New Plane Market in 2018

Relax. It was a joke. I feel for your friend who leveraged everything to buy a 135 plane. Most 135 operators dont own the planes on their cert because its a bad business model.

Your ADS-B analogy is on par with a guy griping about TCAS in the 80s. As a professional pilot with over 9,000 hours in jets, TCAS has prevented more than one 'WTF is that guy doing' in my cockpit. Congested airspace is an issue and its not getting better.

To answer your question about who many mid air collisions etc. You need to ask how many mid air collisions have been AVOIDED. That is the result in mandated tech upgrades.

 

All those mid air collisions that were avoided were avoided prior to ADS-B and WITHOUT this unnecessary regulation from the government. That is my point. There already was a solution to avoid mid air collisions. It wasn't mandated and it worked just fine. I think TCAS is great and a huge enhancement to safety. Those that felt it important to their operations could buy it, and those who didn't weren't forced to. This mandate will provide very little to no additional safety to all those aircraft that already have TCAS. It will provide very little to no safety to the operators that don't operate in congested areas. It's a solution to a problem that was resolved years ago by the private sector. Personally, I don't like the government telling me what to do. I like to make that determination for myself.

 

I'm not really a big fan of government mandates either, but in this case I think it's important. You need a sort of "herd immunity"-- if only a few people have it, then it's not very useful. For ADS-B to be useful, everyone has to have it.

TCAS is a vastly more expensive and heavy solution. I have ADS-B in and out in my Citabria-- regardless of cost, there is NO possible TCAS solution there. You couldn't fit the equipment necessary in the airplane. ADS-B, on the other hand, fits in a panel mount GPS.

For most aircraft, ADS-B is very cost effective. It's only aircraft of a certain age, with integrated avionics, that have issues. Lear 24? No problem-- stick in a Garmin transponder and you're done with it. Lear 60? Problem...

 

Valid points, but for me the jury is still out on whether the risk warrants the burden to all operators. I’d have no objection to it being a mandate for Class B operations. But all operators, I don’t agree with.

 

It's not all operators. It's only those who operate in areas already requiring Mode C. You can fly your J-3 with no electrical system all you want from a little grass strip... It's actually really useful above FL180. When you hear someone report moderate turbulence or something, you can look and see exactly where they are. Can't do that with TCAS!

 

I’m a little embarrassed to admit I didn’t know that. I thought it was all operators. Thanks, Don!

 

I'm amazed that I was allowed to fly around in 1945 without TCAS, MODE C , ICAS, and whatever. All we had was PYA.

 

I remember reading about a TWA Connie and a United DC-7 colliding over the Grand Canyon, killing all aboard both. In the 50's.

There was no control then... just deep your eyes peeled.

 

I remember when the controllers went on strike and Reagan fired all of those who struck (11,000 or so). Fighter guys had a ball. Y'all be careful, now, hear?

 

I know much of this discussion seems to be around jets, but any thoughts on the Diamond range, in particular the DA42 and DA62?

 

I like the concept of the Jet-A1 powered diesel engines, but I have wondered about the company.

 

The DA42 is a great little twin, but as noted above, the load isn't the best and it's tight. The DA62, on the other hand, looks to be one hell of a twin. Big plane, big useful load, long range, modern, and relatively quick....but not cheap for less than 200kts.

 

Still comes in less than a Baron, and it's very efficient - I read an article where the writer said it's more efficient than his Bonanza despite being a twin - about 20gph at 195kts TAS or there abouts. Came down to about 18gph at 187kts or something like that - I didn't write down the figures when I read it. And they claimed that Jet-A1 is cheaper than Avgas, but I'm not sure if that's true - depends where you get it I guess.

 

That is all true, especially about the price of Jet-A versus avgas. I am a big fan of the Diamond range. I cannot wait to see what they do with their big single.

 

You talking DA42 or 62? the 42 is slow and won't fly very far on 1. I did part of my ME training in a 42.

The 62 is vaporware.

 

Vaporware? Diamond is delivering them as we speak.

 

Please don't mistake my post as dislike for the DA62. I love it and want it to work. I would not buy an Avgas airplane at this stage in the game and the JetA burning 62 checks all the boxes except...... Service and Support. You cannot buy an airplane that nobody knows how to work on.

I've been following the DA62 for years and had not seen that they were being delivered. There is 1 flying right now. I wonder how many have been delivered? How much $$ do they cost?

 

There are one or two Diamond Service Centers across the country. There are 19 62's on Controller. Don't know how many have been delivered, but they do have an active forum that shows they are being delivered and flying.

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I hope it works out.

For me, I wouldn't own an airplane that couldn't be serviced on my home field. The 62 is filling a very high demand space..... if the motors work which they have not in the past.

 

Thought that was remedied 10-12 years ago...

 

The motors in the 62 are little more than Mercedes diesels. I understand they have been pretty reliable so far, but still only have a 1000hr TBO. Diamond expects the TBO to increase greatly in the near future as more time gets put on them - upto something like 2300-2400hrs.

 

You don't see many Diamond's flying.

 

I have ~120 hours in a DA40 which has been a great little trainer. Diamond as a company was just acquired this year by a Chinese group (like almost everyone else) and I'm hoping with fresh investment dollars their innovation, design and quality materials will be backstopped with support and reliability. I give them credit for the Mercedes derived diesel experiment and the new Austro 300 engines seem to be fine, at least over at the Diamond forum. I'd much rather have a DA42 twin (Gen IV) than a Cirrus, but they are still sort of an exotic rarity. Again, hoping the new owners invest heavily in sales/support.
I think there are 60-70 DA62 flying now in the US and it is a lovely looking package.

 

I've been reading about them all morning. I'd for sure get one over a new SR22 but it is still a $1.4MM acquisition vs. buying a $900K G1000 Citation Mustang. I realize the OPEX won't at all be the same but.......

If I had to buy a piston the DA62 would be it.