Celera 500L (and high altitude discussion)

According to the article you linked, 780 was its design brief, but it made it to ‘only’ 610 before it was cancelled.

Yes, although I have no doubt they would have delivered FL780. There are still great colleages at Grob.

May need a stick shaker/pusher to get through stall/spin both low level and high altitude.

The recovery from a one turn spin required may be a challenge.

Thanks for posting this.
It may look a bit weird with the gear down but once cleaned up in the air it doesn’t look ugly at all with its aerodynamical shape. It reminds a bit the shape of an airship doesn’t it ?
And if the announced performance numbers match the reality and the purchase price is competitive well, I guess, this will have a future.

Looks like a great innovation. Would be very interesting to learn how they achieve required pitch axis stability in such a design without adding a canard (like Piaggio did in its similar design).

Economically we can only wish them best of luck: Unfortunately there are not too many examples of market success with a completely new design and completely new power plant.

Looks like a waste of money to me. Just a few toughts:

- What is CG envelope flexibility with the cabin hanging to far out forward?
- What is the stall speed? Making a plane fast with a tiny sharp wing is easy but you will never get it certified as a sinlg engine.
- What is the noise signature with such a quite tiny pusher propeller?
- Engine cooling will be a huge challenge. I assume it is liquid cooled and at those claimed speeds that is complicated
- How is the forward visibility? Looks like a Concorde with the visor up.
- What is the short field performance? I fear it is horrible as it will be difficult to have significant flaps in this configuration.

And what all that for? To save fuel? Jet A1 is cheap, and at the moment even crazy cheap. Look at the Avanti mentioned above, saving fuel does not sell airplanes. Why not come up with more usefull innovations like a plane which is super easy to buy and run. A design which can be manufactured with low cost, a plane with no life limited parts designed from the beginning to be replaced before the whole plane is done, a bit like a car. Just fly the thing for 10 years and look for the tires and engine oil. Design a plane such that it commands low insurance premiums. A plane which can land on short runway. I feel the market needs all those innovations more than new crazy configurations…

@Sebastian_G you may be right in many of the things you say should be in a new aircraft design. But I can’t agree that there will be a huge market for throwaway planes just like the market for some classic cars is always there. But in the case of cars people might buy a new car and keep their classics for fun but I don’t think the same is true for aircraft owners.
I know there are people who own more than one aircraft, one for business and one for fun but I don’t think that market is huge or self supporting.
In fact the amongst the most popular new planes are replicas or modifications of the planes of the past.eg The Cub, The Waco, the Piper Geronimo Apache, the Beech Duke, the kit build Spitfire. Any new aircraft must surely have appeal as something owners can love and cherish and keep long into the future not just cast aside after a decade of use, if it is to succeed in the GA market.
But then again maybe I’m too sentimental for the modern world

And why all of them are single-engine?!
I’m an IT guy and don’t like single points of failure. :)

arj1 wrote:

And why all of them are single-engine?!

Because of that thing called “market”. There simply is only a very limited market (if any) for multi engine for recreational flying. The additional cost is seen by almost all customers as not been justified compared to the limited (if any) safety of an dual engine design on a typical burger flight that takes you rarely over longer stretches of water.