New Diamond DA50

jallen0 said:
I think at this price point the giant rod sticking between your legs will not be a positive sell point.
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Well that is a bit emasculating

AggieMike88
“... and it’s deep too”

Two men are peeing off a bridge.

One is from California and one is from Texas.

The one from California says "Man, this water is cold."

The one from Texas says "Yeah, and it's deep too.
 
....and will it fit in most T hangars?
 
It's got a weight problem I think, maybe a performance problem and that range doesn't sound great. We've been waiting years for this airplane, I'm glad it's finally here but I was expecting faster cruise speeds.
 
asicer said:
44ft wingspan and 30.5ft nose-to-tail...
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That’s larger than any other single engine piston that I know of, even larger than most twin pistons as well. A standard T hangar will be too small for that...
 
Does the CD-300 have a reasonable reliability record?
 
Can someone explain a bit more about this engine. It doesn't appear to be a turbine like a TBM or Meridian. Is it like a diesel that can burn Jet A?
 
Perhaps it's time for Germans to consider folding wings. I saw a Stemme with folding wings. In fact it has to taxi with wings folded in most places.
 
It looks cool, I guess.. I'm just not all that impressed with the Numbers. I was hoping for better performance numbers, that and only holds 50gal..
 
Sinistar said:
It doesn't appear to be a turbine like a TBM or Meridian. Is it like a diesel that can burn Jet A?
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Conti was selling diesels for many years now. Just a few years ago their line-up consisted of 3 groups:

1. The 100-series. These were in-line, liquid cooled engines, derived from the Austro. It's basically the engine we're all familiar with in Diamond DA-42, which found a wide market with military customers in the smaller countries. Many attempts were made to adapt it to PA-28 and 172 as OEM engine, where it's generally underpowered.

2. The 200-series. These were opposite, air-cooled engines licensed from SMA. They were supplying conversions for Skyhawks and Skylanes since at least 1990s.

3. The 300-series. This is a liquid cooled, V6 engine, which Thielert developed as their "next-gen" engine. It's similar to RED V06 and other drone diesels. The DA-50 RG uses a certified version of it.

Although the SMA diesel was considered the most trustworthy among them and offered good power, for some reason TCM isn't selling it well. It's being phased out in favor of the CD-300.
 
zaitcev said:
Perhaps it's time for Germans to consider folding wings. I saw a Stemme with folding wings. In fact it has to taxi with wings folded in most places.
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Just don't ask the Austrians to do it, they might be offended you thought they were German.

Folding wings add weight, complexity, and when you add those two you add cost.

If you can afford the plane, you can afford a place to keep it.

NealRomeoGolf said:
Genau
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Ah, everything old is new again. Diamond has been teasing airplanes called the DA-50 and/or "Super Star" for at least a decade. Sometimes they're even pressurized.

But, this looks pretty cool. Take a Cirrus, fold the gear, and throw a diesel on it. I bet it performs as well or better than the Cirrus does on half the fuel burn.

AlphaMike said:
It looks cool, I guess.. I'm just not all that impressed with the Numbers. I was hoping for better performance numbers, that and only holds 50gal..
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I'm not seeing numbers anywhere???

Also, the diesel engines have quite miserly fuel burns, usually somewhere in the neighborhood of half what the equivalent 100LL-burner has. 50 gallons is plenty if you're only burning 6-7 gallons an hour.
 
AlphaMike said:
was hoping for better performance numbers, that and only holds 50gal..
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zaitcev said:
So many people harp upon the meaningless metric of "payload with full fuel" that apparently OEMs started to limit the tank size just to make that dumb number look better.
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Remember not to use 100LL math since this is a diesel engine burning Jet-A. 50gal is probably much more endurance than you think (and a little bit more weight, too).
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Ah, everything old is new again. Diamond has been teasing airplanes called the DA-50 and/or "Super Star" for at least a decade. Sometimes they're even pressurized.

But, this looks pretty cool. Take a Cirrus, fold the gear, and throw a diesel on it. I bet it performs as well or better than the Cirrus does on half the fuel burn.



I'm not seeing numbers anywhere???

Also, the diesel engines have quite miserly fuel burns, usually somewhere in the neighborhood of half what the equivalent 100LL-burner has. 50 gallons is plenty if you're only burning 6-7 gallons an hour.
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Is that it though? Burns less gas? If you can afford the $1.5 mil (my prediction) it costs, you don't care about gas. The literature on their site says 181 kts max speed, nothing about cruise. At max range it burns 9 gph , 750nm with 30 reserve.
 
Groundpounder said:
Everything is a trade off.
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Yup, I'm ragging too hard on it, it is a purty plane and I'm sure it would be cool to fly. I think the engine manufacturers need to figure out how to up the horsepower in piston engines.
 
PaulS said:
Is that it though? Burns less gas? If you can afford the $1.5 mil (my prediction) it costs, you don't care about gas. The literature on their site says 181 kts max speed, nothing about cruise. At max range it burns 9 gph , 750nm with 30 reserve.
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Well, the way they tend to recommend running the diesels, "cruise" is probably very very close to max speed. I bet it'll do 170-175 knots on 7.5 gph if you pull it back a bit. Considering my Mooney burns 12 gph to do that speed, the range is going to be just fine.
 
I guess being in the vintage mooney world so long, my expectations are lower. I really like that the rear passengers have their own dedicated doors. Does anyone know a price a price point for this plane?
 
PaulS said:
Is that it though? Burns less gas? If you can afford the $1.5 mil (my prediction) it costs, you don't care about gas. The literature on their site says 181 kts max speed, nothing about cruise. At max range it burns 9 gph , 750nm with 30 reserve.
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Also, there's no way it'll be $1.5m. That class of airplanes is currently selling in the $700K range. Still more than I can afford but nowhere near $1.5m. What remains to be seen is whether they can stand up to Cirrus' fantastic marketing department.
 
rbridges said:
I guess being in the vintage mooney world so long, my expectations are lower because I'm digging it. I really like that the rear passengers have their own dedicated doors. Does anyone know a price a price point for this plane?
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flyingcheesehead said:
Also, there's no way it'll be $1.5m. That class of airplanes is currently selling in the $700K range. Still more than I can afford but nowhere near $1.5m. What remains to be seen is whether they can stand up to Cirrus' fantastic marketing department.
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it seemed like diamonds were really hot a few years back, but I don't see too much talk about them anymore.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Also, there's no way it'll be $1.5m. That class of airplanes is currently selling in the $700K range. Still more than I can afford but nowhere near $1.5m. What remains to be seen is whether they can stand up to Cirrus' fantastic marketing department.
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$1.5 is probably too high, but Cirrus is bumping a million, last I checked, a Bonanza was bumping a million. Your point about the diesel is probably a good one, but still, there has been a lot of hype over airplane for a long time, I expected more.
 
kayoh190 said:
I figure not having to tell people you fly a Cirrus is worth at least a couple hundred grand! :p
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It's actually kind of fun, lol. The last guy I told who had an issue with Cirrus told me he flew one for fifteen minutes and his hand hurt for a week. I told him you have to trim an airplane when you fly it.
 
AlphaMike said:
It looks cool, I guess.. I'm just not all that impressed with the Numbers. I was hoping for better performance numbers, that and only holds 50gal..
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I think you have a valid point. It help some that it's jet-a, and fuel efficient. But 50 still seems like on the small side for the application.

Edit: Although, assuming max range of 750 miles at 9 gph burn, and about one gallon unusable fuel, that equates to roughly 4.9 hours plus a 30 minute reserve. You probably won't want to fly longer than that anyway. So, maybe the tank is big enough. They don't say what airspeed is "max range." I'm not sure how much the fuel burn goes up with a realistic cruise speed.
 
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PaulS said:
$1.5 is probably too high, but Cirrus is bumping a million, last I checked, a Bonanza was bumping a million. Your point about the diesel is probably a good one, but still, there has been a lot of hype over airplane for a long time, I expected more.
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Well, God hasn't upgraded physics at all in the meantime, so you're still stuck with a realistic airplane. ;)
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Well, God hasn't upgraded physics at all in the meantime, so you're still stuck with a realistic airplane. ;)
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I think if the airplane went on a major weight loss program they might have something. The diesel weighs maybe 100 pounds more than a gas engine of equal HP. The Cirrus comes in at 3,600 max weight, this thing is at 4,400 pounds.
 
@zaitcev

Complete hearsay for both rumors below:
  • SMA/200 series engine CMI tried to sell to Cessna had a vibration and turbo problem. Neither could be solved to Cessna satisfaction.
  • For Cirrus, the CD-200 series is under powered for the 22; over powered for the 20; and too heavy without significant changes to the planes.

Tim
 
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