Weren’t the downpayments made with a unit cost promise around half of what the A5 is supposed to cost today?
Edit: In the article they say it was advertized for 140k and should cost now around 250k. That’s quite a lot for a slow aircraft with low useful load.
do you really think the current GA offering is reasonable in terms of “cost for value” ?!
Yes I do. Or, at least, far more “reasonable” than this here A5. And I do have read, and compared, and thought, and thought twice. Then bought me a lowly 912-powered 450 kg ultralight. Catalog price = 45000 €. Was even luckier to find a low-hours second hand for substantially less. Many such opportunities around, right now.
For a better comparison, consider buying a modern LSA or ultralight, say a VL3, or an Esqual.
Cost of acquisition = half
Cost of operation = roughly the same
Minus=cannot operate from water – irrelevant, for lack of legal water operations in most inhabited parts of the world
Minus=looks (interior only, on the outside a VL3 looks quite as sexy (though beauty is in the eye of the beholder))
Plus = speed (Vne=290 km/h vs. 192 or so)
I saw a documentary on this once. I remember them faffing around trying to invent a new AI which was “ground breaking and innovative”. In fact the documentary was edited in such a way that the whole aircraft was “ground breaking and innovative”.
To be honest the new AI looked like one of those pitch and roll things stuck to the dash board of any 4×4 and it seems they have dropped that, going by the photo of the interior posted earlier.
When the documentary showed outside views I thought it looks like the Osprey 2.
I am sure it’s a nice design and nice to fly, but for me it isn’t ground breaking in the way the marketing BS machine is saying. If I had 250k I would buy an Osprey and spend my huge amount of remaining cash on a few other LSA types so I had “something for every utility need”
Perhaps it’s worth saying that this type of aircraft needs very calm water to operate on. The sea will be practically impossible unless it’s a well sheltered harbour. It will have to be a lake but even a lake in say 20kt wind will be way too rough.
So it is OK for specific areas where there is a lot of lakes.
A lot of people think a “seaplane” can operate from the sea but you need something like this
and even that will be limited to something like a 3ft swell.
@Pilot_DAR has a lot of expertise in this area.
That would be my seaplane
Here you have to operate the mixture controls and check your CHTs
Are you sure this picture is not from Metropolis?
Nah, it’s a modern FADEC system, as viewed under a microscope.
Give me that big wheel at the far left to control ANY kind of machine – up to and including the Solaris servers at the office! I’d even accept having to wear that long leather coat! Nothing FADEC about either!
Achim, not a problem with those mixture controls, surely you can get the two guys to help who earlier assisted in bolting on the wings on that glider ;)
Much of the discussion and arguments here show why small aviation is dead, business wise – why would someone bring a sexy (to the more general public) new product to the market when we’ve had dope-covered wooden frames with with wings on for more than a century now, indeed…
I think the issue is cost. I think there is a very wide but short pyramid in aviation. At the top.you have a very very few who can buy advanced TPs and Small Jets, then underneath 4 to 6 seater CofAs, then the experimentals/homebuilders under that.
250k is a lot of money for many people, I think small aviation is dying because of over regulation pushing up costs and at the same time a steady reduction in “real” wages since the end of the 70s. That leaves those who can afford it in sexy machines (very small market) or those who are passionate but who are on a budget, the LSA/Microlight/Homebuilders and there many machines are available at a fraction of that cost, even pre-built. But those tend to be dope covered 
