Here it is.
A very slight of improvement over 2012, both in the total market as well as in the piston segment. Still considerably less than 1000 piston shipments, though. Note however that several european manufacturers (including Tecnam, Robin, Aquila, etc.) are not members of GAMA and thus don’t show up in the stats.
A few notes:
- The Bonanza survives; 35 units as opposed to only 12 or so in 2012
- Nobody seems to want Skylanes anymore. Will the Diesel change that?
- 21 units of the Corvalis TTx (at the beginning of last year, I guessed they would ship “less than 25” in 2013… 
). Compare with the SR22.
- 52 Carbon Cubs…not bad!
- 102 DA40s! I never see any new ones around in Europe. Do they really all go to flight schools in Saudi-Arabia? DA42 sales remain rather low.
- 89 Flight Design CTs!
- PC-12: a very slow start to the year, but a strong finish
- Piper continues rather strongly with their twins and the M-series. Even the Archer III sold respectably. Who’s buying those?
- TBM sales are slowing down remarkably over the last few years.
All in all, not too many changes over 2012.
I am amazed by the low DA42 sales. It does seem to confirm what I have always been saying: most of the production went to FTOs, not private owners. And the FTOs who bought them aren’t buying any more. Why not?
A lot of the numbers for the bigger bizjets are amazingly low – 1 or 2 a year. They must be hand-building them…
Socata are doing OK ($3.4M average selling price) but they must be looking for the next moneyspinner. The problem is that they got lucky with the TBM (right product at the right time, no competition as yet, etc) and it’s not at all obvious what the successor might be. There really are very few genuine serial enterpreneurs around. Most business success stories are one-offs, never to be repeated.
Cirrus:
SR20: 32
SR22/T: 244
Cirrus Total: 276
How can you ignore these :-)
No surprise airplanes are extremely expensive and yet there is almost no innovation. Volkswagen builds more cars in an hour than all GA manufacturers together in one year.
And this is not going to change. The utility value of GA airplanes is so little that demand remains small. Even if I offered a Cirrus type of airplane at a price point of €100k, I would only sell a few thousand. Demand is not very elastic in this market.
Not really in “one hour”, but I think they once made up to 5000 Golfs per day …. (from memory!)
(If you offered the Cirrus for 100 K you would sell THOUSANDS, because it would destroy the complete Ultralight market and everyboy would do a §real" pilots licence, IMHO …
The 172, Archer and DA40 at less than 260 total – compared to several thousand in the 1970s for similar aircraft.
I also hoped to see more numbers for the non aerobatic tailwheel community – single figures only for Maule and American, in addition to the Carbon Cub mentioned.
The Legend Cub doesn’t figure, even though US produced?
I think the Archer, like the Skyhawk, sells to people who do not need a FAST airplane and who know they can handle this type. THe Archer (like the 180 hp Cessna) is a good simple touring airplane that can take off and land on any surface, is really easy to repair and know by mechanics all over the world. And with an Archer III with Glass Cockpit you can do IFR training for less money than in a Cirrus.
the FTOs who bought them aren’t buying any more. Why not?
The FTO business is going very poor – there is an abundancy of experienced pilots available, so airlines are not hiring newbies, so nobody (well, very few) still start training for an ATPL. Actually, several FTO’s have already closed down.
Also the multi pilot integrated route adopted quite widely (except the US where the 1,500 hour rule has been re introduced), has had an effect on modular ATOs.
As this training only involves 70 hours in a real aircraft, presumably they are not required to fly an MEP at all?
Is there a graph of SR22 annual sales, since 2002?
