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Ernie,
No argument from me on either of your points. Don't make assumptions is a good point. In my case, I also don't fly at gross wt. too often, and so also hope for book numbers. But out of curiosity, when I bought the plane, I took it up with an instructor to see what it would do. I was pleasantly surprised, but we were pretty close to gross wt., and the plane did climb at 100-150fpm with the gear down on the rear engine. Later, when I lost the rear engine on a go around in instrument conditions, it climbed out at 350fpm on the front engine, probably 250lbs under gross on a cool day. Turns out the fuel was set up way rich on the rear engine and it choked when I gave it power, came back when I leaned the mixture, thankfully. Made me a Skymaster believer though! Fuel set up is better now too. I am still not sure what the best course of action is with the gear though. I usually leave it alone until all set for cruise climb, then retract it. When I asked about this at Recurrent Training Center, they made the argument that getting the gear up resulted in better climb, and altitude is your friend, and so had no problem with positive rate gear up. They weren't unhappy if you waited either. I guess to each his own. I can wait to pull up the gear myself....
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