New Piper vs New Tiger

Glen R

Glen R

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Glen
So with the recent announcement of the new Piper trainer at 250K, I was wondering about Grumman Tigers. I owned a 79 and it was a great plane. I know various entities have tried and failed to make a go of restarting the line. Apparently True Flight Aerospace owns the rights and tooling now but their website hasn't been updated which is usually not a good sign. I don't have enough info to run numbers, but given the tooling and certifications were all done, I would think it would be possible to turn out a Tiger with G3X for around that price. It wouldn't compete with Cirrus as even the SR20 is multiples higher in price. There would be no comparison between the capabilities of the Tiger and the new Piper and certainly the C172 line. Why wouldn't Piper or Textron purchase the rights from True Flight, who seems to be sitting on it, and produce the plane. I would think it would own the market not only for primary but also instrument training.
 
Why sacrifice parts / production-line commonality with so many of their other production and legacy airplanes?

I know the Tiger is a good bit faster and probably a nice traveling airplane. What are the benefits specifically as a flight-school trainer over the Piper?
 
Glen R said:
So with the recent announcement of the new Piper trainer at 250K, I was wondering about Grumman Tigers. I owned a 79 and it was a great plane. I know various entities have tried and failed to make a go of restarting the line. Apparently True Flight Aerospace owns the rights and tooling now but their website hasn't been updated which is usually not a good sign. I don't have enough info to run numbers, but given the tooling and certifications were all done, I would think it would be possible to turn out a Tiger with G3X for around that price. It wouldn't compete with Cirrus as even the SR20 is multiples higher in price. There would be no comparison between the capabilities of the Tiger and the new Piper and certainly the C172 line. Why wouldn't Piper or Textron purchase the rights from True Flight, who seems to be sitting on it, and produce the plane. I would think it would own the market not only for primary but also instrument training.
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Seriously, how big do you think the market is for a new Tiger?

The average new light vehicle price in the USA is ~$36,000. A $175,000 new Tiger (assuming anybody could make it and sell it for that) would be almost 5 times as expensive. Hands up everyone on this pilot board that would write a check for (or borrow) that amount to buy a new Tiger within the first year if production was re-started! :cool:
 
How big is the market for the new Piper trainer? Apparently enough to justify their attempt here. There is no out of the box thinking by any of these companies, other than Cirrus. Flight schools would gobble up a 250K Tiger as fast as they could make them. Especially if C172's and this "new" Piper are the competition.
 
tiger said:
Why sacrifice parts / production-line commonality with so many of their other production and legacy airplanes?

I know the Tiger is a good bit faster and probably a nice traveling airplane. What are the benefits specifically as a flight-school trainer over the Piper?
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Depreciation. What's the value of these 3 seat planes when it's time for the flight schools to unload them? A Tiger would be valued by anyone looking for a 135 knot 4 place airplane that's actually fun to fly.
 
If nobody started producing NEW Ercoupes during the LSA wave, I can't see new Tigers either unfortunately. Of any dormant model I always thought an Ercoupe trainer/LSA made most sense. Rotax to save weight/gas and there you go.
 
GRG55 said:
Seriously, how big do you think the market is for a new Tiger?

The average new light vehicle price in the USA is ~$36,000. A $175,000 new Tiger (assuming anybody could make it and sell it for that) would be almost 5 times as expensive. Hands up everyone on this pilot board that would write a check for (or borrow) that amount to buy a new Tiger within the first year if production was re-started! :cool:
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I’ve heard stories about why the prices of GA planes are so high, the principal villain from what I’ve heard is product liability insurance Can anyone confirm that?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Like I commented on AOPA, I cringe when I even SEE a Grumman......knowing it was designed by the biggest con artist in GA.....Jim Bede.
 
Don't forget this new piper is also competing with the DA20, at a price point below the 100. Their numbers aren't great so even a "new" Tiger would be a tough sell in this market.
 
kgruber said:
Like I commented on AOPA, I cringe when I even SEE a Grumman......knowing it was designed by the biggest con artist in GA.....Jim Bede.
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Yeah, but it was cleaned up by Roy LoPresti. Balances out? :)
 
Glen R said:
...Flight schools would gobble up a 250K Tiger as fast as they could make them. Especially if C172's and this "new" Piper are the competition.
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LOL. You must be joking.
Any flight training organization placing an order of any size for aircraft is going to look to the financial depth and product backing of a company like Textron/Cessna or Piper over yet another production "re-start" of an old type certificate by yet another under-capitalized group of aviation dreamers.

Cessna and Piper are the companies that own the trainer market. And nobody, not even the much admired and innovative Cirrus (which aborted its trainer R&D program), is going to easily take it away from them.
 
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Glen R said:
Flight schools would gobble up a 250K Tiger as fast as they could make them. Especially if C172's and this "new" Piper are the competition.
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GRG55 said:
LOL. You must be joking.
Any flight training organization placing an order of any size for aircraft is going to look to the financial depth and product backing of a company like Textron/Cessna or Piper over yet another production "re-start" of an old type certificate by yet another under-capitalized group of aviation dreamers.
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Sounds like Vulcanair. How are they doing?
 
wheaties said:
Don't forget this new piper is also competing with the DA20, at a price point below the 100. Their numbers aren't great so even a "new" Tiger would be a tough sell in this market.
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A few years ago we had two new Diamond DA20s in our flight training unit fleet. They logged on average 1/2 the hours each month that our well used 172 trainers logged. We finally replaced them with additional 172Ns.
 
GRG55 said:
A few years ago we had two new Diamond DA20s in our flight training unit fleet. They logged on average 1/2 the hours each month that our well used 172 trainers logged. We finally replaced them with additional 172Ns.
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Other than weight, I don't understand the reason why someone would choose a 172 over a DA20. The new airplane smell and the avionics was enough to convince me to go with the DA20 for training, compared to the old 172 that I compared against, which had musty odor and panels held together with missing screws.
 
GRG55 said:
LOL. You must be joking.
Any flight training organization placing an order of any size for aircraft is going to look to the financial depth and product backing of a company like Textron/Cessna or Piper over yet another production "re-start" of an old type certificate by yet another under-capitalized group of aviation dreamers.
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Not only would it be a re-start, it would at least be a re-re-start and maybe a re-re-re-start. One or two companies tried to bring it back, only to fail.
 
Lowflynjack said:
Not only would it be a re-start, it would at least be a re-re-start and maybe a re-re-re-start. One or two companies tried to bring it back, only to fail.
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Bede
American
Grumman
Gulfstream
AGAC
Tiger Enterprises
True Flight

How many re-'s is that? :)
 
Maybe re-read my post where I said it could make sense for Piper or Textron, due to their financial stability, to buy the type certificate and wind up with a better airframe than anything they currently have. Reading comprehension is not strong here.
 
As I asked in post #2, I can't see why they would choose to sacrifice parts / production-line commonality with so many of their other production and legacy airframes.

Aside from that there is a huge global (a lot of flight-school airplanes are sold outside of the US) support network in parts and experience for the PA-28. That wouldn't appear overnight for the Tiger whoever attempted to re-re-re-restart it.
 
kgruber said:
Like I commented on AOPA, I cringe when I even SEE a Grumman......knowing it was designed by the biggest con artist in GA.....Jim Bede.
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Actually, Jim Bede believed every word that he said. He just couldn't implement his fanciful promises. (Heck, my father didn't believe that he could ever deliver what he promised, but plenty of others sure did.)
 
Glen R said:
Maybe re-read my post where I said it could make sense for Piper or Textron, due to their financial stability, to buy the type certificate and wind up with a better airframe than anything they currently have.
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Yeah but why would they need to? They already own the market with almost no competition. Why would it financial sense for them to buy someone else's design and tooling in order for them to produce a product that is not currently being produced and would only compete with products they already make?
 
GRG55 said:
Seriously, how big do you think the market is for a new Tiger?
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If a new Tiger was mass produced by a company that would stay in business for a few years, I'd buy one... Used ones are getting old and nasty.
 
They are getting pretty rough. I drove up to Northern Canada to find a nice one. pulled the wings and trailered it home. Another thing many people dont realize is that the wings are life limited at 12,000 hours. That wasnt an issue 45 years ago but I actually saw a Tiger with 10,000 hours on it.
 
IK04 said:
If a new Tiger was mass produced by a company that would stay in business for a few years, I'd buy one... Used ones are getting old and nasty.
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Does it matter how long they stay in business? All you need is a new Tiger. The aftermarket will take care of the rest.
 
sarangan said:
Other than weight, I don't understand the reason why someone would choose a 172 over a DA20. The new airplane smell and the avionics was enough to convince me to go with the DA20 for training, compared to the old 172 that I compared against, which had musty odor and panels held together with missing screws.
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I instructed in both the DA20 and C172. While I personally enjoyed flying the DA20 with the stick and great view, students vastly preferred the C172 for it’s easy of entry, benign handling, steerable nosewheel and more forgiving landing characteristics. And don’t get me started on the service support for the Rotax.
 
sarangan said:
Other than weight, I don't understand the reason why someone would choose a 172 over a DA20. The new airplane smell and the avionics was enough to convince me to go with the DA20 for training, compared to the old 172 that I compared against, which had musty odor and panels held together with missing screws.
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They were a relative bust with both the students and the instructors, as well as financially for the club. Ours were the DA20-C1 with the Continental engine, not the Rotax. On one of them the rear window cracked. That window is structural. Diamond had to develop a new procedure to replace it before we could make the repair. The plane was down for 3 months waiting on that.

For whatever reason the students just didn't really take to the Diamond. The usage stats showed that consistently over the couple of years we had them. Our rental rate for the Diamond was exactly the same as a 172, so cost was not a factor. They consistently logged roughly half the hours of the average 172 every month. Our 172s average 900 hours a year each, so the difference is significant when translated into income vs capital invested. We finally sold the DA20s and replaced them with 172Ns (we have twelve 172s in our fleet right now and looking for one or two more...hard to find good ones these days).
 
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Glen R said:
Maybe re-read my post where I said it could make sense for Piper or Textron, due to their financial stability, to buy the type certificate and wind up with a better airframe than anything they currently have. Reading comprehension is not strong here.
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Huh? o_O

No problem whatsoever with my reading comprehension. The idea is so obviously absurd I didn't see a need to respond to that aspect on the first go.

Problem seems a lack of commercial reasoning. Why on earth would either of the two dominant training market aircraft oligopolists spend any capital to secure the type certificate and tooling to produce an aircraft (with notably different construction techniques in certain respects) only to compete with their existing market dominating models, in a market that hasn't shown much robust growth in unit volume in decades? And in the eyes of the FAA how much of the liability for past production support, AD notifications and such are they inheriting if they become the owner of the type certificate?

Finally, "better airframe" is debatable, given the number of 172s and Cherokees that have been produced compared to the cumulative number of Grummans under all the various prior owners of that type certificate.
 
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Polarisguy said:
I’ve heard stories about why the prices of GA planes are so high, the principal villain from what I’ve heard is product liability insurance Can anyone confirm that? Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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20 years ago Beech was paying $80,000 liability on every Bonanza that rolled out the door. I can only imagine what Piper pays on their new trainer 20 years later. A lot of the high cost of new aircraft is due to liability insurance and just like your auto policy, it keeps going up.
When Piper goes to court the litigation fees are out of their own pocket. If they lose, the judgement is paid by the insurance company. Win or lose, it cost Piper money. That new trainer could probably be offered for around $150,000 if not for all the liability and legal fees. It’s just a part of everything we buy these days and much worse for low volume manufacturers of light planes.
 
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