I was watching a review of the Diamond DA-42 and I made the mistake of checking prices on them. The cheapest one on Trade-A-Plane was $750000. There are a lot of great things about the DA-42, but the most appealing to me is the FADEC engine/mixture/prop controls and auto-feather in the event of an engine failure. If one had an Apache and $650K, what options exist to convert the engines to FADEC controls to replicate that experience in an older plane.
I found an article about the system I was thinking about, TCM bought the Powerlink FADEC system. https://www.aviationconsumer.com/industry-news/tcms-fadec-revisited-will-it-get-traction/ Thats the only article I can find on it. Is anyone else working on FADEC retrofits? Has any FADEC retrofit been STCed for any engine and airframe?
Your best option would be to find a comparable existing Lycoming or Continental model that has FADEC installed and spend your money retrofitting the engine assy. However.... There are several companies looking into FADEC systems for piston aircraft outside the current systems offered by Lycoming and TCM. Last I heard, FADEC had moved up a notch in the FAA eyes as a flight safety enhancement which could lead to an easier route to retrofit/install similar to how certain vacuum indicators can be replaced with digital ind.
Who is this unicorn who has an Apache and $650K? Wouldn’t the two assets instantaneously merge into a Navajo or a house?
I had fadec In my liberty XL 2, loved it till lt came time for overhaul couldn’t do the overhaul without changing the fadec components also. Continental 125 with fadec overhauls for about 53K
That's an important data point. I'd like the Liberty XL2 for a long time, but lost interest when I heard TCM was no longer supporting FADEC. Your overhaul cost seems to be close to the cost of the Liberty XL2, which hurts my interest even more. Otherwise, the Liberty XL2 is just enough plane for my mission.
The majority of the times I see the da-42 I know of are in for maintenance always seam to be something related to the Fadec. Could just be that plane but it does seam to be maintenance queen
Last I checked, the price delta between an IO-550 and an equivalent IOF-550 (F=FADEC) was around $100K. I will move blue and red knobs for the rest of my life even for a difference an order of magnitude lower than that.
I personally agree with that logic, but an engine can be converted to FADEC for $100K, then the hypothetical Apache with a FADEC Conversion would cost $300K. The video I saw argued that a the DA-42 was worth it for building time toward a jet because the FADEC made for a similar experience to flying a jet. But for the price of a DA-42, I would expect that there would be a way to retrofit that experience to a cheaper airframe.
There is a way. Money. But you're going to have to get your own STC in addition to the cost of the engines. There simply isn't any demand at that price, and everyone knows it so nobody has bothered with any STCs. Even Cirrus, who could probably justify it and sell it on their new planes, hasn't. So, buy yourself a $50K Apache, a pair of $150K engines to throw on it, and spend $50K-$150K to get an STC that's restricted to your plane, and you've got a $400K-$500K airplane that's ancient and has thousands of hours on it and is probably worth less than the $50K you bought it for. If you can afford to burn money like that, there is a way.
You'd probably have close to the same kind of money into legally retrofitting and fixing up some old junk airplane as you would have into a lightly used DA42. If you want a turbine like experience, buy a turbine and be done with it. You can get into one for cheaper than you could retrofit the Apache anyway. The "time building for a jet" claim is just a sales tool. It works on some folks but I'd estimate that the majority of people that can afford a DA42 are going to see through it.
