Cessna vs Beechcraft

@GRG55

Your assumption is the FAA maintains it's current stance.
For the proposed mass construction of EAB above I believe the FAA would need a fundamental change in philosophy, which has happened. E.g. change EAB to really mean non-certtified.

Tim

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Right after 9/11 Cessna was almost a year in backorder on Citations as many corporations were deciding it was safer to fly private jets than risk the airlines (both in secuirty and time constraints). Then when the economic downturn came and the big 3 automakers came to Capitol Hill to beg for money, the bizjet became a sign of corporate greed and the market dried up almost immediately. Of course, Textron in their perpetual chasing of short-term share prices did a lot of stupid things. Cessna Finance which was doing great double-dipping on the jet sales (first you sell them the plane at a profit, then you sell them the financing. When financial operations were viewed as "bad" (due to the necessity for bailing out of the "too big to fails), Textron dumped the finance operation (at a bad rate of return) rather than weathering it out. On the othe hand, GE (which has its share of other problems), did very well weathering the course with their finance operation.

As for Beech, that just go busted up in profit-taking. The Bonanzas were dead at that point anyhow. They had sold a total of four in the two years prior. The jets were sold off one way and Cessna was able to reap the prop line mostly for the King Air which was a current hole in their lineup, just as the Columbia had filled another. If they had bought Beech first, they probably would have preferred the Bo.
 
GRG55 said:
This was exactly my point. I know the planes were owned by Cloud Nine, but for all practical purposes they were your airplanes. You selected them, you flew them, you took responsibility for making sure they were maintained, and it was your decision to replace them (with another airplane and then, ultimately, with no airplane).

When active pilots like you stop flying the collective consequence filters down through GA. I thought it was a good example to illustrate.
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Fair enough, and I see your point. I had initially thought you were making the point about the economic aspects moreso.

I still think I'm not an ideal example. I did very little personal flying - under 10% of my flying during the Cloud Nine years was personal flying. The rest was for the mission of saving the animals. In a lot of ways, I was closer to a corporate pilot running a flight department than a private flier. Yes, I was active, but so are most corporate pilots and if they stop flying, we don't count it against GA.

Also (and I'll go into more details on this in the book), I somewhat chose the planes, they somewhat chose me. The 310, for example, was donated. If that donation hadn't happened, it's likely I never would've upgraded from the Aztec. It's interesting to think about what would (or wouldn't) have changed if that was the case. The Aztec was a better dog hauler than the 310, but it was slower. Speed was a real issue for the trips I did.

Regardless, I don't think anyone has ever accused me of having flying that was "normal" when compared to, well, anyone else.
 
flyingron said:
Right after 9/11 Cessna was almost a year in backorder on Citations as many corporations were deciding it was safer to fly private jets than risk the airlines (both in secuirty and time constraints). Then when the economic downturn came and the big 3 automakers came to Capitol Hill to beg for money, the bizjet became a sign of corporate greed and the market dried up almost immediately. Of course, Textron in their perpetual chasing of short-term share prices did a lot of stupid things. Cessna Finance which was doing great double-dipping on the jet sales (first you sell them the plane at a profit, then you sell them the financing. When financial operations were viewed as "bad" (due to the necessity for bailing out of the "too big to fails), Textron dumped the finance operation (at a bad rate of return) rather than weathering it out. On the othe hand, GE (which has its share of other problems), did very well weathering the course with their finance operation.

As for Beech, that just go busted up in profit-taking. The Bonanzas were dead at that point anyhow. They had sold a total of four in the two years prior. The jets were sold off one way and Cessna was able to reap the prop line mostly for the King Air which was a current hole in their lineup, just as the Columbia had filled another. If they had bought Beech first, they probably would have preferred the Bo.
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Double dipping. LOL What do you think GE Capital was doing?
Virtually every major manufacturing company had "financialized" their business the same way. It was these "banks in drag", like GE Capital, that threatened the companies.

GE Capital got a $139 Billion bailout from the Federal Government. Deemed TBTF, just like the NY banks and Goldman, at the time.
You send me $139 B and I'll do very well weathering the course too. :D
 
tspear said:
There are only a few items which will save GA.
1. Push button automatic flying. e.g. get in the plane, tell it where you want to go, and the computer takes care of everything.
2. Significant cost reduction in both CapEx and OpEx.

The first is well within current technology for "baby steps". e.g. Have the pilot drive to the runway, and enter information from ATC. The actual flying is well within the computer's hands for almost any flight. Where the computer may/will break down is emergencies. But failure mode design, is very possible and makes it viable. That just leaves communication, and ground control to the pilot. Both of which are "doable".

The second one is much harder. The two real hopes for the second point is 1. electric powered, 2. additive manufacturing lowers the cost of turbines to the point they are retrofitted on my planes.
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Why do you think turbines would help CapEx or OpEx? :dunno:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Why do you think turbines would help CapEx or OpEx? :dunno:
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Additive manufacturing has the "potential" to greatly reduce the cost of turbine manufacturing, One of the largest components of cost in a turbine, is the replacement of parts.
If additive manufacturing can lower the component price, then both the CapEx and OpEx have the potential for significant decreases.
In addition, if you read the press releases from GE, additive manufacturing has also the potential to increase engine efficiency by reducing part counts and enabling designs that were purely theoretical before. (e.g. hot section fan blades with internal cooling vents). Supposedly, according to GE, some of this technology is seeping into the highest end turbines now.

Tim
 
Beech/Raytheon never had great biz jet plan IMHO. They invested a lot into the Premier but the market timing was poor. The Hawker line was antient 15 years ago, maybe its more like 40 years ago) and the inspection cycles aren't favorable. The Hawkers aren't really Beech either just retuned British Aerospace designs.

My first supervisor loves Beechjets. Despite being an old old design, they are kind of a neat airplane. But its not a Beech its a retuned Mitsubishi Diamond. They are all older now and two pilot required gas-hogs compared to others.

While Beech was working with these Cessna was building the fastest Biz jet in the world at the time, and sold a ton of them and the 560 lines. That doesn't even scratch the single engine turboprop itch, how many 208 Caravans did Cessna sell?
 
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..back in 2002 Diamond had stated that "the future belongs to Jet A" ..
 
Unfortunately it does not
 
GRG55 said:
GE Capital got a $139 Billion bailout from the Federal Government. Deemed TBTF, just like the NY banks and Goldman, at the time.
You send me $139 B and I'll do very well weathering the course too. :D
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Yep, Textron should have held Cessna Finance and taken the handout.
 
tspear said:
Additive manufacturing has the "potential" to greatly reduce the cost of turbine manufacturing, One of the largest components of cost in a turbine, is the replacement of parts.
If additive manufacturing can lower the component price, then both the CapEx and OpEx have the potential for significant decreases.
In addition, if you read the press releases from GE, additive manufacturing has also the potential to increase engine efficiency by reducing part counts and enabling designs that were purely theoretical before. (e.g. hot section fan blades with internal cooling vents). Supposedly, according to GE, some of this technology is seeping into the highest end turbines now.
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I don't buy a lot of parts, though... I buy a lot of fuel. And turbines suck fuel amazingly well. If fuel burn is linear with power, it looks like I can expect my cruise fuel burn to go up close to 60% for the same amount of power. Even though Jet-A can sometimes be had cheaper than 100LL, it's usually not cheap enough to make up for that.

In addition, everything is relative. GE talking about cutting costs is kinda meaningless, as they don't build piston engines. If they reduce the price of a turbine engine from $1 mil to $800K, I don't really care as I can't afford 1/10th of either. Same for taking overhaul costs from 200-500K down to 150-300K. Doesn't matter. :(

Finally, certification costs are going to keep even "cheap" turbines out of anything but brand new aircraft. I'd love to have a powerplant modernization as opposed to overhauling my 1950s-technology engine when the time comes, but the chances of something becoming available on anything other than an SR22 at this point are vanishingly small.

Tantalum said:
..back in 2002 Diamond had stated that "the future belongs to Jet A" ..
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bnt83 said:
Doesn't seem to be aging well... At least when looking at in this country.
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Maybe they were talking about piston twins. ;)

But they're still going with the diesel thing. It's quite possible to do, but it requires commitment.
 
schmookeeg said:
I want dispatch reliability. I'm tired of fussing with pistons and their fickle neediness. I also want Jet-A so that they can kill 100LL finally and I can burn something that isn't going away in my lifetime.
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No need to wait...Meridian or TBM. And if those don't have sufficient payload for your mission there's always the PC-12. :D
 
GRG55 said:
No need to wait...Meridian or TBM. And if those don't have sufficient payload for your mission there's always the PC-12. :D
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I thought there was an implicit "I want all of that for less than 250k CapEx" :D I may as well add "and without the dread spectre of a 100 AMU maintenance surprise, much less multiple such surprise potential" :p

Back to looking at terrible MU2s and Merlins for me now. :oops:
 
Tantalum said:
..back in 2002 Diamond had stated that "the future belongs to Jet A" ..
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The technical and economic challenges to make this work have been grossly underestimated.

The commercial outfit here at my airport that has been using a DA-42 for the past 3 years for some of their aerial telemetry survey work (that I have posted about before), has finally decided to put themselves out of their maintenance cost misery and sold it. It was by far the most expensive airplane in their fleet. Even the mechanics that kept it flying joked about it.

The basic Mercedes automotive diesel block was fine - in fact impressively reliable. But there was hardly an accessory on that engine that came anywhere near to it's stated aviation service life. I think the automotive grade accessories are not up to the task of continuous duty in an airplane. Compounding that, as Daimler switched suppliers for it's automotive manufacturing that meant some parts were no longer available (just one example: both alternators failed pre-maturely on the plane, and the original part had been discontinued - these situations have created no small number of headaches for Diamond as they can't just substitute the part from Daimler's new supplier).
 
schmookeeg said:
I thought there was an implicit "I want all of that for less than 250k CapEx" :D I may as well add "and without the dread spectre of a 100 AMU maintenance surprise, much less multiple such surprise potential" :p

Back to looking at terrible MU2s and Merlins for me now. :oops:
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Oh, I forgot. I too am waiting for that condition to be met. :cool: ;)
 
@flyingcheesehead

I never said it would happen soon :)
Roughly a decade ago, I was considering the jump to turbine. So I crunched the numbers, back then.
When you looked at the OpEx costs on a PA-46, Citation CJ, TBM.... you found the engine program (assuming the owner participates) is based on following manufacturer schedules is often more than half the the total OpEx on these planes. Further if you look at the value of the turbine(s) on used market (retail price) a fair number of the older planes were only worth what the value of the power train (turbofan or turbine plus prop).

Due to changes in gas prices, this calculation might have changed. But I doubt it has had a material change yet.
Where this MAY help GA, is when that PT6 on the PA-46 wears out, instead of spending 600+K on a new engine, you might be able to get one for 300K from XXXX. This is what has the potential to drive down long term prices.

Unless there is some other major technical breakthrough, I see this only as a slow but incremental price pressure that might save GA over the next twenty to thirty years.

Tim
 
@GRG55

Interesting, over on the Diamond Aviators forum, these types of tails of woe about accessories, ECU, and many other components have steadily declined over the years. At this point, the consensus seems to be Diamond has worked out most (not sure if all) of these types of issues. It has taken a decade plus to get there, but these planes are really reliable now based on the reports of owners and shops.

Tim
 
tspear said:
@GRG55

Interesting, over on the Diamond Aviators forum, these types of tails of woe about accessories, ECU, and many other components have steadily declined over the years. At this point, the consensus seems to be Diamond has worked out most (not sure if all) of these types of issues. It has taken a decade plus to get there, but these planes are really reliable now based on the reports of owners and shops.

Tim
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I expect they would be improving the performance. And one would hope that a decade of effort would produce a demonstrable result, which is great to know as we all want to see a manufacturer like Diamond really succeed.
But as I said: "The technical and economic challenges to make this work have been grossly underestimated."

It takes deep financial pockets and persistence to do what Diamond and Cirrus are trying to do. It's not a coincidence both are now part of much larger Chinese organizations. Companies such as Mooney haven't had the deep pockets and companies such as Textron don't have the persistence (in the piston airplane world at least).

I would love to own a DA-62 instead of my Aztec. But I suspect today I could own a used Meridian at a lower or at least comparable capital + opex proposition instead.
 
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GRG55 said:
The technical and economic challenges to make this work have been grossly underestimated.

The commercial outfit here at my airport that has been using a DA-42 for the past 3 years for some of their aerial telemetry survey work (that I have posted about before), has finally decided to put themselves out of their maintenance cost misery and sold it. It was by far the most expensive airplane in their fleet. Even the mechanics that kept it flying joked about it.

The basic Mercedes automotive diesel block was fine - in fact impressively reliable. But there was hardly an accessory on that engine that came anywhere near to it's stated aviation service life. I think the automotive grade accessories are not up to the task of continuous duty in an airplane. Compounding that, as Daimler switched suppliers for it's automotive manufacturing that meant some parts were no longer available (just one example: both alternators failed pre-maturely on the plane, and the original part had been discontinued - these situations have created no small number of headaches for Diamond as they can't just substitute the part from Daimler's new supplier).
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Indeed... although our legacy engines are at least 70 years old that also means we've had 70 years of experience with them and their components. Something exotic like the Diamond engines are going to cost more, even if thermodynamically, and technologically speaking, they're "superior"

It's a tough one. I do hate the old engine tech. But I also understand why we're stuck with it.. it's a real catch-22
 
tspear said:
Where this MAY help GA, is when that PT6 on the PA-46 wears out, instead of spending 600+K on a new engine, you might be able to get one for 300K from XXXX. This is what has the potential to drive down long term prices.
Click to expand...

But even if you make an engine that costs half as much to produce, the GA market is so small that you'll likely end up having to pay just as much on it due to amortization of R&D and certification costs. :(
 
Tantalum said:
..back in 2002 Diamond had stated that "the future belongs to Jet A" ..
Click to expand...

Having just finished my IR in a DA-40NG, the FADEC diesel that uses Jet-A1 is a very nice power plant. I, too, would like the switch to Jet A. But I was enquiring about the DA-62 (our of my price range without 3-4 partners) and found out that those engines have a mandatory $20K service at 600 hours. That's darn near a whole rebuild on a Lycosaur 320. After that and looking at the performance numbers and I started looking at the DA-42 L360s. G-1000 (can be upgraded to NXi for $42K+, possible update to WAAS for a lot less-long story). 30 KTAS faster and IO-360 power plants.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
But even if you make an engine that costs half as much to produce, the GA market is so small that you'll likely end up having to pay just as much on it due to amortization of R&D and certification costs. :(
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If you look over the past decade, certification costs have to be coming down.You have had more updates and changes, new tech adopted... then the previous sixty years combined. I still think it likely will be high, but not as bad as it has been.

Tim
 
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