Today’s Top Pick is a 2022 Diamond DA50.

Many pilots have seen the DA50 RG over the last two years or so. Those among us who are lucky have seen one up close, possibly at an airshow or trade gathering, sat in the cockpit and imagined ourselves at the controls on our way to a favorite destination.

This aircraft presents an opportunity to acquire a DA50 with low time instead of signing onto a long waiting list to buy one new from the factory.

Austria-based Diamond’s aircraft have sparked great interest in the U.S. for years because of their novel designs, composite structures, and efficient, economical jet-A fueled power plants that start with the press of a button instead of the lever gymnastics to which many of us are accustomed. One look at a DA50, or a skim of its POH, confirms that it is a modern airplane, not one designed during the middle of the last century.

This Diamond DA50 RG has 392 hours on the airframe, its 300 hp Continental CD-300 turbocharged, FADEC controlled diesel engine, and MT three-blade propeller. The aircraft is equipped with air conditioning, a TKS de-icing system and supplemental oxygen system.

The IFR panel features Garmin G1000 NXi avionics with dual GDU 105 10-inch displays for PFD and MFD, a Garmin GEA 71B airframe/engine interface, dual Garmin GIA 64W GPS/nav/comms with glidescope and localizer indicators, a GMA 1360 audio panel, GRS 79 AHRS, GDC 72 digital air data computer, GMU 44 magnetometer, GTX 345R transponder with ADS-B In and Out, GFC 700 autopilot, digital standby attitude module, Garmin Flight Stream 510, synthetic vision, WX 500 Stormscope, Avidyne TAS 605A traffic advisory system, GSR 56 Iridium satellite datalink, and Honeywell KN 63 DME.

Pilots looking for an advanced, fast, and efficient traveling aircraft that features familiar, easy-to-use automotive-style systems, should consider this 2022 Diamond DA50 RG which is available on AircraftForSale.

If you’re interested in financing, you can do so with FLYING Finance. Use its airplane loan calculator to calculate your estimated monthly payments. Or, to speak with an aviation finance specialist, visit flyingfinance.com.

• FLYING Magazine: We Fly: Diamond DA50 RG, the High-Performance Retract That Shines
• FLYING Magazine: First Diamond DA50 RG Sold at EAA AirVenture
• FLYING Magazine: Premier Aircraft Sales Takes First U.S. Retail Delivery of Diamond DA50 RG
• Plane & Pilot: Diamond DA50 RG Works to Create a Niche in North American Market
• Plane & Pilot: Will the Diamond DA50 Redefine Personal Flying?
• The Aviation Consumer: Diamond Gasses It: New Singles Planned
• AVweb: AirVenture 2021: Diamond’s New DA50 RG Debuts at Oshkosh

The post This 2022 Diamond DA50 Is an Advanced-But-Simplified ‘AircraftForSale’ Top Pick appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

TBM 900-series aircraft are the best selling single-engine turboprops in the 33-year history of the TBM 700 program. Total deliveries now exceed all the previous TBM 700- and TBM 800-series aircraft produced from 1990 to 2014. Daher has a 100-plus aircraft backlog for TBM 960, representing more than two years of production.

Nicolas Chabbert, senior vice president  of Daher’s aircraft division, says that the firm constantly looks for product improvements, seeks to enhance operational efficiency, and listens to customers’ concerns. “We are constantly listening to our customers feedback,” said Chabbert in a press briefing at the National Business Aviation Association’s Business Aviation Conference and Expo, “and thanks to our major suppliers and any of the vendors that are following this program, we are in constant evolution, and we are able to make step changes on the aircraft—some are minor, some are major,” like the Pratt & Whitney PT6E-66XT on the TBM 960.

To this end, TBM 900-series aircraft incorporate several aero upgrades, including a ram recovery engine air inlet that boosts power output in climb and cruise, stability enhancements, winglets to cut induced drag, and a Hartzell five-blade scimitar prop that improves takeoff performance and reduces noise.

The TBM 960 is powered by a 850 shp, EPECS (FADEC)-equipped PT6E-66XT that provides carefree handling by means of a single power lever that controls both prop and engine. Chabbert quipped in the briefing that no longer can jet operators boast that turbofan aircraft are easier to fly than turboprops. “A lot of our customers—as you can see, 92 of them—are super happy to have this edition, which basically makes them equal to all of their friends who are flying jets,” said Chabbert. “So now, turboprops first!” The 960’s touchscreen GTC-controlled Garmin G3000 avionics system features an autothrottle, upset recovery function, emergency descent mode, and HomeSafe emergency safe return auto landing system.

TBM Speed, Efficiency—and SAF

Top speed is 330 ktas, endowing the TBM 960 with light jet-like block times on everyday 300 nm missions, but with 40- to 50-percent fuel savings. Daher is striving to provide sustainable aviation solutions, including starting flight tests of its Ecopulse TBM hybrid-electric aircraft, developed jointly with Airbus and Safran, in 2024. Chabbert also is a strong proponent of switching from fossil-based jet fuel to sustainable aviation fuel as the most promising short-term means of achieving zero net aircraft emissions by 2050. 

“We need people to invest and to trust the future and to make that aviation fuel available on a large scale,” said Chabbert. “We just cannot go neutral on a very small portion; we need major investment from petroleum companies first but we also have to have all of the users adopt SAF—this is the key to success.”

The post TBM 900 Series Marks 500 Deliveries for Daher appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

A: You have a great question, and this topic does not get enough attention. One could argue that the automotive business and aviation began at almost the exact time stamp in history, 1903. On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers took their first manned flight near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Coincidentally, Henry Ford established the Ford Motor Company in 1903 and began producing the Model A. While the two industries are forever linked, one has outpaced the other in innovation, advanced design, and embracing emerging technologies. Why indeed have automotive piston-powered engines pulled ahead of their aircraft counterparts? Although there are many reasons, the main three drivers are market, oversight, and need. 

Market

In my Earth Day article for FLYING online, I cite sources that highlight the average age of automobiles (12.1) versus those of general aviation aircraft (30 years). Simple economics dictate that autos will receive greater attention in terms of upgraded tech because they’ve seen twice the replacement rate. Innovation costs money, and innovators rely on investors for that capital. Compare the number of automobiles on the road against the number of general aviation aircraft, and you can understand where investors see their ROI. 

The aviation entry barrier is steep. Projects are constantly overdue and way over budget. A familiar parable around the hangar states, “how do you make a small fortune in aviation? Start with a large one.” In all seriousness, there are scholarly journals that tackle this very issue. The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health produced a work entitled “Analysis of Technological Innovation and Environmental Performance Improvement in Aviation Sector,” which states in its conclusion, “The long lead time in product development and fleet turnover, as well as the high costs associated with radical technological breakthroughs, were also major barriers.” 

Oversight 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regulates automobiles and auto parts and oversees vehicle-safety issues at the federal level. The FAA governs all things aircraft in the U.S. The path to approval, certification, and production is exponentially longer for aircraft. For example, Car and Driver magazine mentions that the average time from conceptual idea to production is approximately six years for automobiles. In stark contrast, it took Honda 18 years to dream, develop, and produce the first certificated HondaJet. Honda had the resources to wait. Most entities do not. 

Need 

In all honesty, until the added focus on climate change in the 21st century, there was not a demand for groundbreaking innovation. The horizontally opposed air-cooled reciprocating aircraft engine works very well. During my 10-year tenure as an engine shop owner, I saw a lot of engines, but not a single FADEC unit rolled through the shop—though this is rapidly changing now. The innovations coming to aircraft recip power today are guided not by demand for a more reliable powerplant but a cleaner, more fuel-efficient one.

The post Why Haven’t Leaps in Engine Tech Reached GA? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The battle of limited supply versus high demand is spilling off the roadway and onto the runway. The price volatility confronting pilots at the pump at general aviation airports has provoked some uncertainty when it comes to travel plans. “The primary driver of the price volatility has been supply disruption,” Muneed Ahmed, director of trading and logistics for Avfuel, a global supplier of aviation fuel and services to the general and business aviation markets, told FLYING earlier this week. 

• READ MORE: Will GA Have a Fuel Problem?

“Currently, jet-A inventories in the U.S. are at one of the lowest levels since 2000,” he said. 

However, a past crisis helps put the current situation into perspective.

‘The Party Is Over‘

In the U.S., fluctuations of fuel supply levels—no matter how short lived—can be potent enough to conjure ghosts of energy crises past. In the fall of 1973, the U.S. was slapped with an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo that forced the entirety of the nation to atone for its dependence on foreign oil. 

The crisis was potent enough to spur the creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), a complex of underground storage caves in salt domes along the coast of Texas and Louisiana. 

“The 1973 oil embargo underscored the need for a strategic oil reserve,” said Michelle McCaskill, spokesperson for the Defense Logistics Agency, which purchased the first fill of crude oil for the SPR. “The SPR is a strategic asset for the U.S., serving as an emergency storage reserve for crude oil and fuel. It is the largest emergency supply of oil in the world, holding up to 727 million barrels of oil.”

The stockpile is a form of insurance meant to keep the sepia-toned memories of car lines with anxious drivers awaiting rations of fuel stretching around city blocks at bay. The shortages of the 1973 fuel crisis meant drivers had to reprioritize and reconsider non-essential travel. 

On the nation’s runways, the story was no different.  

“The PARTY is over,” a FLYING staff report said in January 1974, less than three months after the embargo began. “The day of plentiful inexpensive fuel has passed and we have been thrust suddenly into an era of expensive and scarce fuel.”

1973 Crisis

In the early 1970s, cheap fuel was everywhere. It was a fairytale time for travel, and an era that gave birth to aircraft like the fuel-hungry Concorde, an airplane that legendarily burned 2 tons of fuel just while taxiing out to the runway. 

The embargo, which ran from October 1973 through March the following year, hit everywhere across the U.S., especially in aviation. Fuel prices at GA airports went up and rationing set in.  On November 26, 1973, the Presidential Administration proposed that GA fuel supplies would be slashed by up to 50 percent, sparking a run by aircraft owners to sell, FLYING reported at the time. 

At airports, the FAA made efforts to save precious fuel by minimizing ground delays. Air traffic controllers were instructed to clear flights along direct routes when possible and to offer vectors to eliminate airway doglegs. Gate-hold procedures were in place at all major airports, and IFR aircraft were told to stay parked until it was time to fire up engines for takeoff. There was even a short-lived FAA ban on Sunday fuel sales at FBOs. All were efforts to conserve every drop of fuel.

“After one FAA center chief outlined the steps being taken to help conserve fuel, he said there just wasn’t much else they could do other than turn the thermostats down to 68, douse the unnecessary lights and form car pools,” one FLYING report noted. 

• FROM THE ARCHIVES: March 1974 Fuel Report – More Expensive Than Scarce

The industry, manufacturers in particular, were forced into a period of introspection. Prior to the crisis, 1974 had the hallmarks of a banner year of sale for aircraft makers, “but the fuel shortage clouded the crystal ball,” according to one FLYING report in March 1974. Cessna, for example, was forced to lay off 2,400 workers and downgrade sales projections for the year from 9,000 aircraft to 6,600—yet still a healthy number compared to current production figures.

“Even though all manufacturers will no doubt take a long and critical look at new airplanes [which are expensive to develop], there is no indication that research and development efforts are dropping off the line,” FLYING reported. “In fact, the development of more fuel-efficient airplanes might spur greatly increased R&D efforts in many places.”

NASA Innovations

If anything, the fuel crisis that began in 1973 underscored the adage that necessity is the mother of invention.

“There’s a real realization in the United States that this emphasis on higher, faster, and farther in flight” needs to be tempered with more fuel efficient initiatives, such as that occurring in the automotive industry, Dr. Jeremy Kinney, associate director of research and curatorial affairs at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., told FLYING in a recent interview.

The fuel crisis gave way to innovation, with NASA taking up the challenge of making the airplane and the jet engine more efficient, Kinney explained. During the decade-long Aircraft Energy Efficiency program, NASA set a goal of reducing fuel consumption by 50 percent, through initiatives that improved internal components of engines. It also focused on designing a new engine from the ground up with the goal of decreasing fuel consumption and increasing cruise speeds.

Other advances stemming from the program included lighter materials for aircraft structures, and wing modifications, which moved the industry into earlier applications for realizing potentially significant fuel savings, the General Accounting Office told members of Congress.

“NASA was working with industry,” such as Pratt & Whitney and General Electric, “and looking at configurations of these engines and how that actually influences what the manufacturers put into their engines into production,” Kinney said. “The idea is to create a new engine, so you’re no longer using these classic engines like the JT3D and the JT9D…because they’re taking advantage of the materials, the construction, the combustor and turbine design, as well as the controls,” such as full authority digital engine control, or FADEC—now found on many modern piston and turboprop powerplants.

“That is a part of the result of this work, to make everything more efficient,” Kinney said.

It was technology aimed at minimizing fuel burn that would later contribute to the development of the world’s largest turbofan engine, the GE90, Kinney said. About two decades later, General Electric’s high bypass turbofan jetliner engine would go on to debut on a Boeing 777.

In the Advanced Turboprop Project, which came along later in 1978, NASA researched how to increase efficiency of what was essentially a propeller-driven turbine engine by about 30 percent, Kinney said. 

In the age of jet engines, reverting back to propellers in the name of innovation was a bold concept. 

“The energy crisis of the early 1970s served as the catalyst for renewed government interest in aeronautics and NASA launched this ambitious project to return to fuel saving, propeller-driven aircraft,” according to a NASA document detailing the history of the program. “The Arab oil embargo brought difficult times to all of America, but the airline industry, in particular, suffered and feared for its future in the wake of a steep rise in fuel prices. NASA responded to these fears by creating a program to improve aircraft fuel efficiency.”

Research involved 15 university grants, more than 40 industrial contracts, and research at four NASA research centers. The advanced turboprop concepts were so successful that the NASA team won the National Aeronautic Association’s top award, the Robert J. Collier Trophy, in 1987. 

“It amounts to a reinvention of the technology, especially for short and medium routes,” Kinney said. “This particular project was so ambitious because it was about inventing a new type of powerplant,” he said.

Despite the technological success, the turboprop revolution that many foretold was coming never happened because of the lack of public buy-in. 

“From the beginning, it was the perception of an energy crisis, not a technological innovation, that spurred the idea of the project itself,” NASA’s history of the program recounted in 1998. “As the project progressed, within each technological stage, the engineers used distinctive and creative approaches to deal with the complex web of government, industry, and academic contractors. More often than not, the main question was not does the technology work, but how can we get government, industry, and the public to accept this technology? In the end, it was a socioeconomic issue again which shelved the program. The reduction of fuel prices ended the necessity for fuel conservation in the skies and today the advanced turboprop remains a neglected, or ‘archived’ technology.”

While the application of the project’s findings may have been shelved—and not typically applied to the commuter market—advances in turboprop engines such as the FADEC enabled Pratt & Whitney PT6E series have propelled single- and multiengine GA airplanes to cruise at similar altitudes (up to 31,000 ft), albeit at somewhat slower speeds (up to Mach 0.56 rather than Mach 0.8).

It would be one of many lessons that came from 1973, Kinney said.

“It’s a technology that was on a plateau,” Kinney said. “Unfortunately, by the time they were getting ready to integrate the design and really invest the money in the development of what the system was and how it worked, fuel prices [went] back down and there was no longer a need.” 

The Advanced Turboprop Project was, according to NASA historians, a case study demonstrating “how radical innovation can emerge from within a conservative, bureaucratic government agency.” 

It was also part of a movement in the industry where the collective of academia, industry, and the government were focused on not only surviving the oil crisis of 1973, but thriving on the other side of it.

“It united aviation in a way that they had a goal to work toward,” Kinney said. “There are many different reasons to improve the airplane, and none better than to save money on gas.”

The post How Aviation Weathered the Fuel Crisis of the 1970s appeared first on FLYING Magazine.