and the only take-off issue is the immense drag of the landing gear. This must be retracted asap.
After that it climbs at 1000 ft/min to FL200 at MTOW on an ISA day. I have a flight radar24 chart to prove it if someone would post it for me.
Today I bumped into an Extra 500 and compared real world performance with its pro pilot.
The 400 is faster (190-220) and climbs at least as well until FL200 and much better above.
Plus it will play at any altitude you want, as in this VFR 100€ burger hop we made today in puffy cumulus skies.
Cloud dancing at 3000 ft and pulling 3 g was an absolute blast.

Wow! Where is that Steve?
I would not do it for one simple reason: yes you can rotate around the 500-600 meter mark, but what if something is not right, you notice that speed is not building up as expected and you decide to abort? I always have a mental checkpoint at 60 KIAS – if this is not happening early enough – ABORT!

800m is the minimum I would want in an Extra 400,

This accident occurred shortly after TO. So if the intake duct came loose, the MP would simply drop from whatever the full throttle MP is, prob @ 34", to whatever the ambient pressure is, prob @ 28" .

The engine should never fail after such a MP reduction. Also the plane should be controllable and at least maintain altitude, if not climb at all.

Michael there were 2 Extra 400 accidents and one incident (the runway overrun due to aborted take-off):
N13EP went down with 5 casualties on Aug. 4th.
The belly landing I am referring to was N14 EX on March 10th. This is the one that got his turbo to intercooler duct disconnected. He was at FL 160. From own experience when this happens at high alt the engine instantly stops due to an overrich condition. In my case it restarted at FL100 by itself, but if the other pilot feared some nasty condition (eg broken turbo or exhaust) he may have cutoff fuel and then just glided down.