DA40 NG nominated "Plane of the Year", open for votings

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Kai
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Re: DA40 NG nominated "Plane of the Year", open for votings

Post by Kai »

Antoine wrote: I d love to test fly a DA40 with the 155 hp Centurion.
2 questions:
Why are you saying the NG has shorter landing distances?
And did they already annouce 2000 hours TBO?
1. In order to test fly a DA40 with the 155 hp Centurion, please, contact discretely the Chinese Diamond factory. I believe they still use that engine on their current production.

2. Actually I wanted to say "Take-off distance, ground roll is shorter" and it is based on everything I have seen so far. A DA40 tdi takes for ever to roll, always more than 400 metres even with half tanks and the pilot only. NG has its wheels up with full load after 370 metres. Nevertheless, the NG also needs less runway for landing. The landing ground roll of the NG is of 270 metres according to their sales brochure. At the same settings the TDI needs 284 metres to stop. Not worth mentioning.

3. Nope, not announced. It is planned but not approved by the EASA yet. I confused it. Have corrected that up there again.
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Re: DA40 NG nominated "Plane of the Year", open for votings

Post by Thomas »

And another point ... Not to be forgotten. The Thielert is becoming an US (Chinese) engine. I am quite shure that at a point, Diamond is going to offer the NG with that engine on the US market. Maybe even the DA42. In the next 2 to 3 month a STC for the 42 will be available for the 155 TDI. Then it will be a real competitior to the Cirrus, and maybe a be a hot seller in the US once Continental is marketing the Centurion in the US. The twin with the heavy Austros has double the advantage of the lighter engine with the same power.
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Re: DA40 NG nominated "Plane of the Year", open for votings

Post by Antoine »

Kai :)
1. My Mandarin is too limited. But maybe the Thielert demonstrator plane I once saw in Straubing is available for a test ride?
2. I can imagine that extra power, a better prop and winglets give a shorter take off run despite the weight penalty, but why would the heavier plane slow down quicker? AAAAHHH yes, I KNOW. Must be the drag of the cowling?

3. 2000 TBO would be terrific news, especially for our '42 friends here. Whenever Austro achieve this, there will be a very compelling story on cost of ownership of a DA42/52 versus twins using Lycosaurs.

Thomas:
Interesting logic, but I wonder if Diamond can afford it. Keep in mind they have about 50 million Euro in the AE venture. They just need every single sale to limit the financial mess. And also, the more Austro Engines they sell, the more service stations will want the business and be willing to pay for training. So I think that Diamond will continue to want Centurions out of the way.
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Re: DA40 NG nominated "Plane of the Year", open for votings

Post by CFIDave »

Kai wrote:But I also trust that the Austro engine is sturdier than the Centurion can ever be. It can be overhauled and does not have to be replaced. Personally, I think the new Austro will not have as many forced landings as the Centurions and not even as the Lycomings.
To my knowledge there has NEVER been an Austro engine failure, as compared to many Thielert engine failures in flight (I met someone in NJ who experienced this in his DA42 and made a single-engine landing). I was comforted by this fact when ferrying our Austro-powered plane across the cold North Atlantic last year.

It is correct to say that the Centurion has a 1500 hour TBR (Replacement) whereas the Austro has a 1500 hour TBO (Overhaul). However, Austro Engines has not published (or developed?) overhaul procedures for the AE300 engine. Thus when an Austro engine reaches TBO and the owner ships the engine to Wiener Neustadt for an overhaul, the owner gets a brand new replacement engine in return (for the much cheaper overhaul price :-D )

Why? Because it's cheaper and easier for Austro to replace an AE300 engine core with a new Mercedes OM640 auto engine core compared to the higher cost and labor required to overhaul a timed-out engine. Unlike Centurion, Austro can use a stock Mercedes car engine (unfortunately with its original heavier cast-iron block).
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Re: DA40 NG nominated "Plane of the Year", open for votings

Post by CFIDave »

Thomas wrote:The Thielert is becoming an US (Chinese) engine. I am quite shure that at a point, Diamond is going to offer the NG with that engine on the US market. Maybe even the DA42. In the next 2 to 3 month a STC for the 42 will be available for the 155 TDI. Then it will be a real competitior to the Cirrus, and maybe a be a hot seller in the US once Continental is marketing the Centurion in the US. The twin with the heavy Austros has double the advantage of the lighter engine with the same power.
I could see a US Diamond distributor like Premier in the US offering the 155hp Centurion 2.0s engine for retrofit once there's an STC available for the DA42, since they've already been replacing 1.7 engines with 2.0 engines. But it's extremely unlikely that Diamond will ever offer that engine on new DA40NGs or any new DA42 aircraft -- Diamond seems to be quite happy with the performance and reliability of the Austros. To further increase the useful load of new DA42-VI aircraft (which were already lightened relative to the DA42NG), Diamond has promised a 100 kg weight increase.

Diamond has a backlog of more than a hundred DA40NG/Tundra models equipped with Austro AE300 engines for delivery to the Russians, Koreans, etc. Their Wiener Neustadt factory is building them as fast as they can be produced -- to the point that Diamond is having to delay DA42-VI production.

A more interesting speculation would be that Diamond might make a software change to increase the max turbo boost to bump the horsepower of the Austro AE300 from 168 hp to 180 hp. The same E4C-model AE300 engines currently used in the DA42-VI are also used in the upcoming DA52 where they produce 180 hp. This would likely require additional re-certification for DA40 or DA42 models, since a horsepower increase would affect published V-speeds such as Vmc.
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Re: DA40 NG nominated "Plane of the Year", open for votings

Post by Keith M »

Antoine wrote:I can imagine that extra power, a better prop and winglets give a shorter take off run despite the weight penalty, but why would the heavier plane slow down quicker? AAAAHHH yes, I KNOW. Must be the drag of the cowling?
Antoine, you piqued my interest enough to check the figures in their respective AFMs. This is how they compare (distances in metres):

Code: Select all

     |  50ft/GR    |    50ft/GR  |
     |  Landing    |    Takeoff  |
-----|-------------|-------------|
TDI: |  744/287    |    635/335  |
NG:  |  632/303    |    584/389  |
---------------------------------
So, no need to blame that ugly cowling for the ground roll! ;)
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Re: DA40 NG nominated "Plane of the Year", open for votings

Post by Antoine »

Thank you Keith for researching but this is really confusing data!
How is it possible to achieve a SHORTER distance for landing over 50 ft obstacle while the ground roll portion is LONGER?
Does that mean the DA40 NG comes in steeper?
I do not understand...
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Re: DA40 NG nominated "Plane of the Year", open for votings

Post by Keith M »

Good point, Antoine. Those figures are for when the NG is fully loaded at 1280 kg, so it's even more confusing that the figures quoted for it at 1216 kg are 635/286 m. ie. a slightly longer distance over a 50 ft obstacle, but a much shorter ground roll. For comparison, the MTOW of the TDI is 1150 kg.

The only explanation can be that the extra mass allows for a steeper descent, as you suggested.
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Re: DA40 NG nominated "Plane of the Year", open for votings

Post by Antoine »

Hmmm looks like the figures were whatever the test pilot wrote down during the certification tests. Probably nobody bothered to make the comparisons.
And if I recall correctly the NG's max landing weight is much lower than the 1280 Kg MTOW... More like 1225 ?
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Re: DA40 NG nominated "Plane of the Year", open for votings

Post by Kai »

Antoine wrote:Hmmm looks like the figures were whatever the test pilot wrote down during the certification tests. Probably nobody bothered to make the comparisons.
And if I recall correctly the NG's max landing weight is much lower than the 1280 Kg MTOW... More like 1225 ?
Antoine, some values for the ground roll after landing are given for 1280 and for 1216 kgs, so I guess the max landing weight can be 1280 kgs.

This is all sooooo confusing. Thanks, Keith for your research and I also did my homework. I hope this sets the records straight, whatever they are :scratch: :
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