From Avweb
I don't buy any of their marketing swings. This is a four seat aircraft powered by a 210 horsepower, normally aspirated Lycoming engine. 200 knots? A Mooney M20J has amost identical horsepower, retractable gear and arguably good aerodynamics (at least for late seventies standards). A good one does 160 knots true at high cruise power (75%).
With its 10 additional horses and further advanced aerodynamics, I would say it can reach 180 knots true. But 200 knots? Everybody knows that the jump from 180 to 200 knots is a very big one, because drag increases a lot.
Also, they are doing lots of talk about fuel flows in the 8 to 9 GPH region, but don't let them fool you. The IO-390 will burn about 11.5 GPH at 75% power (as opposed to about 10.5GPH on the 200 HP IO-360). Of course, you can fly it LOP, and at significantly lower power settings, but then you won't do 180 knots...). Now if they had a turbocharged engine, then these numbers (200 knots) could be just about possible. But they don't. A Diesel would make this even more interesting. Maybe the AE300 could work. The SMA would probably be a bit too heavy, though.
It will be interesting to see if they can keep the empty weight of a real, certified and equipped aircraft under 700 kgs. That would indeed be an achievement.
At Aero, they told me they weren't even considering TKS, but rather looking at some "new technologies". Sounds like the deicing option won't be available until maybe 2023...
Anyway, whilst I will keep an eye on the project, I am really not interested as a buyer. It's not only that 500+k Euros is too much for me, but also because:
-I hate the looks of the aircraft. Sure, this is subjective, but just look at the entire tail section...looks like a Taifun motorglider...
-on the ground, visibility over the nose is very poor. Probably a little (but not much) better in flight.
-the aircraft is not really comfortable as such. Pipstrel openly admit this and say that the aircraft was designed for speed and efficiency - no compromises taken. The rear passengers have little space for their feet because the gear wells get into the way.
This ELA could become like the microlight class and the 1999kg Meridians/Senecas: on paper restricted to 1200kg but in reality always significantly overweight.
One can get used to the looks, I know from experience. First time I saw a Cessna 152 at my FTO, I said "what an ugly POS, am I supposed to fly in that?" 
I can't find any data on the IO-390 beyond what is here but it doesn't say whether it is "best power" (typ. 120F ROP) or "best economy" (peak EGT).
LOP doesn't give you better MPG, except as a few-percent-max second order effect at low RPM, possibly...
I don't think a Mooney has good aerodynamics.
We will have to see how this pans out.
€470k is too much. I wonder why so much?
Combined GPS+VHF antennae were mentioned earlier. They don't do much for aerodynamics because you are replacing one of these
with one of these
which is basically the same thing (slightly taller). The standard GPS antennae are almost insignificant - c. 0.1kt speed loss.
GPS antennae can be flush, in the composite, though I don't know of any off the shelf ones, so Pipistrel would have to scallop out the upper surface to make them flush. One could embed a VHF antenna or two in the vertical stabiliser. Any VS already has the NAV/LOC/GS antennae so when you buy a complete replacement VS for say a TB20, it comes with a length of coax cable hanging out of the bottom end of it.
I said "what an ugly POS, am I supposed to fly in that?"
That's because a PPL in a C150 might be €10k but a PPL in a proper plane (like, ahem, one which you might actually want to fly afterwards, somewhere real and where the food is edible, which rules out the vast majority of airport cafes) might be €15k
Looking at the above pictures of the TB20, the door hinges could account for the speed difference between the Panthera and the TB20...
Peyer, why do you say LOP doesn't significantly change MPG? It does in mine.
With its 10 additional horses and further advanced aerodynamics, I would say it can reach 180 knots true. But 200 knots? Everybody knows that the jump from 180 to 200 knots is a very big one, because drag increases a lot.
I agree with this - you need about half the drag (53% precisely) to get that speed increase!
However, they did pull off 160 KTAS at 9.5GPH, which must be about 55% power. This implies they have about 70% of the drag that an M20J has. This would then imply about 183 KTAS at 75% power.
Does anyone have the performance charts for the IO390? What percentage power is it throwing out at FL140 when doing 9.5GPH?
why do you say LOP doesn't significantly change MPG? It does in mine.
Relative to peak EGT, there is no SFC improvement because you are already stochiometric.
Test it very carefully at a constant IAS and RPM (i.e. constant power).
What percentage power is it throwing out at FL140 when doing 9.5GPH?
Assuming peak EGT, is it probably doing something similar to my IO-540, but I don't have any charts for that better than this one which is at some unknown setting.
My TB20 would be doing about 140kt TAS at 9.5GPH, so 160kt in something that is obviously so much more aerodynamic is not suprising.
A quick google gave me this
At absolute best with everything set up just right, they can't have been doing more than about 61% power. I would guess they were nearer 55, so 183KTAS or thereabouts at 75% is probably right.
10GPH is at about 65% power (135HP) when perfectly set up. To achieve 200KTAS at this power setting they would have to achieve a drag coefficient about 40% of an M20J, and 30% of a TB20. Hats off to them if they can do it, I remain sceptical.
