Diamond DA50 announcement

Aviation General Aviation
1

Looks like Diamond and their friends at Thielert are going to bring us a new plane with a 350 hp turbo diesel: www.avweb.com

I might have to sell the mooney and find a couple partners. Can’t wait to hear more about this plane. I hope it has comfortable seats though.

Maybe since they finally gave up on exhausts and used a power flow they will wise up and call Oregon Aero to do their seats.

And, Maybe Sir John can give us an update on thielert engine reliability since he has two of them?

2

Diamon DA50 Superstar… Five place, fixed gear is supposed to be available in both gasoline and diesel varieties.

3

That thing looks super cool with the 4 bladed prop!
Photo here

4

From the prop and the cowling, I think the pic is of the Thielert powered plane.

I am thinking that there will be a couple 550 powered versions as well, but Diamond also uses Lycoming. My bet is the continental though. Diamond has got to hate spending money at Textron/Cessna.

Any bets?

5

can they can they build a product that will be appealing to the market or more importantly, can they take on and have a better plane than Cirrus. :laughing:

6

I think the better question is will they?

I would say that the reasons Cirrus outsells Diamond are:

  1. BRS - like it or not, it sells airplanes.
  2. Marketing - Cirrus has them whipped
  3. Drive - Cirrus went whole hog to be number one. They mortgaged everything and bet on high volume. Diamond OTOH, is private, and the owner really doesn’t seem to care about competing over who sells more. He does want to avoid losing lots of money.
  4. Sales Model - Diamond’s distributors are a mixed bag. I think Cirrus may have the better idea. Interestingly, Mooney has a mix of the two and can’t seem to decide which is better.

I would say that Cirrus does not outsell Diamond because they make a “better” plane. They don’t. They make a plane that is more desirable to the people who buy most of the new planes. Cessna certainly does not have a better plane, and they outsell Diamond.