Diamond factory visit

nokicky wrote:

The engines are noticeably quiet and as everyone will know, super simple to operate. There’s really nothing to do at all. Turn on the master, hit start and that’s it… the power is single level per engine, you’re controlling the ECU, there’s no mechanical link from the throttle to the engine.

Nice, ay?

It handles very nicely, a little heavy but responsive. The only thing that I didn’t immediately like were the rudder peddles, both on the ground and in the air. They’re heavy and the pressure you need to apply doesn’t seem consistent, it might be easy for the first 1/2 inch of travel and then suddenly become much harder.

This was my first impression on the DA42 as well. You soon learn to use differential power to initiate a turn on the ground, and to dose the pressure applied on the pedals. It feels like the nose wheel steering is spring-loaded. Once you’ve gotten used to it, you no longer think about it.

I’m not sure why this is, perhaps something to do with the yaw damper servo or rudder trim?

If the yaw damper is turned on, you should not need to use the rudder pedals, but you should keep you feet on the pedals in case of an engine failure.

Speaking of the rudder trim, it’s conveniently placed just above the throttles and has very clear markings, this is a huge improvement over the Pipers I’ve flown which have the rudder trim near the floor.

What is nice about the Diamond line of airplanes is that the cockpit is very much the same from one aircraft to the other (DA40/42/62). I suppose it will be the case also in the DA50 with a few very notable differences:

• On the DA40 and the DA42 the position of the parking brake lever, and the direction in which the lever needs to be moved in order to engage/disengage.
• On the DA40 the alternate induction air lever is in the pilot footwell. On the DA42 it is in the co-pilot footwell. In the pilot footwell you find the emergency gear extension handle. Hopefully you won’t need the emergency gear extension handle ever, but the alternate induction air should be opened when flying in visible moisture or icing. At that point you may be in IMC and will need to bend down to the right in order to move the handle, which is not desirable.

We did that before e.g. here here here

and I don’t see evidence that product liability costs (insurance premiums, or payouts) are significant in GA aircraft or equipment. This was also done over the years on various US sites and nobody there could find any evidence either. Finally, FWIW, many years ago I used to know a “financier” who was involved in this business and he said the Cessna discontinuation was purely due to poor sales of their planes due to the used (but well serviceable) stock overhang which remained after the 1960s and 1970s production boom.

If somebody can find the published accounts of anybody in aviation showing e.g. an insurance item amounting to say 50% of their sales revenue, I will eat my oil filter, because it will be easier to find a turbocharged engine owner who didn’t have to change cracked cylinders before 2000hrs

Peter wrote:

Probably all of the cases in GA which got blamed on product liability (to give one example) were actually dropped due to a lack of sales.

The two are not unrelated. Product liability led to high prices which led to lack of sales (we’re talking about the 1980s here).

Unfortunately market research often doesn’t tell the whole story. You tend to get people telling you what they would ideally like but not necessarily what they will buy following some rational thinking. And sometimes a bold seller will try to create a new market entirely. The market research business is littered with spectacular failures.

But also product discontinuations are often blamed on convenient other things, to save face. Probably all of the cases in GA which got blamed on product liability (to give one example) were actually dropped due to a lack of sales.

In that case they could have chosen to market the diesel 182 parallel with the existing Lycoming version.
They dropped the Diesel and then returned to the Lycoming version.
The market research must have been concluded before the development project.

I am not sure whether anybody knows what exactly Cessna was facing on the 182 diesel project. When I have asked reps at exhibitions about this stuff I always got totally different stories from the engine maker and the airframe maker. IMHO Cesna dropped the 182 project because diesel has almost no market in the USA, which makes it very hard work to get a return.

nokicky wrote:

SMA (I hope the SR460).

Will that engine not give the same problems that Cessna was facing on the 182 Diesel project?

I suspect they may want to use the Aero Friedrichshafen to announce news on the DA50.

It would be interesting to hear more about the DA50. There is an old wikipedia page about the plane, but not much more.

Any additional rumors about it?

I’m contemplating of buying (co-owning) a DA40NG and this would be maybe more interesting plane. Maybe.