I would be on the phone this morning to change my order to an XLT and wouldn't think twice. The XLT has numerous advantages in my opinion and you touched on some. Lower stall speed, more reliable engine, parts and maintenance expertise availability to name a few. It's not nearly as smooth, uses more...

I thought the Austros were almost as reliable as a PT-6 or so "ultraturtle" said. And the "unreliable" Lycomings just keep on ticking... Feel bad for the Austro owners. This might not be the time... Probably not, but it might give someone pause about buying in to all the Austro ...

Sounds like a continuation of the downward spiral of bad news for DAI. The Austro engines have been intermittently unreliable for a number of failure reasons as has been well depicted here on DAN since Diamond brought them in-house from Mercedes. As a prospective new buyer or current owner, why wou...

This happened to our DA20-A1 years ago and before we bought her. The pilot was unaware that the nose wheel had departed the airplane. It became apparent on the next landing when the prop contacted the ground. The composite Hoffman prop merely ground itself away on landing. Repairs included new prope...

I feel for you guys with the Austros - replacing gearboxes, pumps, injectors, ECU faults, coolant leaks. Yeah they run smooth and sip Jet-A, but I really don't see the advantages when you spend so much on repairs and suffer the downtime. Give me a Lycoming IO-360-M1B anytime (neighbor has 3500+ hou...

As I recall from our DA20 nose gear removal quite a few years ago - it's not as easy as it looks. I'm guessing the pivots may have been corroded and that necessitated the shop to cut the strut out. Or maybe you are correct - they didn't want you reusing that strut. If that's the case, shame on them.

Given that current ethanol subsidies (tax credits) are on the order of $1.01 U.S. per gallon under the guise of promoting "clean air", it seems like a subsidy for the incremental cost of G100UL versus 100LL would be a no brainer It appears we sell 413,000 gallons of 100LL per day here, whi...

No wastegates, turbochargers or ECU's on DA40-180's. The Lycomings are like Timex watches...

I have stayed in Camp Scholler a couple of times at the improved sites. They open for reservations about one month ahead of OSH. However, you pay the daily rate for these spots starting the day you make a reservation and you cannot shorten the length of stay - it runs until the end of the show. The ...

Can't speak to the DA42 or -62 (out of my price range), but I have co-owned two DA40-180's. One had the three bladed MT and the other, the larger diameter two bladed, wide chord composite Hartzell. Operating off our reasonably well maintained grass strip, the MT was much less damage tolerant than th...