Peter!
I have not been reading any posts for the past week, just opening the site and look if anything happened to the banner..
Yes, D-Day (pun intended) today! That plane on the far right looks mighty familiar..
Sorry about the thread drift. DA62 looks nice. Could they actually deliver the plane almost entirely in darker colours without compromising structural integrity because of the sun heating up the composites?
A detail. I just love the visibility from the DA42 canopy, and would hate to downgrade and have 2 posts in my field of view.
The most interesting Diamond was parked outside. A DA42 with an STC for the Centurion 2.0s. 155hp instead of 135hp and not the huge draggy engine nacelles of the super heavy Austro. It also wouldn’t need the weight in the tail.
I think that is a really nice aircraft. The upgrade price looked reasonable to me, 125k€ from Thielert 2.0 and 135k€ from Thielert 1.7. One should quickly buy a Thielert 1.7 DA42 — best in the USA where they are dirt cheap.
As to colors: This came from another forum:
Diamond changed the composite formulation so that aircraft are no longer restricted to white composites to reflect heat. The new DA62 is the first Diamond aircraft reflecting this new look.
Interesting news on the composites!
Interesting indeed – I always understood the preference/requirement for white to be inherent to the composites used, so something quite essential must have changed. Curious to learn what exactly.
One should quickly buy a Thielert 1.7 DA42 — best in the USA where they are dirt cheap.
Unfortunately due to bad USD/EUR exchange rate, they are not so cheap these days.
But I agree, it was the most interesting Diamond at show.
I always understood the preference/requirement for white to be inherent to the composites used, so something quite essential must have changed. Curious to learn what exactly
Heat degradation of the cured resin in sunlight is the issue, and (broadly speaking) the higher temperature limit resins have more involved manufacturing requirements. My experience is with composites operating continuously at well over the strength of steel, so temperature related degradation is something to worry about. Its not always well documented, which I imagine is one reason airframe manufacturers so often paint them white.
One should quickly buy a Thielert 1.7 DA42 — best in the USA where they are dirt cheap.
Unfortunately due to bad USD/EUR exchange rate, they are not so cheap these days.
I think its very possible the value of US-based DA42s would track the Euro, since that’s where the market exists for them. In the US market I don’t think there would be a well supported floor, but there aren’t a lot US based examples on sale so that takes a while to be determined. Assuming that’s true, the US market value equals the EU market value minus the cost of import and ‘value of risk’ in buying far away.
Cirrus has a list of approved paints and specifications on designs etc. which is supposed to ensure temperature remains below 150F
150 F seems like the kind of number they’d design for. Some non-aircraft structural composite applications need 250 F continuous, and that’s somewhat challenging.
The most interesting Diamond was parked outside. A DA42 with an STC for the Centurion 2.0s. 155hp instead of 135hp and not the huge draggy engine nacelles of the super heavy Austro. It also wouldn’t need the weight in the tail.
I think that is a really nice aircraft. The upgrade price looked reasonable to me, 125k€ from Thielert 2.0 and 135k€ from Thielert 1.7. One should quickly buy a Thielert 1.7 DA42 — best in the USA where they are dirt cheap.
Apparently this 15% increase in power translates into 7-8 knots increase in speed and an increase of almost 300 ft/min in single engine climb rate.
There are some aerodynamic changes like slight bump on the engine nacelles (probably to cater for a larger or different cooler) and vortex generators on the rudder (to help single engine performance). These changes do not influence the speed, simply because if I increase the power by 15% on my aircraft I also get this 7-8 knots speed increase.
Better props is an option that will become available to increase both above mentioned parameters somewhat, a few knots of speed?
I don’t know what the actual cost is to replace 1.7 or 2.0 to 2.0. Around 90 k€ probably. So you are talking 35/45 k€ more when changing to 2.0S. Better performance, especially single-engine is important, but in addition to the extra cost the TBR of the 2.0S is 1200hrs and the 2.0 is 1500 hrs. The 1200 may go up though.. But so could the 1500..
