The Cirrus is a very capable aircraft, and the fuel cost is not a problem relative to the VFR/IFR mission capability. People are not going to be renting these for a burger run.
I agree that a uniform fleet is a much better idea, especially with advanced avionics.
However, how reliable is the DA42 nowadays, especially on the engines? I am quite reliably informed that not a single Thielert engine has yet managed to even approach 1000 hours without major work, and that (suprisingly) includes the DA42. Perhaps this would not worry a renter flying a twin, but it would be an issue for the operator. There are reports of a total breakdown between Diamond and Thielert over this matter and it will be interesting what the outcome is over the next year or two.
I have some (limited) experience of operating a rental group around an IFR tourer, and it isn't easy to find renters. One does want people who are reasonably well qualified, as well has avoiding those with "attitude problems" (no shortage of them in GA) but this narrows the market considerably. If one requires an instrument qualification it narrows it far more. This is because most people who are good and current and well enough funded to remain current while renting have already taken the obvious step and bought their own plane...
Nowadays, the glass cockpits require a lot of hours to become competent and I would predict that it's going to be difficult to impose the minimum level of initial conversion training on prospective customers. My estimate for converting a good dedicated ex spamcan pilot to even a TB20 with 1990s avionics would be a minimum of 5 hrs and a conversion to a G1000 or similar would be 2x to 4x that. This translates to the customer having to pay out many hundreds of £ before they can take their bird to Cannes, and it doesn't go down too well...
Not saying it's not going to work. Just pointing out that customers with the appropriate funding may be rather thinner on the ground than one might expect - unless one drops one's competency requirements very low.
One has to go for some sort of customer commitment and I don't think a zero equity group is the way to work the more advanced types. Not until there are a lot more of them on the UK PPL training scene, and that will take 10-20 years. It's slowly happening in the USA.
Last edited by IO540; 12th Nov 2007 at 09:59.