Hollo are you sure it was not the Flash 2 that had the bad record.
I've not flown either, and wasn't flying at the time they were common, so I'm not sure. I actually had it in my mind that it was the Flash 2 not the 2a that had the bad reputation before I wrote my post, but searched the accident reports to check and came up with G-MVEP and G-MTLA which were both 2a. Happy to be corrected by someone that has flown the things though.