Pipistrel Panthera

Since all aircraft are apparently a tradeoff, what is the drawback to this one. It seems like its beats a mooney, cirrus tec.


Panthera

 

I'd start with the fact that you can actually buy a Mooney or Cirrus today.

 

Useful load is pretty small as is the range with 4 aboard. What you have here is really a 2 place airplane (never mind how many seats it has).

It would suffice for most missions, but really you need about 1300 pounds of useful load in single to really cut it... Otherwise you are off loading fuel or passengers and that sucks. If you only want to go 600 miles and then stop for fuel then it's fine.

It's fast enough that you would really like to go for 6 hour missions and get the job done without an intermediate fuel stop.

If you went from the Midwest to Fla, you'd have to stop where there are other planes that could do it without stopping and that even tho you were faster you ended up wasting time stopping for fuel.

JMHO

 

Mt reading of the info seems to indicate you can fill the tanks and take 4 passengers, that what they claim, am I missing something. Full fuel payload 760Lbs? Range 4 passengers 1025NM at cruise speeed 202kts.

 

No your not missing anything, at least as far as the claims go. And they may come close to meeting them. The plane is, however, not for sale yet as was mentioned before. And after it is (claimed 2015) it won't be proven. I think it will be a minimum of 5 years before the viability will be known.
It looks like the visibility may be somewhat impeded by the design, and the doors look pretty radical. Will there be issues with them closing and sealing well?

 

With 4 aboard and no baggage yes. Add baggage and normal sized people and you start to off load fuel. Just looked at their specs again and useful load is 1145. I thought that I had seen it earlier and remembered it as 1050. Maybe not quite as bad as I had thought, but still a bit shy of where I'd like to see it.

No listing for fuel capacity but if they are claiming 1025 miles with a 45 minute reserve that's about 60+ gallons of usable fuel. With only 210 hp you can't use fuel that fast, but that's about 360-380 pounds of fuel, which sounds about right. I flight plan for 200 lbs per person + 25 lbs of baggage so there's no way you are going to get four normal males and baggage and top up the tanks. For a 4 pax load I see 900 pounds in the cabin/baggage and now the fuel load is down to 245 lbs.. That's why I said that I like to see a useful load closer to 1300 lbs for a single if you want to fill the seats and the tanks.

 

Yeah I know till its on the market soecs are what we call Luft.

What is the full fuel passenger payload of a similar performing mooney or cirrus?

I ask because in teory this may be a great design, a 500K plane with 800K plane performace, I guess the downside if it all works would be that it is cramped.

 

It's interesting how close the payload and performance are to a Mooney 252. You can buy a very nice, proven-design 252 today for $150,000. You might burn another $15/hr in fuel but you'll go almost as far and fast and save around $400,000 in the process.

 

Just buy a Cirrus

 

There's zero chance those specifications will hold up on a fully certificated model. 210 hp with a 760 lb full fuel load and over 1000 nm cruising at over 200 knots? Ridiculous.

 

Kinda like the diamond twin star then?

In the lSa category pipestral seems to really knock the ball out the park in terms of performance, thye are really from a sailplane background, so I wonder maybe they hit the targets but the plane has little room inside.

I do notice that they have had no updates for the past 6 months.

 

I've learned to not get too excited about an aircraft until it's certified. So many "game changing" designs have fallen short of being able to cross that threshold. About the only manufacturer that seems to be able to meet projections of performance and time to certification is Cessna. Everybody else is just talk.

 

There's a reason that Cessna's make their numbers...

Cessna is very conservative in their performance projections even for their certified aircraft. In my experience, if your Cessna doesn't meet it's numbers there is something very wrong with it. That is by design. It is their corporate philosophy to make sure every airplane is at least as good as it's book projections.

Back when I was doing cross country air races there were a lot of folks flying Cessna aircraft because your handicap was based on the pilots manual. If you carefully set up your airplane you could beat the book by about 5 - 7 knots and that was a real advantage in a handicap race.

 

Beautiful airplane.

 

The center mull in the windshield looks awkward...

 

Like a split window 63 Corvette in reverse for visibility.

 

Ha...

I guess given that you need mulls, it's a trade-off as to where they go.

 

I think the visibility looks very good, and it's a nice looking airplane. While I'm still a bit skeptical about when, or if, it actually goes into production, I wonder-- how does it compare to the Corvalis?

 

Pipistrel is moving forward toward certification in the US. They have changed the engine, to allow the Panthera to use automotive fuel. Here is an Aviation Week short video on their progress.
Flight Trial : Pipistrel's Sleek Panthera
Paul Bertorelli: "In this class, it is by far the most fun-flying airplane. If you like sports cars and fast motorcycles, the Panthera is going to be your jam."

 

Right Rudder Avaition (no affiliation) here in sunny central Florida has one and is taking it on tour.
https://panthera.rightrudderaviation.com/appointment-request
I quite like the airplane, but alas, I’ve got one eye skyward and the other eye on early retirement. The two goals are at constant odds with one another.