@Mistral, thanks for taking time to respond here. I’ve found your website valuable in search for information.
Regarding portable oxygen: A very popular system is the Mountain High CFFC-048 cylinder with pulse demand regulators.
It gives an endurance of 40 hours at 15000ft (breathing time per individual at altitude). You can add a second regulator to get redundancy.
Being able to cruise at FL160 makes a lot of difference when it comes to weather capability.
You can usually fly in VMC on top except for frontal weather. It is part of my flight planning to assess the cloud tops.
The good thing with the CD155 engine is that it has a turbo, and I know from my DA40 experience that it performs well at altitude.
According to the DR401 POH it has 80% power left at 16000ft.
Thanks for the info on the Mountain High oxygen system—40 hours is impressive!
Yes, the POH states 80% power at 16,000 feet and 131 KTAS burning 25·8 L/hour at MTOW of 1,100 kg. Note the climb rate at 15,000 feet is 200 fpm at MTOW and 72 KIAS, so it will take a while to get there!
We shall have to wait and see where Robin go with a de-icing system. There is a demand but, as I said before, it is not the highest priority for the factory at the moment.
I shall feed back if and when I have any useful information.
@lenthamen : my guess is, that the DA40 performs much better at high altitude due to its bigger aspect ratio. If you are flying high altitude on a regular Basis to top the weather I think the DR401 is not a good trade for the DA40 – especially because you already own one 
IIRC you still have the 135hp engine installed (and even with that the DA 40 was capable of FL200), so why not upgrade with the 155hp in the DA 40 to improve climb performance?
Did you test flight the DA40 NG ? With the Austro Engine it might be a good choice for your type of operation…
Romain
Romain wrote:
Did you test flight the DA40 NG ? With the Austro Engine it might be a good choice for your type of operation…
The DA40 NG is about 20% more expensive than the Robin. The DR401 seems to be more versatile, with comparable performance.
The NG comes with a G1000, which is very neat, but also limiting with regard to future upgrade possibilities.
A conventional cockpit with Aspen or G500 will give more flexibility in the long run.
europaxs wrote:
my guess is, that the DA40 performs much better at high altitude due to its bigger aspect ratio. If you are flying high altitude on a regular Basis to top the weather I think the DR401 is not a good trade for the DA40 – especially because you already own one
I sold my share in the DA40. Both aircraft have the same service ceiling (DA40: 16400ft , DR401: 16500ft).
There is little data on how the Robin Ecoflyer performs at it’s service ceiling. In this article the author is stating:
The service ceiling is 16500ft, and I’m told that above the summit of Mt Blanc (15781 ft) she was still making 400ft/m.
… which sounds promising :)
On long trips, I will usually fly with 2 POB, and way below MTOW. I’m sure it will perform well.
A disadvantage of the high aspect wing of the DA40 is that it is very sensitive to airframe icing. From what I get this is less of an issue with the Robin.
A conventional cockpit with Aspen or G500 will give more flexibility in the long run.
Would I be right in that this is true only if the STC under which the kit is installed belongs to the avionics manufacturer, not the airframe manufacturer (who has little incentive to service customers who no longer provide a revenue stream) or an avionics shop (similar reason)?
How do avionics firmware upgrades work relative to the STC, for say a G1000 and a G500?
Peter wrote:
Would I be right in that this is true only if the STC under which the kit is installed belongs to the avionics manufacturer, not the airframe manufacturer (who has little incentive to service customers who no longer provide a revenue stream) or an avionics shop (similar reason)?How do avionics firmware upgrades work relative to the STC, for say a G1000 and a G500?
Good point, especially since the Robin DR401 has no FAA type certificate, so the AML STC from Garmin and Aspen is not applicable for the Robin.
We have asked Robin for clarification on how future G500 software updates (firmware, not charts) can be installed. Maybe @Mistral can shed some light on this?
As lenthamen says, because Robin is not on Garmin’s AML, firmware updates for Garmin require separate EASA approval before they can be applied. Robin Aircraft is presently looking into ways around this.
I once looked at a DA40 and found there was a similar problem in respect of updates for the G1000. It all depended on Diamond who were not pushing these updates
Mistral said:
“As lenthamen says, because Robin is not on Garmin’s AML, firmware updates for Garmin require separate EASA approval before they can be applied. Robin Aircraft is presently looking into ways around this.”
There is a solution to this which the design organisation who wrote the data for CEAPR have suggested but so far it hasn’t been taken up. A bit of creative writing in the instructions for continued airworthiness and some negotiation with the DGAC during the first software upgrade from the current TC approval should see a simple route in place for subsequent software changes. We remain happy to assist CEAPR if requested.
