Why would this prevent refitting of Diesel engines?
Because the retrofit cost is so high, it makes sense only in the context of a huge value of fuel saved.
High activity schools (Bathman's case above for example) can justify it, but the market is very small. The average UK PPL school plane does a few hundred hours a year, and some much less.
We operate a 172N and at some point the engine will need replacing
That makes more sense (put the diesel in at engine overhaul) but it is still pricey. Rough figures might be €80k diesel versus a €30k overhaul.
I totally agree there is a market. But the size of it is on a sliding scale. What I think has happened is that the diesel makers could see (they are not stupid) that their simplest business model is to go after the FTO market (Tecnam 2006 anybody? - a serious twin for touring??). That market is of a known size, a lot of it is financed so you are not dealing with the typical GA private owner who might have income but no capital, and since all customers will be business customers you get the huge benefit of being able to enforce outrageous contractual terms (e.g. the customer has one contract for the airframe and a separate contract for the engine, which is absolutely brilliant for the airframe maker, in the post-Thielert era).
But in that market one competes with Diamond planes which are gradually sorting out their problems...
To get real volume they need to get the engine cost down to say €40k. They are competing not with another engine, but with the cost of overhauling (or an exchange reman one, etc) the existing one.
What I don't understand is why the UK grant duty drawback on private international flights
It's the law. You can reclaim VAT on export of goods. Same if you buy a laptop in the UK; you can reclaim the VAT on it when you export it. The process is nontrivial, however. The UK has loads of these export concessions and some apply to petroleum products also.
At some point the diesels will get a massive boost when lead gets banned. Banning lead when there is no technical alternative is possible but would be a hard hit on GA and so far the legislators do not want to see that massive collateral damage. With how things are going, legislators will be able to make that move in some years. Two companies are competing with the SMA design and Thielert has a very good product that is finally in good hands.
I am all for it. Avgas should be banned as soon as possible without killing 50% of GA.
Europe is completely consumed with nonsense.
Europe is completely consumed with nonsense.
Ain't that the truth...
Be glad you are no longer exposed to this absolute horror over here. Frankly, I have in recent months often wondered if it is all still worth the hassle or whether not simply to give in and turn my back to aviation in Europe once and for all. Not sure yet if I really want that EASA licence (I still have an ICAO one) which anyhow will mean I will lose my CPL. Europe really is starting to become a no fly zone for anyone who wishes to keep their sanity.
You know what bugs me most?
In the so called pilots and aviation fora there are hundreds of self styled experts calling for MORE rules, MORE restrictions, MORE ratings (carriage of passengers as a PPL, a 200 hour limit before you can carry pax, are allowed to transition to a complex aircraft (Ret/var Prop), compulsory filing of flight plans for EVERY flight and the obligation to fill in and leave behind a signed load sheet? Compulsory weighing of pax and baggage by an OFFICIAL before they are allowed to enter an aircraft? Sunken scales in the taxiway so the "Luftaufsicht" can check if you are not overloaded? Compulsory calls to the met office for personal briefing before every flight? Flight data and cockpit voice recorders for C150's? Compulsory introduction flights with a FI for every new airport you fly into before you are allowed to take passengers?
And this is ideas suggested by PILOTS for christ's sake!!! People who themselves would have to submit to all this are asking this in public fora. Whenever there is an accident, they are screaming for the regulators to attack that particular "safety deficit".
How long more before we simply have to reach the conclusion that it is all too dangerous and needs to be preemptively banned.
I am getting so sick of this that sometimes I think I'll just give up.
Europe is completely consumed with nonsense.
Amen to that (and Mooney Driver's comments).
And this is ideas suggested by PILOTS for christ's sake!!!
We get that here in the UK too, on the two old "aviation chat" sites. The UK GA lynch mob is alive and well. Thankfully we don't have these people on EuroGA.
Thankfully the regulators are a bit more relaxed.
Unfortunately the characters inside EASA have for the most part little or no GA background and they are thus a lot less relaxed. Again, fortunately, there are some good people who represent GA organisations and who are working to make things better.
When it comes to diesels, I think any private owner needs to make the decision on the basis of the "other" factors e.g. avtur makes touring in southern Europe simpler, or just buy the plane because you want it (a DA42 is the only game in town if you want a plane designed after WW2 which has a spare motor, and you can't afford a turboprop).
Silvaire, Mooney driver,
Yes, compared to GA heavens like the US, things are a lot more strict here. I suppose that if you are raised in the European aviation scene, things are not that disastrous though.. I feel reasonably unlimited in my flying, both local and within Europe.
I don't know about these fora and these people that propose these silly things. All the pilots I know, quite a few, would never think of such idiotic ideas. And, like Peter says, there are good people around that are reasonably successful in fighting burocrats who are, lets say, overzealous.
Maybe I am too naive, but I somehow don't think that there are 'people out there that try to kill GA'. And if there are, they will probably not be successful in the end.
I feel reasonably unlimited in my flying, both local and within Europe.
So do I and that includes taking my airplane outside of Europe. From the list that Mooney Driver mentions, a few things strike me as actually being advantages for European pilots like
are allowed to transition to a complex aircraft (Ret/var Prop)
It is not easy to get complex type approval in the US, especially when you want to own such an aircraft and get insurance. Insurance is very easy to get in Europe but very hard to get in the US and much more expensive unless you have a long track record. When I moved from a C172 to a TR182 (retractable high performance complex), the insurance didn't even blink, they took the C172 time as experience and gave me the very same risk premium. Unthinkable in the US. Just last year I was denied to land on grass airfields and concrete airfields under 3000ft in a rented C172 for insurance reasons...
or
Europe really is starting to become a no fly zone for anyone who wishes to keep their sanity.
The opposite is true. First of all, the US have almost no neighboring countries and for 95% of the US citizens those are beyond sensible reach. If you want to fly to e.g. Canada (which is like the northern part of the USA), you have to follow some really stupid bureaucratic procedure for entering and leaving the US, have a high probability of getting your airplane searched and sniffed through, whereas in Europe I can just fly. For most countries I don't need customs/immigration and for some not even a flight plan. Being able to decide that I will now fly to e.g. the Canary Islands, file a flight plan and 3 minutes later start the engine and take off means freedom to me.
The last two years have been rather positive in regards to regulation. CBM IR / Enroute IR, the new cost sharing policy, etc. are all good news. SET AOCs are coming, too.
Hi Achim,
Insurance is very easy to get in Europe but very hard to get in the US and much more expensive unless you have a long track record.
Yea, I heard about that. I wonder if that is actually really appropriate what is going on there at times. If a European CAA certifies you to fly a certain type of airplane and gives you the proper endorsement, then what insurances will do is take certain edge values and calculate your premium. I recall mine were 100 / 150 / 500 hours or so plus the IR as the highest class, at which different discounts on the nominal premium would be given. In the US I understand it that at times insurances will flatly refuse pilots with less than 500 hours or so before they can get insurance on a pretty normal airplane (such as a Piper Arrow). Wasn't that one of the reasons Cirrus and Columbia went for fixed gear? Is it actually legal what they do? Some of the prices I heard were so ridiculous that they actually start performing like the nutters we are talking about. Either someone has a license and the necessary endorsements and then he should get insurance at a normal rate. Or he has not and therefore won't get insurance.
Other than others in here I do not regard the US nor the FAA as the promised land any more than Europe. The main difference is in the general attitude and the lobby GA has here and in the US. AOPA US is a totally different story than here. They are a real power whereas over here, not many politicians have heard of them, but all of them know their local anti noise groups.
First of all, the US have almost no neighboring countries and for 95% of the US citizens those are beyond sensible reach.
Yea, well, but they are also a tad bigger. If e.g. the European fantasy of a US of E would ever become reality, we'd be in a similar position there. Actually, with the EU and Schengen we almost are. Yea, it's easy to fly within both of them, but leave the EU or Schengen and things start to get difficult, particularly if the EU states decide to do away with border crossing approved airports the way many have done in recent years.
The last two years have been rather positive in regards to regulation. CBM IR / Enroute IR, the new cost sharing policy, etc. are all good news. SET AOCs are coming, too.
I do hope they are not just vapourware. I somehow am very sceptical about the IR revision until it becomes reality, there are way too many folks who are fighting very dirty to stop it. A lot of ATC organisations are violently against it, as they claim that ATC will not be able to handle all that traffic this rule would generate. Others tell me they would like to ban all aircraft with less than 200 kts cruise and 160 kts approach speed from the larger airports in order not to mess up the airliner flow, which often exists only in their dreams. I have the impression that the discussion about those things are mainly spread in order to lull the European pilots into a false sense of security and then have it collapse all around them.
Yea, the US has restrictive entry procedures, but so does Canada and so do some European countries which has become a real hurdle for both airplanes operating from / to the EU or from Schengen to and from Non Schengen.
And of course there is the cost exploseion in recent years, with no trend visible to the opposite.
And yes, thankfully this forum has so far been spared by the pilot/trolls from other places, but it will only be a question of time until they do turn up. It comes with size. I can see that in the swiss forum, which used to be a very easy and nice place but in the mean time has been taken over by people who have totally destroyed it's useability. Pity. I hope this one stays as it is, it has become my first place to visit every day by now.
thankfully this forum has so far been spared by the pilot/trolls from other places, but it will only be a question of time until they do turn up
They will turn up allright (in fact loads of the well known ones already read the site) but they know that any offensive postings will just get deleted.
We don't have advertising so we don't need to support "activity" to support advert clicks. The moment you carry advertising you are forced to let a lot of offensive stuff through because threads where there is a really good fight generate 10x the advert clicks.
Actually, with the EU and Schengen we almost are
I don't think Europe would ever be a uniform airspace like the USA, because of the massive cultural differences.
If you want to sell a product to all of Europe, you need a local dealer, who has to appear genuinely local, in each major country: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and absolutely so in all of those. I've been doing this for 35 years now... There are language issues, for a start, which is probably the #1 reason most European pilots never fly to another country, even within Schengen which makes a simple burger run really quite simple. But there are also attitude issues. In the USA, 99% of people regard themselves as "American" first whereas in Europe probably only 1% regard themselves as "European" first.
And yes the USA has a very good AOPA - still very good despite their recent problems.
