Product liability issues are also prevalent in all the other industries. It's not like the aviation industry is labouring under a completely different legal burden that the automotive, whitegoods or other manufacturers don't have to face.

The issue comes down to product volumes. In aviation, the volumes are pretty marginal to support radical development of new aircraft and to cover liability costs, especially in the US market.

The fact that a conservative company like Cessna has come out with a couple of potential new products is more indicative of two things - the LSA market might be big enough to support a clean sheet product, and the US Aviation Revitalisation Act probably gave them a helping hand with the sums for their New Generation GA aircraft.

Neither have actually seen the production light of day yet mind, and from what I hear, the O-200 isn't yet a dead cert for the Skyscratcher anyway.

A

supply demand
 

If there is demand for a Rotax variant, then, I expect, there will be a Rotax option. Dozens of kit designs have multiple firewall forward options. It's doable.
Did Cessna give some exclusive supplier deal to Continental?

I Agree Completly
 

Yawn - old technology in new purple color.

I am one the bigger guys (325 lbs.) so it's really a single seater for me and many more people fed by McDonalds etc. The engines are plain junk and heavy, expensive and overhauls are expensive too. But since Cessna bought them, that's what they use for as long as they can sell the crap. I am surprised that they have over 700 contracts for this bird. Just look at the old round throttle control. For $110,000 plus tax, I expect something nicer than a round handle. Everything looks cheap and it is. Just like a GM product. Well, as long as there are idiots buying it... Not me.

The plane is too slow, the range is very limited, the payload sucks and the engine technology is outdated. And who wants a stick anyways? No room for a portable GPS or maps etc. The seats look uncomfortable, but who cares, it doesn't go very far anyhow.

For the same money I can retrofit a 1970s 172 with a Thielert turbo Diesel and I have a 4 seater that flies high and fast and carries my bikes with room to spare. It would even include new paint, interior and new glass and some nice avionics. I figure it will fly for about half the cost.

I will look for a 1976 172 now!

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

So basically it's a yoke still but with the steering wheel taken off and replaced by an upright bit of metal.. :8

Not quite, but not far off, either. It's really neither one nor the other. It's only on the extreme ends of the throw that it tilts to the side at all. It felt more like an arcade-game controller than an aircraft control stick.

I suppose it'd be easy to get used to but it's unlike anything else in the world, so I don't really see the point. I think Cessna wasted their innovation budget on something that doesn't really gain any ground.

Pitts2112

But "O-200" is just an engine size, not an engine model... Me thinks it'd be better to have some O-200-D specs at hand when discussing the merits of the engine choice; they're not fitting an O-200-B in there... Tried to find some info on the -D but wasn't too succesful except that it'll be "lighter"... Anyone knows more?

Personally I prefer to have an "old-fashioned" engine, rather than a brand new not yet mature bells n' whistles unit. I don't like the numerous single point failure modes and lack of redundancy of, say, the Thielert contraptions. Reliability is what matters most, IMHO!

Be it an O-200A or a D isn't nearly as good as if it was an IOF-200D! Continental managed to produce the IOF-240 for the Liberty XL to satisfy the American non-believers in a Rotax (and an IO-240 in the Katana).

What a missed opportunity not to put in an injected, FADEC engine in the nose of the Cessna. Can't be that difficult to mod the software and hardware etc for 40 cu in less!

Nice try bjornhall!

However any real attempt to update the O-2oo will mean a change to the specification of the type cetificate - that effectively makes it a different engine and means the approvals have to be re-run.

This is definitiely something that Continental will not do. So if there is a D model it might have a different type of magneto but nothing more. Lighter, more efficent,FADEC, absolutely not.

This is an engine that costs virtually nothing to produce (in comparison to anything modern) and that is much of its attraction to Cessna - they know that and will be paying what it is worth - my guess would be less than $6k. At that price it is an obvious choice. Of course at the retail price you would have to be brain dead to select it!

Almost everybody is unhappy with this follow up of the 152.. but why in the hell do they get already 700 orders after 1 month of sale ? The plane will be deliverd in only 2 years and already more than 1 year production sold out ??!!!??

People will always buy Cessnas, that's why they have 700 orders for them - but I wonder how many of those are end-user orders and how many are Cessna dealers advance orders.

Remember there are plenty of people buying 40 year old airframes out there (172/182/206) with an injected engine, modern avionics (which are probably cheaper to produce than analogue instruments anyway) and posh seats....

Why has Cessna taken so many orders for the Skycatcher by now? Because it is an LSA in market where there are not that many American players yet, because it's built by Cessna (a name which rings a bell with most people previously unrelated to aviation) and because owners will benefit from Cessna's huge sales, maintenance and flying school network!

As such, European LSA manufacturers will need to dress up warmly if they want to enter or stay in the American LSA market, even though their products are superior in terms of performance and economy (remember how "succesful" Diamond were with their Rotax-powered Katana in the US?)!

Have a look in the latest issues of Flying to understand the average US pilot's perception and understanding of that type aircraft. Its editor essentially recently stated that it was invented by Cessna, thereby totally neglecting the thousands of Tecnams, C42 and CT's flying elsewhere in the world.

It is not a 150/152 replacement, because it is an LSA and not a fully certified aircraft!

By the same token I doubt that we will ever see the Skycatcher in Europe. It's too heavy to qualify as a microlight and Cessna would not bother with the costs and trouble involved in certifying it as (e.g.) a JAR-VLA just to sell a couple of dozens per year in Europe when they sell hundreds each year in the US (I believe they currently have orders for almost 800). Even if a European LSA category (1:1 comparable with the US one) appears one day, who would want one? A Remos G3/600 costs about the same, has much better performance and useful load, and uses less fuel!

Great marketing move by Cessna, but not of interest for European pilots.

My new Remos arrives in January.

"but why in the hell do they get already 700 orders after 1 month of sale "
Because if you ran a flying school you would have people lining up to learn in it and to rent it. Be honest... faced with a clapped out 150 / 152 / PA28/ Skycatcher... wouldn't you?



"By the same token I doubt that we will ever see the Skycatcher in Europe. "

I'd buy one tomorrow and rent it back to a school. (looks up Cessna phone number)

Why can't it just have instruments????

That glass panel sucks. :( I mean its a little "bang around" plane...wtf?

Agreed,
but the Yanks wouldn't know a good product anyway, remember to a yank the world begins in San Fran and ends somewhere about NY.... look at their cars for Christ sake... big heavy wallowing beasts.....
Simple , they will buy the Cessna/Piper product... why ?... because they don't know any better, they have never flew anything else.. and it's "yankee" product.

Could be true.. BUT, they were planning to raise the price at 1000 planes ? But they can't seem to manage that level.. i think the descision to make the planes outside of the USA is because Cessna had more expectations on this plane and saw it didn't succeed... i can have no other explenation for the 1000 plane mark limit to make an urgency for people to order one, while you can't seem to get the 1000 mark. Why would you make a plane outside of the usa while the usdollar is still over-valued and dropped so big in value ?? Because you know it's no use to invest in a descent production line, that's what the order status remaining on 700 planes means. (i find 700 HUGE, but i'm pritty sure Cessna doesn't for their 162...)

700 sales? Can anyone confirm that they are individual customer orders or orders by Cessna dealers....?

Skycatcher economics
 

Here's another possible reason the Skycatcher has an O-200 instead of a Rotax. In 1999, the Euro was 80 US cents, so the 10,000 Euro Rotax cost $8,000. Currently, the Euro is at about $1.50, so the SAME engine now costs $15,000, almost double. If this keeps up, people will be refitting Rotax engined airplanes with O-200s because the O-200 will be much less expensive.

Incidentally, the O-200 is far from a "bad, antique, inefficient" engine. If you've ever had one apart, you'd see that quite a bit of engineering talent went into it, and it is quite carefully made. Just because it wasn't designed on a computer doesn't mean it is junk - there's an awful lot of very good equipment running around that was originally designed with slide rules.

Dual magnetos, while an "old fashioned" solution to the problem are quite dependable. Carburetors work, too. One of the big advantages of these "archaic" systems is that you can get them fixed almost anywhere your airplane will take you. When electronic ignitions and fuel injection systems stop working, you are STUCK.

Certification by the FAA (or CAA or whoever) is the guarantee that this aircraft is "safe" to ride in. Cost is not part of the equation here, no one is offering "half safe" airplanes for lower cost. The old technology is proven to be safe. Eventually, newer stuff will be certified, proven as safe, but remember that "new" cuts no mustard - it is "safe" that is the goal here.

Aluminum panels and rivets are also a more cost effective system for airplanes of this type. Sure, plastic airplanes go faster because they are smoother, but do you buy a trainer to go fast? Why spend extra money for features not needed? In addition, trainers often have hard lives - any shop can fix crinkled aluminum, but composites are not as easy yet.

Cessna isn't stupid, they have been around a long time by carefully defining their market and providing products as needed. The Skycatcher is alleged to have 700 orders to date - if that's correct, please consider that the entire population of certified aircraft in the whole UK - according to FTN - is only about 10,000! Cessna has orders in hand equaling almost 10% of the entire UK fleet, and the Skycatcher isn't even available for delivery yet.

Cessna could build a plastic-fantastic-glass-panel turbo-wankel-diesel if they wanted to - but they don't because there's no REAL market for it other than wannabes. In the real world, the people who actually BUY AIRPLANES keep Cessna (and everyone else) in business. They have to sell what people will actually buy, not what enthusiasts like to endlessly talk about but never manage to stump up the cash to place an order.

Get used to the Skycatcher, you'll be seeing a lot of them.

Best Regards,

Echo Mike
(with an antique aluminum and rivets C150, with a paleolithic O-200 and steam gauges, but it is PAID FOR and it is MINE and it FLIES.)

Not an easy proposition, the O-200 is much heavier.

The Rotax 912 has both, it I'm not mistaken.

I wouldn't argue with you that an aluminium airplane is easier to repair, but as to the "market" there are more than 200 (plastic) Flight Design CT in the US...

It's probably a fine aircraft, but in my opinion the Skycatcher is a big seller primarily because it is built by Cessna (known name, huge maintenance and sales network).

Not in my part of the world, I fear...