With all the problems that have been associated with diesel flying and the complexity of twins I am not so sure.

A single turbine still beats twin diesels in my mind by a long way and I'd pay a premium for it if i could afford it.

Diesels are in my view (much) more than a decade away from being the replacement we'd all hoped for

I think it will be a few years before a DA42 (and Mr Dries) will be trusted again by people shelling out their own £400k or whatever, and a SE TP is always going to be a lot more reliable than a piston twin.

However I think the E500 is too expensive, but this is because it is a victim of the standard aircraft marketing philosophy which is that no buyers are positioned between the high-end piston market, and the traditional PT6 TP market.

I totally agree the gap is surprising large, assumed to be only caused by the cost of manufacturing of a turbine?

There were some mini turbines due to come onto the market, I believe in the region of 250 hp. Any news on those and their expected pricing?

Rather than introduce diesels, small 180-200 hp turbines would seem the way to go....

except for fuel flow i expect.

The RR300 and RR500 are the brand new small turbines from Rolls Royce. The RR300 is going into the Robinson R66 and will soon be seen in a couple of fixed wings as well, so that's promising. We might se a lot more of those in the future.

I don't agree that the EA500 is overpriced when you compare it to TBM's and PC12's. It's half or even a third of the price (in the case of the PC12). Now, it's still too expensive to be an alternative for people stepping up from high performance singles - that I agree on. But compared to others in its segment, it's cheap.

That, and the huge cost of pressurisation. It is a catch-22: a turbine does poor MPG unless you fly high to get the TAS gain (then it does merely mediocre MPG :) ) which means FL250 or so (much higher means RVSM which is more hassle) which rules out oxygen as practical (masks for all, and a huge gas consumption), which means pressurisation, which makes the whole thing bigger, heavier, use more fuel, cost a whole pile more money, so to make it attractive you have to load it with fancy kit, shiny cocktail cabinets, and then it really does cost a load of money :)

I think there is a market around the £700k mark for a SE TP with a FL250 ceiling (same as any decent turbo piston tourer) provided it delivers a half reasonable MPG at FL100-180, which is the choice cruising range on cannulas, or even without oxygen (FL100).

Most European non-frontal tops are FL100-160, and frontal tops need a jet (or an F16 :) ) to outclimb. So a FL250 ceiling would be rarely used except for the TAS gain, and then only if pressurised.

IMHO 250HP is not enough. 400HP is much more saleable; translating into a decent short field performance too.

Yes but the E500 is only about 1/3 of a TBM850 in perceived value :) And you could have a wedding in a PC12 :)

Not another wedding, Peter, please!


:ugh:

Extra are to build a new factory at Montrose, Colorado.

Not another wedding for me, too :ugh:

Still paying for the last one...

:)

IO540
 

The O&N Aircraft Cessna P210 turbine conversion fits the bill. Allison C17 turbo prop.
205kts/FL200 25gph. 4 hour range with 4 occupants. 5+ with two occupants.
Less than a million $
Full refurbish, Garmin 600 glass cockpit.
Operates happily off 700 metre grass strip here in Berks.

Can you get a TP conversion for the Baron 58p ? That would quite a nice touring aircraft.

Very funny :) :) :)

I got one to BIRK last night. I thought it was pretty cool but the landing gear seems a bit strange for me.
I hope they will thrive in the US but I think pilatus pc12 is better. We get a lot og them through BIRK.

Hi,

there's a TP conversion for the BE58 P done by Royal Turbine, the boys and girls converting the Malibu into the "Jetprop DLX" and the Duke to the "Royal Duke":

Cougar Baron

Financially, it doesn't make sense to me, the conversion lifts the plane into the C90 pricing ranges, but I guess the initial climb rate alone is worth all the money, it's between 3800 and 4600 ft/min - not really practicable on the most SIDs but a lot of fun on a VMC departure :-)

Kind regards,
Peter

Ha ha :} Yea but my point was that one could take an existing piston twin, picked up relatively cheaply with lifed engines, do the works on it by doing a TP conversion, fit swanky avionics for a lot less money than say a TBM. One could have a real go places, go fast, "as new" aeroplane?

I'd quite like one of these:

http://www.royalturbine.com/images/R...e006-small.jpg

And wouldn't cost much more than an Extra 500. Out performs the TBM700 in many areas (half the runway for starters).

Those performance are something aren't they?

Long Range Cruise (25,000ft) 260 ktas
Fuel Flow 52 gph
Max VFR Range (no wind) 1,000 nm

Taking into account the cost of A1, its almost doing the same mpg as a Warrior! Would be interesting to know what its performance at lower levels is. How does it compare with the PA46 jetprop?

When I bought my TB20 in 2002, I worked out that a TBM700 cost the same £ per mile as the TB20, in cruise fuel burn.

Sadly that hides a huge vast massive difference in the diameter of the (French) barrel which a TBM owner is bent over, compared with the diameter of the barrel which a TB20 owner is bent over.

Reminds me of that old joke about the barrel with the hole in it, on a ship...

In aviation ownership, happiness is inversely proportional to the diameter of the barrel.

A turbine is a pretty bad barrel, no matter what it is mounted in. At the TB20 level of playing, you have to always be able to write a cheque for say £30k if something goes badly wrong. Obviously you hope you never have to, but that is the kind of capability you need. At the turbine level, the cheque writing capability is £300k. The dealer can dress this up any way he likes, into (not unimpressive) low costs per mile, mission capability, etc but ...

The other barrel is a highly integrated glass cockpit, but you get that in a C172 these days :) Anything goes wrong, it's a flight+hotel job at the nearest Garmin dealer.

Now combine these two great advances in aviation, and you are talking big money as soon as something is not right.

Obviously if you had £10M before you started this, it's not an issue.

Why did the GrobG140 never appear?Grob G 140 TP performance and specifications

Firstly, GROB went bust ;)

But long before then, I had some emails with their marketing head and they priced it at 1.4M euros which is probably about the cost of a brand new Jetprop, etc.

In Jan 2006, the man said "The project has not been abandoned but put on priority 2 as we are fully booked with our Jet program."

and that was that...

At some air show I spoke to them about the silly price and they said it was designed to be a military trainer so built to a high standard.

As the software developer pointed out and as i am a Business Analyst better to wait for v2.0. Let the other find the AD/SB first.