airways wrote:
I wonder if these pilots who buy a Cirrus even tried the competing products.
All the ones I know did.
airways wrote:
And what made them go for an SR in the end (except the BRS).
Except the BRS is the nag here, because that is what most people told me was why they chose Cirrus over the rest. That being at the time when all of them were new, the Cirrus, the Columbia and the Ovation/Acclaim series were then the big competitors.
I remember raving forum posts about the Columbia and the Acclaim and in the end a Cirrus came home. Why? Because they (or the wifes) liked the chute. And granted, it does make a difference particularly if you have a massive failure at night or in IMC to ground.
Yes, the “spouse-factor” is huge in this respect. According to my girlfriend, planes “just fall down” for no reason. When she heard about a plane with a chute, her interest in flying with me went up. Now I need to explain why my rental acft doesn’t have one :-/
Still, it’s a serious sacrifice, for something you’ll (hopefully) never use…
airways wrote:
Now I need to explain why my rental acft doesn’t have one :-/
If it’s the M20J in your profile then tell her about the steel cage. She can hook up with Jolie Lucas who can tell her first hand what that is worth….
airways wrote:
Still, it’s a serious sacrifice, for something you’ll (hopefully) never use…
It does change the game to some extent. There are some things in a single that feel a bit quirky at times, such as flying at night or over IMC reaching to the ground. With a BRS you can still land in a bad spot but it will be vertical and with low forward speed.
Clearly, who ever today builds a new family type airplane without one has been asleep in the marketing department. Mooney to some extent learnt that lesson with the M10 apart from other things which happened there,but the interest in the US and Europe basically went to zero after it became clear it would not have one.
What are the total sales of the 400, in its various generations?
Might Cessna buy them back to not have to support them, as with the 162?
Peter wrote:
What are the total sales of the 400, in its various generations?
Unless I’m missing something because of the various name changes, around 300 according to GAMA
PS: around 200 for the 162
Socata’s TB parts business is doing of the order of 2-3M sales a year and that is for something under 2000 aircraft. However there is the TBM business which is probably worth quite a bit more – those parts are mostly very pricey.
So, on a very rough guess, the annual sales of the Cessna parts business for the TTx would be about 300k, which is probably not enough to sustain it unless they can run it on the back of their other parts business, which is probably what they will do, unless they decide to buy them all back.
172driver wrote:
round 300 according to GAMA
Only 300 for both the Columbia deliveries and Cessna? Can’t be right. This article sais at the time when Columbia was bought by Cessna over 600 airplanes had been sold.
Maybe Cessna sold 300? Would make a fleet of about 1000 world wide?
I consider buy back a rather drastic step and am wary of any company going that way. As far as I know it did not work always anyway, there is still one Beech Starship flying despite Beech trying to buy them all back.
What happened with the Skycatcher was one first sign of alarm how Cessna might proceed in the GA market. Scrapping them they way they did with engines and avionics in place was a terrible waste. Hopefully not what is in store for the corvalis. After all, they also are not trying to buy back their other discontinues models.
I would be amazed if the 400/TTx (Lancair+Cessna) fleet was 1000 because then you would see them everywhere.
Cessna have discontinued many models in the past but they also have made vast numbers of them, and the parts business for those (mainly airframe parts; few buy engine related parts and avionics from Cessna) is hugely valuable.
The Q is how many parts in common does the TTx have with other Cessna models.
Peter wrote:
I would be amazed if the 400/TTx (Lancair+Cessna) fleet was 1000 because then you would see them everywhere.
Be amazed : There are a total of 827 on the FAA registry, so take out a small percentage for non-FAA registered and retired airframes, and you come very close to 1,000 units.
