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Old 24th Apr 2007, 10:22
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IO540
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
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I believe Diamond do have a flying D-jet - why not show it at the show?

The D-jet would fulfill a different role to the Eclipse.

The former is a high performance piston replacement, with a 25k ceiling and a ~ 200kt TAS speed. It's for the lower airways, just like a piston. It would be far cheaper to run than an Eclipse, which is an upper airways machine with two engines and loads more systems to keep going. With the SE stall speed requirement (< 60kt) it would be a piece of cake to fly and should do the 500m-600m tarmac runways that are so common around Europe.

The TBM850 is a nice machine which I predict will do very well from the zillions spent on advertising the VLJs - anybody with a brain will "discover" turboprops while they are looking at the VLJs and will "discover" that a turboprop will carry more, further (much further actually), and probably with a lower DOC. In Europe, a 250kt TAS machine is as fast as a 300kt TAS machine, in practice, and if you have 1500nm range then you will be doing fewer fuel stops, and a 300kt machine with one fuel stop won't be much quicker than a TB20 without a fuel stop by the time you have paid the bowser man at Mykonos with a wad of cash, an hour after you landed.

Of course the VLJs will sell because lots of people would like a JET. But IMHO they don't really stack up for European missions against a TBM or (for 2 people, mostly) a Meridian.

The TBM850 is very expensive but you have to see the build quality close up. Nothing gets even close. It was like comparing a TB20 with an SR20 or a DA40, back in 2002 when I was looking at these. The last two were finished like an IKEA kitchen, sharp edges everywhere.

The degree to which price matters in this market is an interesting Q. A lot of people think it doesn't matter all that much - once you are above $1M people want the comfort and mission capability first and look at the price afterwards. This, I suspect, is why there are virtually no unpressurised turboprops; they would be priced in the $1M area and there seems to be little interest.
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