Do you have to lower the gear once chute has been pulled?
172driver wrote:
Wonder what that does to the survivability of a crash under the chute. Can’t be too great hitting the ground at 45 deg nose down at 2000ft/min
That seems strange at first, but thinking about it, it’s similar to car crash then, where they design the front part to absorb most of the energy in case of a crash. Looking at the aircraft, you have more ‘stuff’ between the front of the aircraft and the cabin than between the bottom of the aircraft and the cabin, ie potentially more to absorb the energy of the crash. But that needs to be designed accordingly, and engine mounts and chassis in cars are quite different than the ones in planes…
Having had a long standing interest in the Panthera, I thought I’d email Pipistrel to get some up to date information on certification as the website is clearly out of date, as it suggests certification this year.
They responded quickly however the numbers are all increasing…
Current price for “experimental” Panthera, with a G3X avionics package is 650k euro. That’s factory finished, but I assume only usable in the US market.
CS.23 certification is expected for 2024, with a current base price of 725k euro. This apparently includes G1000Nxi, a new wing(!?), “enhanced airframe features” and IFR capability.
I wonder why they’re redesigning the wing? G1000 will surely be old hat by 2024 as well. Is this perhaps mission creep, or is there some problem preventing certification with the current aircraft? Thoughts?
Now that Textron has purchased Pipistrel, it would make sense that they want a Cirrus competitor.
This would involve serious mission creep though, Panthera airframe was originally designed for an IO390 and already has an IO540, adding turbo and TKS to give it the same capability as an SR22 would surely end up in a major redesign.
In its current form, it has better MPG than cirrus or any other 4 seat SEP, I think. 198ktas at 14.8GPH/75% is what they quote, which I assume is LOP.
… which still remains to be seen once the TKS panels etc. have been added and the aircraft is certified.
And OF COURSE it will cost 1 million. Nobody would be so stupid to offer a modern, certified IFR high-performance single for 500k. Yield management…
2024 would be 12 years after the aircraft has been presented to the public….
In its current form, it has better MPG than cirrus or any other 4 seat SEP, I think. 198ktas at 14.8GPH/75% is what they quote, which I assume is LOP.
I think you can get near 200kts on 15GPH in few other new 4-seaters (Cirrus, Columbia) but we are talking +FL250? one can do that with less GPH using an old rusty IFR 4-seater that was certified in 1979 !
More realistic MPG/TAS would be 180kts on 10GPH LOP at 18kft, not many fly above that without pressurisation…
There was another one advertised a year or so ago, also in the US. We discussed it here at the time. Great in the US, the usual “uncertified” debate for Europe 
What I thought interesting about this one is that it’s being sold two years from new with 250 hours. Maybe the owner has a short attention span.
The most recent flight is here and the track log data provides some indication of cruise performance.
The FAA registration is curious, showing a valid registration but no airworthiness data such as ‘experimental’ or other airworthiness category. One would want to check that out very carefully, and the operating limitations to avoid buying a paperweight, even for intended use in US airspace.
