Sat in it - not impressed
I got a chance to sit in the beast at Oshkosh. About the only cool thing was the stick because it's not a stick as we know it. It's a new development and, at the time of the show, hadn't actually flown yet. All the test aircraft have conventional yokes in them. The stick comes out from under the instrument panel on a horizontal pole. Normal yoke-like back and forth is the elevator control but as you move the stick side to side for roll inputs, the stick kind of rolls in your wrist - they're trying to replicate the motion tracing of a floor-mounted stick but with it coming at you horizontally instead of vertically. Kinda cool but I don't see it as a worthwhile area for innovative investment.
The whole rest of the aircraft is not much more than a 150 with a glass panel. The engine's the same, the performance numbers are about the same, and even the build technology is the same - riveted metal. There was no FADEC, nothing new on the engine technology, nothing new in the build structure or materials used, absolutely no gains from technology that has been developed in the last 50 years (other than the glass panel and they bought that in!). The glass panel is good but in this day and age I just cannot understand why we're still mucking about with manual mixture controls and carb heat. I understand the economics of scale and whatnot, but jeez, if you don't start somewhere, we'll still be having this same argument in another 80 years and still friggin' about with mixture and carb heat.
So, overall, I think Cessna will sell a lot of them to people that want a C150 made in this century and want to pay $120K for it, but that's all the customers are going to get. I think it's a waste of time and energy and would much rather have seen at least some tipping of the hat to the kinds of things that are coming out of good modern kits and certificated aircraft like Europas, Jabirus, and the slew of stuff coming out of Eastern Europe. I think Cessna have tanked on this one.
As they say, no pain, no gain, and it doesn't look like Cessna really made much of an effort on this one.
Pitts2112