You don’t have to do a steep turn on a high wing to lose sideways visibility. A 30 deg bank angle does it.
A Bölkow Jumior allows you to see up and down, and if you’re short (which I’m not) they are a pretty nice little plane. For €20K or so 
You don’t have to do a steep turn on a high wing to lose sideways visibility. A 30 deg bank angle does it.
So I will rephrase my question: How many 30 degree banked turns do you perform per flying hour, especially with easily scared passengers (they all are!) on board? What I want to say is that visibility in turns would be on the bottom of my list when shopping for an aeroplane.
True, but one doesn’t get the option for high or low wing when choosing a plane on the usual main criteria.
If you want something nice looking and modern, it has to be low wing – with extremely few exceptions like the Extra 500 (which doesn’t really exist yet anyway).
In the lightweight world there are some nice high wing designs e.g. the Tecnam 2008 but I think the general drift in the market is “low wing = sexy” and this is very obvious when walking around the Friedrichshafen show for example.
How many 30 degree banked turns do you perform per flying hour
Not many but I wouldn’t fancy doing this to Elba in a high wing…
Not many but I wouldn’t fancy doing this to Elba in a high wing…
Why not? Intersky (Link) does it with a Dash 8 several times per day during the season.
If you want something nice looking and modern…
Don’t they make the Cessna 172, 182 and 206 with glass cockpits now? Nice looking and modern, both criteria fulfilled (I have always liked Cessna singles best – but probably because I was trained in them and you never forget your first love…)
So I will rephrase my question: How many 30 degree banked turns do you perform per flying hour
There speaks an IFR pilot ;) Most VFR pilots will be flying circuits on arrival and you lose sight of the runway, and potential traffic just when you don’t want to.
Anyway, my comment wasn’t intended to start a high wing vs low wind debate. People’s views on that tend to be entrenched and not open to change. I was simply pointing out that this design is not a good sort of low wing design.
High wings for most people means good downards visibility, but poor upward visibility and poor view in a turn. However some high wing aircraft position the pilot line of sight forward of the wing eliminating the worst of this downside.
Low wings for most people means good visibility in the turn but poor dowward visibility. But in actual fact for most low wing aircraft downward visibility isn’t an issue as the pilot is positioned forward of the wing. This isn’t the case in this aircraft, and it looks like the pilot will have very poor downward visibility. I was just pointing this out, as I woudln’t like it ;) I wasn’t intending to start a high wing/low wing debate!
for most low wing aircraft downward visibility isn’t an issue as the pilot is positioned forward of the wing.
That is the second time you claim this and I still would like you to cite an example (not the DC3 or B707, please, we are talking G/A here). Counter-examples have been named and illustrated, more could easily be found.
I think the typical certified low wing scenario is that the pilot can almost very nearly see straight down, especially if leaning forward slightly. I certainly can in mine, and frequently take photos looking nearly straight down – example.
On the Blackshape, the pilot appears to be above the middle of the wing and won’t be able to do that:
The rear passenger can’t see straight down either.
Whether this is going to bother anybody buying one, I doubt, because a €150k Rotax engined twin tandem plane is quite a niche market, but it would certainly make trip writeup pictures much harder to get.
The tandem seating is severely unattractive if you want to take a girl out somewhere 
So this is an aircraft for single blokes, mostly. And at that price, not many will take one and keep an SR22 (etc) as well.
Why not? Intersky (Link) does it with a Dash 8 several times per day during the season.
Btw, negative on that. intersky doesn’t fly via Guardiola. They fly straight in all the way, via over the ridge. Once the the ridge is cleared, they put everything on idle, deploy everything and dive for the runway. Some youtube videos show it.
A Bölkow Jumior allows you to see up and down, and if you’re short (which I’m not) they are a pretty nice little plane. For €20K or so
Actually, I am 196cm and fit quite nice. The 208 is larger on the inside :-) Visibility is great and she flies quite nice. Just the center stick is a bit odd, but then again it’s aerobatic…
For low wing aircraft: You don’t want to look straight down that much. I usually only need to look down before I start manoeuvring flights with a student, but a clearance turn works for me. If you are a bit taller, you have to bend yourself to have any visibility out of a 172 or 150. Funny thing is, that in a PA-28 this is even worse, where you have no good visibility at all. The Robins (DR250, DR300/400 series) have a great visibility. The Moranes, too. Much better than out of any Cessna or Piper I have flown.
