Oshkosh... Cirrus Sales and Mosaic

[Worldwide trade]

So I hear Cirrus has sold 26 airplanes at the show and they're sold out till Q1-2027. Textron also sold out through 2026 for many models. No recession in the plane business it seems. Hope 100LL remains available throughout a very long life cycle for million dollar + investments.

Mosaic seems promising but something like 1100 pages in the regulation. That's quite much even for the FAA. Still seems that there's a 1 year waiting period before it kicks in, can't quite figure it out actually.

Where is General Aviation heading in the future, Standard Category, LSA's / Mosaic, or will we all be riding on drones?

 

[SebIp]

Somehow for me this feels like the club scene for heterosexual man in their 20s.

As in they go and they all have same thing in mind but almost always goes home disappointed by themselves.

If cirrus is sold out I expect it will continue to.

I expect maybe some new exiting stuff will happen but nothing will change rapidly and maybe nothing practically will change inter aircraft market. There’s more than just regulation headwinds in my mind.

 

[Dana]

Mosaic seems promising but something like 1100 pages in the regulation. That's quite much even for the FAA. Still seems that there's a 1 year waiting period before it kicks in, can't quite figure it out actually.

Most of those pages are background and discussion of comments received.

The 1 year wait is mostly for the certification changes for new aircraft; the changes in maintenance and what a sport pilot can fly take effect in 90 days.

I wouldn't be surprised if Cirrus comes out with a 59kt stall speed model, though.

 

[Ed Haywood]

26 planes is less than 5% of their annual sales. Not sure you can draw many conclusions from a small sample size.

 

[hindsight2020]

Where is General Aviation heading in the future?

You're misattributing effect by citing sales in present circumstances. Just like housing, just because a few money bag types are transacting amongst each other, doesn't mean volume is growing. That dynamic will also increase median $ figures, doesn't mean a hill of beans to the street. To wit, there's a lot of unmet demand, but no supply in the price point most of us belong to (sub-100K).

The argument about depreciation is also specious. Monetary policy of the past decade ensures our wages never catch up to that depreciation. 20 years is a non-starter for most of us anyways. Most just move on and get a different hobby that's more democratic, the rest become professional pilots who by and large don't fly owner-recreational (many resemble the remark on here). ATP completions add little to the conversation about recreational aviation in the US, but people love conflating that.

The only bona fide nominal growth sector is EAB, and MOSAIC just added another incentive to it, by giving them a pass on mx rules (and by proxy, cost relief), while summarily shutting the door to the same benefit on the owners of fac-built, in the very next page of the same document. Oof.

Euro "neo-LSA" offerings will be speedy and sporty, but they'll be 375K+, which again, it's a non-starter here for everyone but those who read Flying magazine airplane reviews unironically/non-sarcastically.

 

[asicer]

Mosaic seems promising but something like 1100 pages in the regulation.

717 pages.

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/MOSAIC_Final_Rule_Issuance.pdf

The only bona fide nominal growth sector is EAB, and MOSAIC just added another incentive to it, by giving them a pass on mx rules (and by proxy, cost relief), while summarily shutting the door to the same benefit on the owners of fac-built, in the very next page of the same document. Oof.

...which is funny because in many spots of the document, they say that they want the changes to "enhance safety by allowing for a more appealing alternative to experimental amateur-built (EAB) aircraft that have higher fatal accident rates."