redRover wrote:
I wonder if you could get it down to 80k or so
It’s fully possible anywhere in the world, and a few examples exists. Whats needed is:
The main problem is the second point. The business model doesn’t make sense in a corporate world. When money and return of investment is all that counts, such a company is a dead end. The corporate solution to this is larger and more expensive planes (TP/jet category for commercial/state use), or find customers willing to pay a LOT (military drones). Also, the private GA market does not show the usual signs that low price = many sales. Maybe it’s just too small, I don’t know. For both European microlights and US LSA, the best selling planes cost 100-200k, even above 200k, not less than 100k, even though there are many more different types below 100k than above. It’s like the private GA market is not really a market of tangible items. It’s more like a market where personal dreams are being traded. Most “consumers” in that market are middle aged men, 40 and up, and they are willing to spend lots of money on their life long dream, the more the merrier it seems. For many of those, money is not really problem at all.
But, there are examples. There are a handful of stubborn and strong willed individual that do whatever they can to produce affordable aircraft. They succeed to varying degree. The main problem they face is that the average potential buyer is one of those dreamers with lots of money to spend.
One should not mix up two different propositions: building an IFR tourer, and building something for ab initio PPL training. They can both be done in one plane and have been done thus, but nowadays, in most of the world, you can’t.
Obviously the latter is a much bigger market. Then we get into the discussion of why the 162 failed, but that is a separate discussion from the TB20 one 
It is hard to get a plane below the “several hundred k” figure because you have to pay for the engine, and I reckon an IO540 is about $50k. Then you have some avionics and there may be new ways to reduce that nowadays, a bit. How Cirrus justify the $1M I don’t know, however. Well, 200k goes to the dealer… Maybe another 50-100k funds the warranty.
Peter wrote:
an IFR tourer
That market is minuscule, even within the already tiny private GA market. It is also well covered with Cirruses, Diamond twins and higher. In the “lower” end it is all RV/Lancair (at least where I live and in the US) + an odd ancient Cessna and Piper. For going A to B IFR, why would you want something else than a Cirrus or a Diamond if you can afford one? The only reason I can think of, is you want something more, something with a TP. If you cannot afford a Cirrus, there are RV/Lancair. They offer affordability, looks and performance, and there is also the C-182 for more versatile utility. Remember, the market is minuscule.
The “problems” with an RV down at the European continent is an odd mix of bureaucracy and “psychology”. It cannot possibly be solved by technology.
All in all, the market for IFR tourers is well served even if it’s super tiny. You got everything there, and they are all brand new aircraft. From affordable as it gets, but high performance RVs to sky is the limit bizjets. It’s still odd though, this market is alive to some extent while certified GA as a whole is stone dead.
That market is minuscule
How many did Cirrus sell?
And they are nowhere near dominating it in terms of the total population.
Cirrus is certainly the obvious choice, but it is really expensive, and it’s not obvious why it is so expensive.
Peter wrote:
Well, yes, but Mooney have practically zero credibility in today’s market, IMHO, there is close to zero interest in diesel in the USA, and no chute.
That is not what the initial reaction was, particularly in the US GA press and also on dedicated Mooney forums. The interest in the M10 stopped like being cut off with a knife when the company answered the question about the shute in the negative. Before that, there was quite some enthusiasm really, as both the M10T and J would have filled a spot on the market which is still vacant, a reasonably priced trainer and traveller for 2+1 with quite decent performance.
As for credibility, the “Ultra” line is not selling that bad considering what their own predictions were. They said they were aiming for about 10 airplanes per year initially and possibly double that once they were fully established. I’ve seen an Ultra here in Zurich (the very first one is now in Swiss hands) and it’s an awsome airplane which also has that 2nd door it was lacking all those years. A guy I know from the same airfield was invited to come onto the ferry flight and he, who is experienced in the M20K, came back raving about the Acclaim Ultra…. If I was in that market, I’d certainly consider it.
Peter wrote:
To market a diesel, one would have to start from outside the USA and establish there.
In this case, the T model was aimed at the Chinese market and I reckon that is where they wanted to build at least parts of them as well. Which I personally think is a market which does not exist,so that was an additional mistake. The reason it got cancelled however was claimed to be certification, which proved too expensive to complete. I am not sure I buy that though. Even though I heard from one of the former project managers that they had serious inquiries for the T from flight schools as well in Europe as from the US, but ALL of them immediately stopped asking further when the shute question was raised.
Personally I think that with a view to todays used market, there is only a very tiny fraction of pilots who would even remotely consider buying new, primarily as in the used market you can get almost everything for a song these days, even very high performance airplanes are available at 1/10th or less of the price of a new similar plane. Particularly people with lots of money are well aware of this. Due to the horrendous prices of the new planes, depreciation is so brutal that only true enthusiasts with a huge pocketbook will ever get into that range.
That was also the answer I got from some folks on the Mooney forums when I asked why the new planes including the M10 was not a subject of discussion there. Practically NOBODY is in the market for a new plane as they are out of reach for 99% of the GA population.
So any new design would have to do two things for sure: Have a shute and cost maximum 1/4th of what todays offerings are. The easy answer is, you can’t even think of building and certifying that in either the US nor Europe and if it was developed and built in China or the Philippines, both the FAA and EASA would throw everything in their power to kill it in certification, not unlike the Chinese cars which are trying to be accepted in Europe. And while there is a very upcoming market for cars in China, there is no GA market there.
One has to be careful with GA press, because it relies heavily on advertising, and cannot really write anything negative. The US “Flying” magazine (I read it for a number of years) was the worst, despite valliant efforts by J. “Mac” McClellan to speak his mind about some junk he flew… he moved on the moment the mag was taken over.
One also has to be careful with type specific forums, because they get extremely religious. Some of the stuff I saw on COPA (Cirrus) was pretty amazing… Years ago I posted a Q about that STC to restore the prop rpm lever and it was like walking into a catholic church and alleging Mary got pregnant via casual sex Then it got worse, later on… much worse. But they love that stuff there. Nowadays it is a part of what is called an “ecosystem”. The Socata forum was bad enough at times…
I don’t think aircraft certification would be affected by foreign manufacture, because already Socata buys bits from all over the place: the car parts trade (windscreen wiper motors → flap motors), the UL/kitplane market (loads of parts e.g. brake master cylinders), and they can certify anything under their TC authority. They just need to get a CofC from the vendor, which is just a sham piece of paper (we print them all day at work 
) which says it conforms to the spec. But obviously this is political – in France and in the USA equally.
Whether you could build a $250k “TB20” I don’t know. Somebody in the business would have to throw down some numbers for the parts. Take the known list prices, take off say 40%.
Peter wrote:
it was like walking into a catholic church and alleging Mary got pregnant via casual sex
ROFL! That one WILL be archived for appropriate use :)
mof, mooneyspace is usually quite open to new stuff, particularly if it is from Mooney. That is what amazed me. Somehow I can’t believe the COPA crowd would simply ignore a new model coming up because they are not in the market: First of all a sizable chunk of the Cirrus crowd will upgrade regularly up to the SF50 and secondly, those who don’t still will sing the high praise of the company. But in the Mooney crowd, the Ultras got some very positive remarks (as they should) but far from the hype a new G12 Cirrus will get. The M10 was to my knowledge only discussed in 2-3 messages, until the word on the Parashute came out. Thereafter, nothing. And those are the same people who will forever bemoan the demise of the M20J.
Peter wrote:
Somebody in the business would have to throw down some numbers for the parts.
Well… in practice it IS done in the “experimental” market where factories build these planes for inept future owners. The price of uncertified engines and avionics is a fraction of the certified stuff. If for instance regulations would go this way and say, for non-commercial <2t operation with max 4 seats you can use all those nice goodies you can see on the other side of the Aero Exhibit and the same engines and all you’d need to get to sell those is a hugely abbreviated flight test program along the lines of the experimental ones, it could be done I think. Oh yes, and if the US would throw away their producer liability laws for those airplanes as well and simply state “own and fly at your own risk”.
Peter wrote:
I don’t think aircraft certification would be affected by foreign manufacture, because already Socata buys bits from all over the place: the car parts trade (windscreen wiper motors → flap motors), the UL/kitplane market (loads of parts e.g. brake master cylinders), and they can certify anything under their TC authority. They just need to get a CofC from the vendor, which is just a sham piece of paper (we print them all day at work ) which says it conforms to the spec.
I think mostly the OEM manufacturers want to buy TSO’d parts, apparently to ease their own airframe certification process. This is even more a consideration when the airframe design is already certified. Here is an example of some of the paperwork you need to generate to sell (for example) wheels and brakes developed for the Experimental market for use in manufacture of certified planes. The engineering testing for the TSO is described here and involves building a lot of test rigs, data acquisition etc.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Somehow I can’t believe the COPA crowd would simply ignore a new model coming up because they are not in the market
It seems hard for Europeans to understand that virtually nobody cares about new planes in the US, they are a fringe activity on the edges of a much larger core activity. People have active lives, and the slice devoted to aviation gets focused on their own possessions and interests, and things that they might buy.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
The price of uncertified engines and avionics is a fraction of the certified stuff
It certainly is not. The difference between a certified Lycoming and a non certified is less than 10%. A Rotax 912 iS is the same price as a Lycoming 320. Avionics is another matter, but in Europe any radio used in whatever aircraft must be certified. Any transponder used in whatever aircraft must be certified. Any IFR avionics used in whatever aircraft must be certified. The only thing that’s cheaper is the glass panel itself. But even with the panel, sky is the limit for non-certified stuff also.
