Skycatcher discontinued...
 

As feared, this is the end.

Skycatcher reaches inglorious end - AOPA

Considering 2 prototypes wound up smashed into a field I always thought that "Ground Catcher" would have been a better name for this airplane

I think the whole LSA thing is a dead end and in retrospect Cessna wishes they never went there. If the FAA get rid of the 3rd class medical then the market for LSA's will instantly disappear.

Yeah, you're right.

Also, it was overpriced, it was overweight and it had an interior that looked at best semi-finished (or utilitarian if you want to be nice) and it had a carburetted Continental from the bronze age etc.

I agree, the current limited market for LSA aircraft in the US is largely people who can't get a Class 3 medical.

When you can otherwise build or buy an RV for half the price, fly as fast as anything going, climb faster, do aerobatics, fly VFR or IFR, travel thousands of miles all over the country, maintain it yourself and not be constrained to the airframe manufacturer for parts, it hugely limits factory built LSA marketability. The LSA Cub replicas seem to have some traction because they don't have that competition, the rest have no strong business case except the medical issue.

I'm not an RV owner but that seems to me to be the situation.

But wasent LSA's meant to be the saviour of the US GA scene.

Fats

US GA scene doesn't need saving, it is by far the best GA "market" out there.
There is no market for LSA, because GA is so cheap. Apart from the people with difficulties obtaining a medical

In Europe things are different, a good ultralight/LSA costs less than half to operate per hr than even a 152. Europe is the bit needing saving, and that is where LSA's will have a huge market in the future.

Why do Cessna not just start manufacturing the 152 again with a 912is up front, there is a market for it!

LSA in certified form like the Sportcruiser and Tecnam are great fun aircraft to fly and learn in but they lack the robustness of more traditional trainers like the 152. If you are doing 500-600hrs a year in an LSA in a training role it will have durability issues. Training aircraft are going to take a battering and the build needs to reflect that.

You know, all that 150 stuff can't keep flying forever.

Why Cessna didn't just buy something like our C42 Ikaruses, I don't know.

Of course, they are a big, bloated and inefficient company, as regards the small aircraft market. Hard to be otherwise when you are geared up to the bigger stuff.

Companies like Comco Ikarus and the other "light sport" companies have simpler organisations, smaller overheads etc.

Europe is a good market. China is growing fast. (Comco Ikarus are selling there now and have a nine-month waiting list now).

Cessna has a great brand name.

For the right aircraft, at the right price (maybe even with a little more for the "brand") there is a market.

Yes, many will say the C42 is a tube and fabric aircraft. Cessna's are built to take the punishment, will last forever etc.

But look all around us at how people are reshaping products, and people's expectations. And succeeding.

Many flying schools don't outlive their aircraft. And capital is hard to find, so lower initial costs - perhaps at the expense of longevity, are maybe better for today's climate.

And as for running on Avgas! Get real. Even if it wasn't for cost, it is just becoming harder and harder to get.

If Cessna had achieved what they set out to do (which was with a Rotax 9 series initially), I would have been in the market.

But.......

So the news is no surprise.

FX,

There are many "microlight" schools in the UK that do 500+ hours a year in, basically, light sport aircraft.

They are robust! We operate off one of the less-smooth grass runways in Scotland.

We have had two taken to 1,800 hours and going strong until a hangar fire three years ago

We have two more, now at 1800 hours each and are aiming for 3,000 hours before major work (and that includes 912 engines). Touching wood.

At 3,000 hours our thoughts are to keep one as a personal hack and rebuild the other in phases over a couple of winters while keeping it in service: new engine, new wings, new fabric etc.

Scottish Aero Club's newsletter raves about the success of their Eurostar too. So it is not just me!

This is the problem between US vs Europe. Your opinion would be completely moot in the US, which is by far the biggest market at the moment for aircraft like that.

In the US AVGAS is what you want to burn because it is cheap and available. A plane only accepting MOGAS without penalties to the service interval is a non-starter from the get-go. MOGAS simply isn't available in most airports in the US.

C42 is a nice little plane which is unsuitable for heavy-duty training (nosewheel!).

C152, Rotax for Europe, O235 for the US. Perfecto.

It is a common opinion that the C42 is unsuitable for heavy training use. I've however never heard that opinion from anybody who has used those aircraft in a training environment.

G

The skycather failed because its wasn't any cheaper to run that the current heavy metal. The industry is crying out for a two seat training aircraft but no flight training organisation in the right mind would have bought the 162.

dera,

Students - and qualified pilots - bend aircraft so they are beyond economic repair.

And then there are other incidents - like our hangar fire.

If no-one builds new "Cessnas", this discussion will become more than "moot".

And, for someone who operates light sport, I still have a fondness for the Cessna brand.

In my opinion, they are a "world" brand, not just an American one. Their market is worldwide, not just the USA. I think they have made a big mistake in this market sector with the Skycatcher.

Hopefully they have not just dumped it, they have also gone back to the drawing board.

ps. For fans of Nevil Shute, like Genghis and me, his biography and the discussion of whether or not Airspeed would introduce retractable undercarriage in the 1930s, is similar to where I think Cessna and its rivals are.

Shute states that one - now very well known designer - was totally against the extra weight and complexity of retractable gear. Full stop. Yet within a few years it was obvious that this was the only way ahead.

In every market, it is obvious that we need lower capital, lower running costs and generally increased efficiency.

Cessna are failing to delivery that for GA, and anyone who thinks that a 1950s airframe cannot be improved upon has missed out on an awful lot - including plastic Boeings! - and the use of unleaded fuel.

Depends if people want to restore them. There is a large international Cessna 120/140 association. Those folks have collectively rebuilt a lot of the type. Mechanically very similar to the 150. Early 150's were nosewheel 140's. Of course they scoff at the 140's progeny, the 150, unless converted to tailwheel. The association membership was not overly enthralled with the 162.
Bryan

But the airframe wasn't the problem. Its the engine its too expensive to run.

If it had a 912 in it I would have been interested

A shop near me is overhauling a 206 for Civil Air Patrol. New engine, cleaned up with zinc chromate, new glass, new interior, new paint and new avionics suite. Much cheaper than buying a new 206...and considerably lighter, which is good given summertime DA's. They have a new, glass 182 that weighs the same as that older 206, BTW. I'll take the old 206, please. :ok:

California Highway Patrol put 10,000-14,000 hrs on their 185's before buying new 206's. There were a lot of folks who wished the 185's stayed, BTW.

This method of "recycling" older aircraft either with good maintenance along the way or via a complete overhaul seems to be a reasonable path given the need for good training aircraft and/or the cost of replacement with appropriate new aircraft that might not exist.

My corrosion-free, 1971 185, with only 3,600 hrs, will outlive me by a wide margin.

The airframe may well still have been a problem. If the Skycatcher was used at an ATO in a teaching role then it would be on a Public CofA/ARC. One would be surprised how many CAMOs in the UK cannot even touch composite aircraft, so it important to consider maintenance availability during fleet selection.

Classic example of two nations separated by a common language!

In the US LSA as a category sells a few hundred aircraft per year. Being tied to the manufacturer even for the experimental versions means the only real advantage is the medical.

Given that the requirements for certified aircraft are quite sensible, with numerous parts supplies, other than the manufacturer (PMA's parts) and Avgas cheap, then better fuel economy but a frail-er airframe does not make a paticularly attractive option.

Interestingly I was reading (albeit badly), a french flying mag, where they argued than the EASA LSA category was effectively dead - killed by dis-proporationate EASA regulation in comparison to most of the European microlight or ultralight regulations. Certainly in France why would you fly a slightly heavier aircraft, with the same engine and a surfit of rules and restrictions compared to a ULM?

The majority of LSA type aircraft in the UK are actually microlights or permit types enjoying very different rules - naturally.

But petrol here is massively more expensive than the US and that alone is enough to drive people to efficient airframes, allowing that they are more frail.

But back to the 'Ground Catcher' - too frail and tied to the manufacturer in the US - which makes it more expensive, too heavy and thirsty (and expensive) in the UK and the rest of Europe. Then you have the 'choice' of building it in China, which by itself would alienate many of the medically challenged US LSA buying public. It would not take much analysis to see its potential market as limited.

Yes, I think 'recycling' plus new experimental amateur built kit aircraft is going to be the situation in the US for quite a while, perhaps indefinitely. Cirrus and like will sell a few too but not many in relation to the size of the existing fleet.

50 years ago you'd have seen RVs being sold in factory built form but today's certification cost and (more so) inflexibility for both manufacturer and owner make that relatively unattractive. Since most people in the US choose sole ownership, the FAA limitations on training with amateur built airframes do not appear significant to the market.

In Europe it's a combination of heavy aircraft regulation, bureaucracy & complexity associated with long distance travel by aircraft and outrageous fuel taxation that drives the market to low power engines and LSA type aircraft. Man made stuff all, at least as long as the actual untaxed cost of fuel isn't the limiting factor.

Hilarious. I recall hearing that they switched production to China (saving some 70,000$ per aircraft) and then when asked if the price will go down saying something along the lines of "but we've got mouths to feed...."