As a cfii who has, in the past, offered RV-10 transition training in my airplane, under a waiver (?LODA?), let me offer my opinion:
1. It?s the insurance cost. About $2K/year, above my normal policy.
2. Lack of business. While I admit I did no advertising other than word of mouth on VAF, I never had more than one ?student? per year. There?s no way to recover the insurance cost.
3. Vans does support transition training, indirectly, by allowing Mike S. use of the factory demonstrator aircraft which are already insured by Vans.
By all accounts, Mike is a great instructor. So your options are to pony up the airfare to Portland, or to get a group of 4 or more together, give your airfare money to a local cfi with the desired airplane and LODA, to pay his extra insurance cost. Assuming you can find the 4 or more, and the cfi/airplane/LODA.
Obviously, I would prefer that the new soon-to-be owner?s insurance would simply extend coverage to my airplane for this. But they don?t.