EU grants for a plane development project??
How can that be legal? I understood that sponsoring of industries is forbidden by law?
This should be stopped, no matter where or how it is done and to whom. Or is Pipistrel a Slovenian state owned company? If not, this would be illegal as hell.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
they are not anywhere with the certification yet and need to make money with the non-certified one first?
I wonder how though. 500k for an experimental plane that’s just an ordinary SEP? An RV-10 will cost you 200k. Then hire a guy for 8-9 months to build it with you, and it’s 300k.
EU grants for a plane development project??
I have long lost count of the number of grant application agents have contacted me about some EU R&D grant. Up to €4M has been on offer. The agent gets ~25% if the application is successful (there is a whole industry there, as you might have guessed).
An RV-10 will cost you 200k. Then hire a guy for 8-9 months to build it with you, and it’s 300k.
Sure, but if everybody was willing to be a party to dig around for a “recommended good” serial builder, commission an illegally subcontracted homebuilt project where you have to hoodwink the LAA/whatever inspector that you are actually the person doing it (and bear in mind most aircraft owners don’t even want the job of changing the oil filter), was willing to wait for months or a year for it, while going to the bank every week or month for a year to gradually withdraw 100k in cash to pay the guy, etc, Cirrus would not have sold a single plane 
Also, if you saw the Panthera close-up you would see it is totally different from say an RV. It is a really comfy well trimmed cockpit.
That said, I don’t see a market in Europe for a 500k uncertified plane. This plane is a tourer, and that generally means flying a lot outside your own country. And unless you live in Norway or surrounding countries, you can’t do that without some measure of hassle. The USA would be a different thing. I know people do it here but you can’t base marketing on that, and it isn’t getting easier.
They may well sell some though; they know their market. After all, they have had the plane more or less finished for years, been flying it, so it must be well debugged now. And with no certification to do, they just need to make some.
Peter wrote:
Also, if you saw the Panthera close-up you would see it is totally different from say an RV. It is a really comfy well trimmed cockpit.
These people make pretty nice interiors for RVs. This RV-7A was incomplete when the photo was taken, note clecos in panel and no carpet yet, but I think the trim looks appropriate for an airplane. I wouldn’t want more, knowing that every bit added means a decrease in climb rate!
Peter wrote:
Sure, but if everybody was willing to be a party to dig around for a “recommended good” serial builder, commission an illegally subcontracted homebuilt project where you have to hoodwink the LAA/whatever inspector that you are actually the person doing it (and bear in mind most aircraft owners don’t even want the job of changing the oil filter), was willing to wait for months or a year for it, while going to the bank every week or month for a year to gradually withdraw 100k in cash to pay the guy, etc, Cirrus would not have sold a single planeAlso, if you saw the Panthera close-up you would see it is totally different from say an RV. It is a really comfy well trimmed cockpit.
I’m not sure what’s so un-comfy in an RV-10, and what makes the Panthera worth (at least) 200k more due to “comfyness” It’s pure “impress your neighbor” kind of vanity at a price that would potentially be OK only for 0.01 % of the of the flying population. It does nothing to promote or save GA in any sort of way. The reality of the matter is the Panthera is a dead horse, and the RV-10 is alive. 910 RV-10 have been built to date. Pipistrel most probably receives EU research money to “develop” hybrid/electric propulsion, and use the Panthera as bait to involve investors and industry participation with more money than brain. That could last “forever”, and the same “forever” is when the Panthera becomes a certified plane.
Buying/building and selling experimental homebuilts is fully legal. If you can make money by doing it, is a different matter, and 100% dependent on what the customer is willing to pay. The situation today is that the industry, with good help from the authorities, has killed the traditional certified market of new planes. It’s overpriced and over regulated in every step of the way. That a single person today can built a plane in his garage, sell it at a price that is a fraction of a factory built aircraft, and still be able to make money out of it. That tells something about the industry of certified factory built planes. It is completely dysfunctional. 30-40 years ago this situation today was unthinkable.
Here are some pictures of a newly built RV-10. It is bog standard from what I can see, but very nicely built.
This will probably cost you 150-200k, it’s brand new, and with this performance at gross weight (2700 lbs) and 235 vs 260 hp versions:
Empty Weight 585 lbs 1,600 lbs
Speed
Top Speed 201 mph 208 mph
Cruise [75% @ 8000 ft] 190 mph 197 mph
Cruise [55% @ 8000 ft] 170 mph 176 mph
Stall Speed 63 mph 63 mph
Ground Performance
Takeoff Distance 583 ft 500 ft
Landing Distance 650 ft 650 ft
Climb/Ceiling
Rate of Climb 1,221 fpm 1,450 fpm
Ceiling (est) 16,839 ft 20,000 ft
Range
Range [75% @ 8000 ft] 883 sm 825 sm
Range [55% @ 8000 ft] 1070 sm 1000 sm
I find these debates somewhat useless. Same as with cars, there is a large variety of types and brands, from utilitarian to luxury.
Nobody would even try to ask “why is Mercedes even building the SL, when you can buy a BMW M4 convertible for half the price? The BMW has two more seats, too!”
Some people will happily spend twice the price for the extra 20-30kt from being a retractable and having a higher-speed wing, and for not having to touch a spanner ever.
Pipistrel most probably receives EU research money to “develop” hybrid/electric propulsion, and use the Panthera as bait to involve investors and industry participation with more money than brain. That could last “forever”, and the same “forever” is when the Panthera becomes a certified plane.
That I agree with; it is a very likely explanation. Like most of the electric and hybrid projects – it is an EU grant entitlement scheme.
Some people will happily spend twice the price for the extra 20-30kt from being a retractable and having a higher-speed wing, and for not having to touch a spanner ever.
Yes, of course. The bit I don’t get is paying that money and not be able to fly freely within Europe. The most charitable angle I can think of is that they can flog some small number of these as uncertified and use them to debug the aircraft and the production fixtures/tooling. Epic were doing pretty much the same thing – and funnily enough they never reached their certification goal either 
As I wrote before, uncertified aircraft have an inherent value to people who cannot get the Class 2 medical, but that is currently available only in the UK where prices of finished RVs are likely to be well supported due to this (one builder said he would want £250k for an RV10). Some (few) people will pay practically anything to carry on flying in that situation. Well, there is France with its no-medical-at-all concession for a UL…
Peter wrote:
As I wrote before, uncertified aircraft have an inherent value to people who cannot get the Class 2 medical, but that is currently available only in the UK
Currently in Norway and Denmark you can keep your PPL, and you only need LAPL medical. You can of course only exercise LAPL priveleges (2000kg MTOW, max 4 persons etc). All EASA planes and Annex II/I can be flown with a PPL and LAPL medical. New rules will come at some point so this will be EASA wide. I have no idea what the difference between LAPL medical and class II medical is though, only that LAPL medical last for 24 months instead of 12 (+50) and it doesn’t have to be done by an AME.
I saw a/the Panthera take off from Ajdovščina 2 or 3 years ago. I thought at the time that the climb angle was shallow for the type of aircraft, but reading the posts above it could be the lack of forward visibility, the grass runway, or it might have been a zero flap takeoff.
I’ve flown an Aeroprakt with speeds in mph (originally in km/h): the instructor said that it was easier in the certification process to convert from km/h to mph than km/h to kt. Personally I can’t see how it would be easier though.
General aviation in China isn’t going anywhere fast, although the government has freed a lot more airspace in the last few years. IIRC all flights require flight plans and approval at least 48 hours in advance, and flights through military airspace (~90% of the country) need individual permission for each part. Apparently there are Chinese businessmen who buy an SR22 just to be able to say they have one, despite never flying it. It’s still a sale, but a flying plane is a better advert for a manufacturer. The recent anti corruption campaign will have got rid of some of these. Another barrier to GA is very good public transport. With a strong centralised government, there are no planning problems or NIMBYs, and they spent a lot of money on infrastructure. Trains are reliable and cheap, and cruise at 300kmh: most GA can’t compete with those speeds. A Panthera would, and Pipistrel already have a Chinese distributor for their electric trainer.
Any news? It seems the Panthera went stealth mode?
