Raptor Aircraft

jsstevens said:
But it requires a $20,000 “service” every 600 hours
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I'd be curious for a source on that too. I'm always worried about "word of mouth" and salty old CFIs who embellish figures to put down a modern piece of tech in the name of tradition. According to Austro's fact sheet https://austroengine.at/uploads/pdf/mod_products9/AE330FactSheet.pdf the engine is 1,800 hr TBO and is about $30/hr to operate.. so $60/hr in the twin (actually they say $23 Euro/hr so mine are liberal estimates). There are plenty of people who fly behind the big Conti's and need serious work on them well before they reach 1K hr, or at least well before TBO. Sure, it's people running them hot, or pushing them hard. But in the Austro engines it's all fadec, mixture, prop, etc.

jsstevens said:
140KIAS at ~6 gallons/hour (in an admittedly slick airframe)
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It's amazing.. and in the case of the DA62 it'll over 190 knots at 12 gph, total.. or about 170 at 10 gph around 16K.. if you talk to owners. These figures were reserved for Moonies, but in the DA62 instead of being squeezed into a puny 60 year old cockpit with one door you're in a large 7 seat plane festooned in luxury and you get both AC and TKS! (sorry I couldn't avoid throwing in a gratuitous Mooney dig)

Sierra_Hotel said:
Fair enough. I've always been curious what the actual ownership costs of those engines is.
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Same.. I talked to a guy at MYF a few months ago who'd flown his from Long Beach to Japan and back, via Alaska.. he hadn't had any issues with the plane in about 300 hrs of ownership.

I know the early diesels had low TBO and high ops cost, but I think in the last 10-15 years there's been a lot of refinement



anyway, as cool of a plane it is I think it prices itself out of the market. People who want to burn JET A and spend well in excess of $1M are probably going to be looking at true turbines. You enter used TBM territory at the price point.
 
Tantalum said:
I'd be curious for a source on that too. I'm always worried about "word of mouth" and salty old CFIs who embellish figures to put down a modern piece of tech in the name of tradition. According to Austro's fact sheet https://austroengine.at/uploads/pdf/mod_products9/AE330FactSheet.pdf the engine is 1,800 hr TBO and is about $30/hr to operate.. so $60/hr in the twin (actually they say $23 Euro/hr so mine are liberal estimates). There are plenty of people who fly behind the big Conti's and need serious work on them well before they reach 1K hr, or at least well before TBO. Sure, it's people running them hot, or pushing them hard. But in the Austro engines it's all fadec, mixture, prop, etc.


It's amazing.. and in the case of the DA62 it'll over 190 knots at 12 gph, total.. or about 170 at 10 gph around 16K.. if you talk to owners. These figures were reserved for Moonies, but in the DA62 instead of being squeezed into a puny 60 year old cockpit with one door you're in a large 7 seat plane festooned in luxury and you get both AC and TKS! (sorry I couldn't avoid throwing in a gratuitous Mooney dig)


Same.. I talked to a guy at MYF a few months ago who'd flown his from Long Beach to Japan and back, via Alaska.. he hadn't had any issues with the plane in about 300 hrs of ownership.

I know the early diesels had low TBO and high ops cost, but I think in the last 10-15 years there's been a lot of refinement



anyway, as cool of a plane it is I think it prices itself out of the market. People who want to burn JET A and spend well in excess of $1M are probably going to be looking at true turbines. You enter used TBM territory at the price point.
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I looked at the same fact sheet :lol: :cheers:

All the same points I've seen and heard over the years. Plus I got to fly the original DA-42s that ERAU had with the first diesels. They didn't last long :lol: Fun to fly through. Would love to get into a DA-62 but way too rich for my blood.
 
Tantalum said:
I'd be curious for a source on that too. I'm always worried about "word of mouth" and salty old CFIs who embellish figures to put down a modern piece of tech in the name of tradition. According to Austro's fact sheet https://austroengine.at/uploads/pdf/mod_products9/AE330FactSheet.pdf the engine is 1,800 hr TBO and is about $30/hr to operate.. so $60/hr in the twin (actually they say $23 Euro/hr so mine are liberal estimates). There are plenty of people who fly behind the big Conti's and need serious work on them well before they reach 1K hr, or at least well before TBO. Sure, it's people running them hot, or pushing them hard. But in the Austro engines it's all fadec, mixture, prop, etc.


It's amazing.. and in the case of the DA62 it'll over 190 knots at 12 gph, total.. or about 170 at 10 gph around 16K.. if you talk to owners. These figures were reserved for Moonies, but in the DA62 instead of being squeezed into a puny 60 year old cockpit with one door you're in a large 7 seat plane festooned in luxury and you get both AC and TKS! (sorry I couldn't avoid throwing in a gratuitous Mooney dig)


Same.. I talked to a guy at MYF a few months ago who'd flown his from Long Beach to Japan and back, via Alaska.. he hadn't had any issues with the plane in about 300 hrs of ownership.

I know the early diesels had low TBO and high ops cost, but I think in the last 10-15 years there's been a lot of refinement



anyway, as cool of a plane it is I think it prices itself out of the market. People who want to burn JET A and spend well in excess of $1M are probably going to be looking at true turbines. You enter used TBM territory at the price point.
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“Crusty old CFI” was in his early 30s and liked the planes. He also flies the DA-62 for a customer and that’s the source of his comment as the 62 was at the 600 hour mark and they were getting it ready for the service. The school is full of mostly young CFIs and maintains a fleet of Diamonds.
 
jsstevens said:
“Crusty old CFI” was in his early 30s and liked the planes. He also flies the DA-62 for a customer and that’s the source of his comment as the 62 was at the 600 hour mark and they were getting it ready for the service. The school is full of mostly young CFIs and maintains a fleet of Diamonds.
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My bad on the assumption! If the $20,000 bill 600 hour maintenance event is true then that sorta sucks.. although it does sort of tie out with the $30 per hour per engine maintenance item the fact sheet notes. So maybe that's how they slip it in?

I kind of always figured that even if you own an airplane the smart thing to do is to basically treat it like a rental and put your hobbes time money into a specific saving account somewhere..
 
Sierra_Hotel said:
I looked at the same fact sheet :lol: :cheers:

All the same points I've seen and heard over the years. Plus I got to fly the original DA-42s that ERAU had with the first diesels. They didn't last long :lol: Fun to fly through. Would love to get into a DA-62 but way too rich for my blood.
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I keep meaning to do a check out flight and a rental at Long Beach in their DA62 but it is so. much. money. And outside of a few hours of fun it does nothing to advance my own goals of airplane ownership someday
 
Tantalum said:
I keep meaning to do a check out flight and a rental at Long Beach in their DA62 but it is so. much. money. And outside of a few hours of fun it does nothing to advance my own goals of airplane ownership someday
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DO NOT GO SIT IN ONE! They almost suckered me in to looking for partners. It’s a beautiful and capable airplane. $1.5 million is kind of off putting. But they are SO nice!
 
Tantalum said:
My bad on the assumption! If the $20,000 bill 600 hour maintenance event is true then that sorta sucks.. although it does sort of tie out with the $30 per hour per engine maintenance item the fact sheet notes. So maybe that's how they slip it in?
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A lot of the newer pieces of equipment have airworthiness limitations that must be followed, which increases expenses, whether the engine, prop, airplane, accessory, etc. truly needs work or not. The $20k service on these engines is not too far off from what I've heard elsewhere, although I don't have personal experience yet because the one I maintain and fly doesn't have that many hours on it. Even if it is not required, I suspect the fuel system service is something that should be heeded based on my personal experiences. Overall, it is my opinion that this will be a burdensome airplane and engine to own and maintain long term. Best option in my book is to enjoy somebody else's diesel Diamond.
 
wanttaja said:
He hit TBO.

Ron Wanttaja
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Or the winds started to come up. I don't blame him for being wind-averse before he determines his stall speeds and other flight characteristics.
 
Tantalum said:
Peter will forever be the bane of my existence on the whole "our engines suck" platform because of his franken-turbo-audi abomination. Diamond makes it work with Mercedes engines. Granted, I assume they have more cash and slightly more brain power at Austro / Diamond!!
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Yes , plus It helps both Austro and Diamond have the same ownership. Two teams of competent engineers. Helps to have the airframe team in direct partnership withe the engine team to solution forward.
 
iamtheari said:
Or the winds started to come up. I don't blame him for being wind-averse before he determines his stall speeds and other flight characteristics.
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He doesn’t appear to have any interest in determining stall speeds or other flight characteristics. Halfway through his “40 hours,” he’s done almost no flight testing at all.
 
OneCharlieTango said:
He doesn’t appear to have any interest in determining stall speeds or other flight characteristics. Halfway through his “40 hours,” he’s done almost no flight testing at all.
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I wonder if the 40 hour figure is something the buyer has put on him
 
Racerx said:
I wonder if the 40 hour figure is something the buyer has put on him
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I suspect it's more of a marketing diversion. He'll announce, "Raptor has successfully completed its first 40 hours," and non-aviation-saavy investors will research and find out that 40 hours is the typical test period for experimental aircraft. So it *looks* like he met whatever "requirements" there are.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Whatever else you may say, he’s doing an excellent job of normalizing his deviation from a test flight standpoint.
 
At least he's incorporating right and left turns in the new figure 8 pattern. That's... something
 
wanttaja said:
I suspect it's more of a marketing diversion. He'll announce, "Raptor has successfully completed its first 40 hours," and non-aviation-saavy investors will research and find out that 40 hours is the typical test period for experimental aircraft. So it *looks* like he met whatever "requirements" there are.

Ron Wanttaja
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I don’t know. That would be pretty close to fraud. So far he’s a lot of things but dishonest does not seem to be on the menu.

just my gut feeling.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
I don’t know. That would be pretty close to fraud. So far he’s a lot of things but dishonest does not seem to be on the menu.

just my gut feeling.
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I'd disagree. It is up to prospective investors to determine if the testing for a new product meets an appropriate standard, since there isn't an official one (or a regulatory one) in this case.
 
Has anyone looked into the ATC recording to see if he had another emergency?
 
kyleb said:
I'd disagree. It is up to prospective investors to determine if the testing for a new product meets an appropriate standard, since there isn't an official one (or a regulatory one) in this case.
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Even if there was a regulatory standard. The results would be subjective. Say the feds want to know what it stalls at. Peter's answer would be that it won't stall. Same with the gross weight figure. If you build an RV, they tell you what gross is...but you can put whatever you'd like. And that's why book numbers usually don't match real numbers. Has a stock Cherokee ever made book speed?
 
wanttaja said:
I suspect he's getting real circumspect over what he says on the radio.

Ron Wanttaja
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I think he's been that way for a while..."I'm not declaring an emergency, but I might be in 15 seconds".
 
He flies again. Same dumb airplane builder same dumb pattern.
 
SoonerAviator said:
He's living in ya'lls heads rent-free, lol.
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If some of the folks here start tracking Peter any closer. he's going to need a restraining order.

I admit, I was interested for a while, but when it became clear he doesn't have a marketable airplane or powerplant, I lost interest.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
No doubt. It’s off the rails. I never imagined I would be defending him. Some of the posts here are just mean. For no reason. It’s pathetic.
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Yeah, maybe. But this guy started out saying he was going to do things that no previous designer had been able to do -- no one from Wittman to Rutan to Nate Puffer to Neibauer to Ted Hamilton to Van Grunsven has come close to defying physics in the way he said he was going to. And he took money from people who believed him. That kind of hubris, when it crashes, might deserve a certain amount of ridicule.

Although, looked at another way, you could say that kind of delusion deserves pity.
 
Well, I get a text every time he flies, so I check out his flight and usually post it here. So yeah, I'm stalking him via adsb. But adsb isn't an invasion of privacy, right?
 
Tarheelpilot said:
No doubt. It’s off the rails. I never imagined I would be defending him. Some of the posts here are just mean. For no reason. It’s pathetic.
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True to a degree, but much of that is brought on by PM himself...if he wasn’t such an arrogant person, there might be more tolerance and at this point, pity.

Further, I’m far from a “think of the children” type of guy, but when people like him create a smoldering crater (which is unfortunately likely at some point here), and it takes out innocents and/or property of others, we know that elected critters like to boost their election value by passing haphazard laws to “make sure this never happens again” (ie “vote for me”)...
Certainly any experimental or certified aircraft could be such a catalyst. Yet when the rules and common sense are tossed aside, it becomes more likely, and simultaneously gives critics of GA (especially experimentals) ammo to say that there needs to be more regulation. That hoses everyone not named PM.
 
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