Diamond DA50

Alex G.

Alex G.

Filing Flight Plan
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Sep 26, 2018
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AlexTB20
Nice new airplane from the Austrian manufacturer.

Diesel engine, going to have a retractable gear next year.

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Under 10 gph for 300 hp! And burning sub $3 Jet A. That sounds cheap.
 
Been stalking this one for years...not getting excited about this picture.

Bah humbug
 
An unproven engine on a new airframe? Diamond's got guts.
 
The plane is bigger than that picture makes it look. Will see, but I bet the visibility is pretty good. I think it looks pretty sexy but always been a fan of Diamonds.
 
beautiful bird, but not my style. If I win the lotto that I don’t play, I’d go buy a Cessna 195 or beaver or something... but we need innovation too in GA by all means!
 
When Diamond says "next year", what is the aviation year conversion chart? Is it converted to dog years? So next year = 7 years from now?
 
I've always liked Diamond's too. If money weren't an object a DA62 would be on top of the list for me!

The DA50 has been rumored and in prototype for years, it's been through several different engine options. I'd love to see it come to the market, but honestly doubt it'll happen. The single engine HP market is pretty well locked down my Cirrus, at least in North America.

In Europe having a Jet-A plane is a bigger deal, so maybe I'll be proven wrong.
 
GBSoren said:
I've always liked Diamond's too. If money weren't an object a DA62 would be on top of the list for me!

The DA50 has been rumored and in prototype for years, it's been through several different engine options. I'd love to see it come to the market, but honestly doubt it'll happen. The single engine HP market is pretty well locked down my Cirrus, at least in North America.

In Europe having a Jet-A plane is a bigger deal, so maybe I'll be proven wrong.
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A "locked down" market is exactly what Diamond is attacking. It's no so much that there were DA50 teething problems, it's that they wasted time on the D-Jet, and went through a change of ownership. For the same money, I'd take the Diamond over an SR22; I'd even pay more if the cockpit was larger.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
A "locked down" market is exactly what Diamond is attacking. It's no so much that there were DA50 teething problems, it's that they wasted time on the D-Jet, and went through a change of ownership. For the same money, I'd take the Diamond over an SR22; I'd even pay more if the cockpit was larger.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm actually rooting for Diamond to get the DA50 to market. I'd love to see a Jet-A option in the single HP market, especially with retract. I'd take the DA50 over an SR22 (if I could afford either) myself. Time will tell if they can get it to market, then how the market reacts.
 
That wing is not fat enough to be a retract. If they retracted into the belly, the gear would be too narrow and it would be a handful to land and taxi. I don't see a retract in the future of that airframe.
 
In terms of having a diesel, I chatted with the manager at Soloy who's running their STC program for the SMA diesel in 182s. They are expecting it to be available late this year. It won't be cheap though, although the estimated price he gave me was a good $40k down from the previous figures.
 
Alex G. said:
Nice new airplane from the Austrian manufacturer.
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I wouldn't exactly call it "new". They've been hawking some version of it off and on for a decade, but they keep getting distracted by other projects it seems.

At various points, they've promised both retract and pressurized versions.

asicer said:
An unproven engine on a new airframe? Diamond's got guts.
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Diamond isn't afraid of that. They released the DA42 into the US market with the Thielert 1.7L diesels and ended up getting burned, hard.

They started their own engine company (Austro) and released the DA42NG with yet another unproven diesel. Seems to be going OK.

They did it again with the DA62.

What's ironic, and somewhat puzzling to me, is that they're using a Continental diesel, and Continental's diesels started life as... Thielert! I'm surprised they're not using an Austro diesel, unless they're not planning on Austro sticking around long term.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
...What's ironic, and somewhat puzzling to me, is that they're using a Continental diesel, and Continental's diesels started life as... Thielert! I'm surprised they're not using an Austro diesel, unless they're not planning on Austro sticking around long term.
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Makes good sense.

Diamond ended up in the engine business out of necessity after Thielert imploded on them. I'm not aware of any other aircraft manufacturer of any significance that R&Ds and builds their own engines - not Textron, Piper, Cirrus, Boeing or Airbus. ;)

The R&D and certification $ alone for a new engine are surely a killer. And as discussed on another thread or two here, Diamond isn't exactly having a good time right now with the Austro either.

The 300 hp Continental diesel is a V6 auto derivative. Not sure how much Thielert heritage there is in that series. But having an established airplane engine manufacturer footing the R&D, certification costs, manufacturing investment and maintenance support should reduce both the risk and capital demands on Diamond, allowing it to devote more of its resources to improving and expanding its airplane product suite. And there's the chance those engine costs get amortized over more airframes, from other plane makers, than just Diamonds (maybe a Cirrus diesel?).

It wouldn't surprise me if Diamond sells or spins off Austro in due course.
 
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GRG55 said:
Diamond ended up in the engine business out of necessity after Thielert imploded on them. I'm not aware of any other aircraft manufacturer of any significance that R&Ds and builds their own engines - not Textron, Piper, Cirrus, Boeing or Airbus. ;)
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Ummmm... Textron?

You mean the folks who own Lycoming, Cessna, and Beech? Yeah, that was all M&A vs. R&D but Cessna switched to Lycoming after they were both under the Textron umbrella. Beech still uses Continentals but it's unlikely that they sell enough new Bonanzas and Barons to make certifying it with a new engine worthwhile.
 
Why would they add the cost, extra weight and complexity of retract. Haven't Cirrus and the TTx amply proved it's not really necessary to go fast?
 
It looks like they will be offering both versions, retractable gear and fixed gear. It will not hit US market until/if the CD-300 is certified by FAA though ...
 
I would be curious about its take off and landing distances over a 50 foot obstacle.
 
Volzalum said:
It looks like they will be offering both versions, retractable gear and fixed gear. It will not hit US market until/if the CD-300 is certified by FAA though ...
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Reminds me of Piper's introduction of the Arrow. Basically a Cherokee 180 that allowed you to pull up the wheels.

But that was 1968, when manufacturing piston single airplanes was a real business instead of the luxury goods cottage industry it is today.

I'll confess I can't see Diamond selling enough airplanes of this model to be able to justify offering both versions. Not unless the retract gets you at least 20+ knots more in cruise. And in that case the fixed gear version will probably languish.
 
GRG55 said:
I'll confess I can't see Diamond selling enough airplanes of this model to be able to justify offering both versions. Not unless the retract gets you at least 20+ knots more in cruise. And in that case the fixed gear version will probably languish.
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Maybe their strategy is to develop both, stick with the winning version and dump the loser?
 
My guess is that when they release performance numbers, the fixed gear is very comparable to the Turbo Cirrus while the retractable is comparable to the Mooney Acclaim depending on where the critical altitude is for the CD-300, it may surpass the Acclaim, which may be a moot point since Mooney is on furlough this week with an uncertain future.
 
asicer said:
Maybe their strategy is to develop both, stick with the winning version and dump the loser?
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That's an expensive way to do market research...
 
GRG55 said:
That's an expensive way to do market research...
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True, but spending 15 years bringing it to market and changing powerplants several times is an expensive way to do product development, too.
 
If someone would just clone the 172, they should be successful...since it is the best selling plane.
 
I hope they get it to market and that it grabs a sizable chunk of the Cirrus market. Need some actual competition in the new piston market vs the 15 to 1 share that Cirrus line currently has.
 
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