Originally Posted by
john_tullamarine
The N24, in general terms, will carry a little bit more than a Caravan,
If I recall correctly, during my last sojourn at Nomad, I read a report which indicated that the Nomad was head and shoulders above the remainder on the basis of payload/gross weight. That may have been a DJP-authored document, I suspect ?
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, does it? The Nomad doesn't exist and neither does the GA-8 at the moment.
Unfortunately, we no longer live in a little post-war bubble and whatever this country produces needs to be competitive on the WORLD stage - not just the Aussie one. That means designing and building something people will actually buy - not just talk about. The GA-8 could be the best in it's class, but if the class don't know about it they'll buy something else - like a Cessna Caravan or a Cessna Skycourier (or a Kodiak if they must). It requires an enormous investment in time and capital (design, testing, certification, marketing) to produce a new aircraft - even an existing one - and even more if the market your targeting is already full. It would seem Mahindra didn't think it was worth the pain in the long run.
As I understand it, the GA-8 isn't in production simply because: Why would anyone buy Version 1.0 from Gipps when they can buy Version 2.0 from Textron?