New Piperjet

[acuba 290]

http://www.newpiper.com/piperjet/

so what do you think about it? Nice thing for PPL, right;)

[chevvron]

Yeah great; single engine and no published MAUW.

[IO540]

I don't think it's hard to design a new light jet these days. You can do it entirely in a CAD package. Start with a Marketing requirement (SE, ME, # of seats, etc). Design the shape, specify the engine thrust, and the performance figures just drop out... You can do it in X-Plane, quite impressively.

Then they have to include half a dozen aerials, all sorts of other bits sticking out, loads of engine-driven accessories which reduce the available power, and the final performance is nothing like what Marketing wanted and told everybody about in order to make them part with their deposits :)

This one won't be that fast; SE means Vs < 60kt and that compromises everything further up. But you get good short field performance.

I think it's hard for Europeans to appreciate the attraction of these planes, because we have so relatively few hard runways.

A PPL can probably just about fly one of these in the USA, where Class A base is 18000ft. In Europe, it would be useless without an IR.

[HS125]

I cant say Im terribly impressed with this. With its aerostar-esque fuselage, its obviously another parts-bin lash up, and have you seen the price:eek: Theres all kinds of exotica you vould have for that money, which would probably be at least as easy to fly and to live with.

Id look towards the multi-turbines like an eclipse or a mustang. The fact they're multis would be no real barrier given the time you'd spend converting on to it anyway and at least they are clean sheet designs.

[scooter boy]

I agree wholeheartedly with HS125 in that there are better ways to spend out there - on paper the Eclipse is the most aircraft for your money by quite a lot than any of the competition.

A friend of mine has just placed a deposit for a Sep 2008 delivery - I am most envious and may do the same once the customer deliveries start coming through and we see what the performance is really like,

SB

[treadigraph]

With its aerostar-esque fuselage, its obviously another parts-bin lash up

Think it's by Malibu out of DC-10 isn't it? But it's nowhere near as attractive a design as either the Malibu or Aerostar.

[HS125]

Treadigraph, I think thats very observant. The fact is that we love those old classic aircraft because of their timeless looks as well as performance, now we accept their shortcomings in the absence of a better new design (which is how they get to laugh all the way to the bank everytime someone orders a new Seneca or Seminole)

Otherwise, we opt for well thought out updates or conversions that are competitive with other types or fill their own niche (the Malibu Meridian or JetProp DLX for instance)

On Paper the 'Piper Jet' has some good things going for it, the Performance is good in terms of the range and the cruise speed, but at that money there doesnt appear to be anything really new here, its clearly not that adviances (the artists impression has de ice boots :ugh:) and the competition would appear to have left it behind.

In my experience most aircraft that are cobbled togeher using bits of old designs look ghastly and have little charisma when you come to operate them. Manufacturers often do this to reduce the certification costs and timescale but I dont see these benifits being passed on, Ladies and Gentlemen what we have is a Ford Mondeo for Audi A6 money.

I also get the impression that theyre struggling for something to say about it looking at the specs listed:

Auto throttle (optional)
- For HOW much?

Engine trend monitoring
FADEC engine
- Generally go hand in hand these days especially on newer engines and I'd expect this on new designs

FIKI (approved for Flight Into Known Icing)
- It worries me that they'd contemplate selling an aircraft of this nature that wasnt

Performance computer
- An FMS, part of the avionics like the G1000/Avidine they've depicted it with and as seen in averything from a PA-28 these days
again show me a new jet without and I'll send it back.

Base Price: $2.199M (in 2006 $ with a CPI-W escalator)
- :mad: That means that if it takes just two years to delivery I could be more than $2.31M before you add ANY options to it.

[Saab Dastard]

If I had that much to spend, it would be on the Adam A-700 twin-jet - which is flying right now. Not as fast (only 340 kt), but has the benefit of 2 engines.

http://www.adamaircraft.com/home.asp

And for about half, you could get the A-500 (slumming it with piston engines, I know).

Now where's my lottery ticket... :)

SD

[chevvron]

I know it's still single engined, but what about a Fantrainer; 2 seat tandem with a turbine driving a ducted fan; could even operate off grass. Not very many built, so could operate on a permit; next best thing to pure jet with the ducted fan!