Some news from Oshkosh

by philg

My summer of travel precludes a trip to Oshkosh, Wisconsin this year for the big fly-in, but some interesting news is filtering out. Aspen Avionics will be starting sales of a glass cockpit for older certified airplanes costing between $15,000 and $25,000 (installed) for a complete set of instruments that will fit into the holes formerly occupied by mechanical gyros. This is less than half the cost of existing systems from Garmin, for example, which also tend to require more reengineering of the airplane’s dashboard. The primary flight display, showing attitude and heading, is about the same price as the mechanical instruments that it replaces.

In other news, Eclipse Aviation ripped one of the engines out of its very light jet. The new single-engine plane will enjoy a lower price, longer range, slightly slower cruise speed, and the same 41,000′ service ceiling to get above weather.

The Light Sport category of two-person airplanes heated up. Cessna revealed details of its 162 SkyCatcher, which will be delivered late in 2008 with a glass panel at a cost of $109,000. Full fuel payload, at 346 lbs. (stripped aircraft, presumably, with no options), will be inferior to the 1995 Diamond Katana. A good plane for anorexics. Cirrus, which has been slowly taking away all of Cessna’s piston-powered business, will be in the Light Sport market slightly earlier, with a product adapted from a design already certified in Europe.

11 thoughts on “Some news from Oshkosh”

  1. How are you calculating the full-fuel payload? The spec sheet says “useful load” is 490 lbs.

  2. Sweet. My understanding is that the light sport classification denotes the minimum pilot’s license level, and that a suitably credentialed pilot can fly a light sport aircraft at night, etc. Is that right?

  3. Useful load is maximum gross weight minus empty weight – it doesn’t include fuel. After adding full fuel (24 gals = 144 pounds), that leaves 346 pounds.

    Of course, you could skimp on fuel and fit more weight – at maximum endurance, it can fly for 6 hours, so with half fuel, you could fit 2x 200lb people and go up for 2.5 hours (with a half hour of fuel reserve).

  5. Phil, not sure if you were there yesterday (July 25th). Eclipse gave an awesome demo flight of their single engine jet. For me at least, this demo was better than the boring airshow with the exception of the Harrier jets at the end. Also, the prototype seemed well designed and finished.

    Curious how both Cirrus and Eclipse came up with such similar designs? (V-tail single engine jet).

    I agree about with your comments on the SkyCatcher (bad name imo) although Cessna had booked 472 orders for it when I was at their tent. For me it was too similar to the 152. Still, not a bad price. I guess the advantage over the Katana is that the skycatcher is light sport so you don’t need a medical. Also, if Diamond was still producing them, I’m sure they’d cost $130k.

    Other impressive aircraft (but not for the price $600k) was Diamond’s DA50. Very nice. I’ve got to start saving up those pennies…

  6. ghengis,
    I think you are mostly correct, but some light sport craft won’t have the equipment for night flight. And if your “etc” includes IFR, that might be prohibited by the manufacturer. At least I think I remember something like this: Rotax specifically excludes IFR flights using their engines.

    I’m at Oshkosh, the speaker at one of the workshops mentioned a new rule for light sport planes that is supposed to take effect soon. Supposedly you can file some paperwork and turn it into an experimental light sport (so LSA > ELSA). Once you do that, you can make drastic changes to a plane without needing the manufacturer’s permission. A father/son pair was going to upgrade a new LSA with all glass, so the father could fly as sport pilot, and the son could fly IFR.

  7. I was underwhelmed by the Cirrus LSA. The huge bubble canopy looks cool, but it also looks incredibly fragile. One good guest of wind coming from six o’clock will take it right off.

    And if you are lucky and the canopy stays on the airplane you are going to broil if you take it up on a typical Texas day.

    Maybe a huge inverted fishbowl works in North Dakota, but it’ll never work down here in Texas.

    I liked the Cessna 162. It’s pretty much an evolution of the Cessna 150, with a wider cabin. The 162 has a real airplane engine engineered for 100LL rather than a snowmobile engine that really wants mogas. The high wing will keep the cockpit liveable in the Texas summer.

    You’re right about the useful load, its a problem for every new airplane, especially the LSAs. I don’t think there is a single LSA with 400 pounds of full fuel useful load. I doubt if the Cirrus LSA will be any better, especially with the extra weight the parachute will require.

    Eclipse still does not include a separate and independent backup ADI on their ‘NG’ panel. I’ve never seen another IFR certified airplane of any kind, let alone a jet, that that didn’t have some kind of independent attitude device. Their story is that with 3 screens and 2 or 3 AHRS boxes that there is no chance of not having at least one working display.

    They told me that it is inconceivable that all three displays could fail at once. I asked Vern himself about this five years ago, and asked their sales people about that again this week. Same ‘don’t worry’ answer.

    Of course all 3 screens are controlled by the highly integrated computer system.

    I hope they are right and every other manufacturer is wrong about their not really being a need for an independent attitude device. If Vern is wrong and those screens go blank in IMC, people will die.

  10. Small, airplanes keep the airports open for the Lancairs of the world and those in turn keep the tower in business for the private jets.

    I believe that general aviation is an ecosystem with many niches that are all necessary. When I got my license in Spain in 1981 my airport, in a medium size city, had about 20 private airplanes parked on the “aeroclub” ramp. Now, more than 25 years later and in a country that is far wealthier, none is left. The smaller airplanes were the first to go.

    Does anyone think that the public is going to keep airports in prime real estate near large cities open so Johnny and his cousin can go for a ride on their jet once all the under $200K planes are gone?

    Let us hope that Cessna sells thousands of those little airplanes. 170lbs is just the normal weight for someone of average height, I think. It is not Cessna’s fault that so many USA pilots are fat.

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