Piper Aircraft in Trouble?

[julian_storey]

Heard unsubstantiated rumours and read a couple of things on here.

Anyone know the full story?

[vanHorck]

can you state your sources? I heard no such thing

[IO540]

I read it in the press somewhere.

But, everybody is in "trouble" right now.

[Say again s l o w l y]

Wouldn't surprise me. Even BMW are "in trouble".

[Sir George Cayley]

Daimler-Chrysler are in real poo! My new Merc is now months away from delivery due to them shutting down production this weekend until after Xmas.

Last man standing wil reap all the rewards.

Hope Piper survive as I'm warming to there new Jet despite early Miss Giviens.

Sir George Cayley

[IO540]

Piper has not been selling any significant piston volumes for many years. They are basically a massive spare parts operation, which will probably keep them in the money for another 20 years before the PA28 fleet gets scrapped, and they sell the occassional turboprop.

The Piper Jet is just a Malibu airframe with a jet engine on top. Nothing revolutionary. There isn't anybody at Piper doing anything revolutionary.

[vanHorck]

It is true that they are a cautious company. I m keeping my fingers crossed that this will help their survival.

Whilst the airframe looks very much like the Malibu, the wings seems totally new.

If I could afford a single engine jet, I d certainly prefer a company like Piper to one of the newbies!

[Genghis the Engineer]

Piper has not been selling any significant piston volumes for many years. They are basically a massive spare parts operation, which will probably keep them in the money for another 20 years before the PA28 fleet gets scrapped, and they sell the occassional turboprop.

The Piper Jet is just a Malibu airframe with a jet engine on top. Nothing revolutionary. There isn't anybody at Piper doing anything revolutionary.

It's not usually in the nature of big companies to do radical things -that does tend to fall to smaller newer companies who have a lot less to lose. What big companies however sometimes then do is buy up the successful smaller companies (as of course Cessna recently did with Columbia) once the risks have been taken already. Seems a bit parasitic, but it's fairly standard in any business environment.

G

[Fuji Abound]

There are a handful of companies in aviation that have innovated and survived. Innovation and aviation are not natural bed fellows and usually a quick way to going bust.

The best models combine the best of current technology from proven parts bins blended into one package.

Prove me wrong if you can?

[snowfalcon2]

According to the aviation newsmedia in October, Piper have enjoyed nice success this year with the new Matrix and have had perhaps their best time since the 2004 floodings.

Obviously the financial meltdown must have hit Piper as it has hit all other GA manufacturers. But the company website has no news about layoffs yet.

Looking ahead it would be only natural to be cautious and maybe slow down the PiperJet development. Also if many (Matrix) customers cancel their orders the situation might turn worse. But that would probably affect all manufacturers about equally.

[julian_storey]

But they are not the only ones. PIPER appears to be in serious difficulty and has been unable to re-finance. I am told that if they survive Christmas it will be a good result.

The above was posted in the PPRUNE Biz Jet forum. May not be reliable of course.

[JohnHarris]

The days of the gas guzzling dinosaur is coming to an end. Say a prayer for them and haste their speed to the happy hunting ground. The future is plastic fantastic, with a rotax engine.... and about time.

[Say again s l o w l y]

You are joking I take it.

[IO540]

I am sure he isn't, but the rest of us know the picture :)

[Fuji Abound]

I have replaced the motor in my Moulimex with a Rotax - does that count?

[bingoboy]

I wonder when the dinosaurs became aware that extinction was inevitable ?

[wsmempson]

I suspect that in the future, the club trainers/local bimblers will go down the rotax plastic-fantastic or czech airworks route - principally because these are now so good and so economical.

However, if you want a true 4 seat family tourer, and want to go IFR, there is still no credible substitute for stone-aged technology. Diamond have had a good go at this and, until their new engine is proven (and the customers have had an opportunity to do the product development...) the jury is still out as to whether they have succeeded.

The Tecnam 2006 looks wonderful - if you can get that on a public transport c of a (or easa version of) that looks a really terrific A/C.

As for Piper being in trouble, er, who amongst us isn't?

[vanHorck]

If there was one thing Piper could improve on, it would be their news section.

I will agree that the information on the development of the piper jet and everything else in their company is too limited.

At least one press release on their website every 2 weeks would go a long way to proving the company is active, including a statement about how the crunch affects them, numbers of craft sold or produced, innovations etc etc

But assuming they are as conservative on their financing as they are on their sharing of information, i still think they are the best safest bet alongside Cessna for anyone ready to fork out on several hundred thousand pounds of flying kit

[JohnHarris]

However, if you want a true 4 seat family tourer, and want to go IFR, there is still no credible substitute for stone-aged technology.
Not at all, there is always Easyjet/Ryanair for that, why ever did you think the bully boys are scrapping the fog rating? :mad:

[cvlux]

till know they are not creating problems to supply spare parts.