What is the true cost of owning a DA20?

[OmegaWulf]

@Colin
Well, I can't argue with you there! But I was thinking more in the vain of what do I do if the only place to get something fixed is 250 miles away, but that 'something' is something that needs to be fixed before the plane should fly again? But even if I can fly it there, you do bring up another point I didn't consider--how do I get home if they can't fix it within the same day?

Maybe my 'preferred' Diamond A&P is 250 miles away for stuff that I can fly the plane to him/her, but it would be nice to know my local A&P could still work on it in a pinch, you know? One advantage I have is that I live in the DFW area and there's lots of airports nearby, within 1-2 hours drive. But I suspect that A&P's don't do 'house calls.'

@thefoxx
Thanks for the advice, I feel more confident going with a DA20, if I can afford one, which I'm still not sure about. You say you had a $1,700 repair bill but have owned the plane less than a year. I wonder if that is typical? That is, do I need to consider $1,500-$2,000 per year for those kinds of typical repairs? That means I need to account for an extra $15-$20 per flight hour in my budget and to have extra cash on hand after I buy the plane for anything that might come up that first year.

Other than cost, there's another aspect about ownership that I need guidance on and that is the whole purchasing aspect. You mentioned getting a good pre-buy inspection. Ok...how do you do that? And how do you know it is 'good?' And what's involved? Like, I know you should get an inspection before you buy a house, which I did. But it wasn't until after I bought my house did I find out that the house inspection industry is pretty unregulated--anyone can be a house inspector! Turned out there were things 'wrong' with my house that the inspector should have caught but didn't. You could say my having an inspection was just a waste of money. Heck, I know less about what to look for in a plane as I do a house, so how do I know I'm getting a good plane inspection done? How did you get yours done?

Did you buy your plane locally or did you have to travel for it? If travel, how'd the per-inspection work for that? And was there anything about the whole buying process that was an eye-opener or unexpected that I should be aware of?

[RMarkSampson]

OW,
Who has really broken the code on inexpensive? The DA-20 nose wheel is expensive, up to $400, but apparently my wife's $400 Coach purse is a bargain - go figure.

Flying clubs are not required to do 100 hr annuals - but we do them anyway. Turns out turning a wrench on a DA-20 is a social event with plenty of club member participation, and the A&P is a club member. Just keep the beer locked up until the cowling is back on. Unfortunately, insurance companies put the cost of insurance for a club closer to that of a commercial operation. Insurance for a club is significantly more, $4,000 vice $1,200/yr, but it is split between all members so the cost of insurance "to me" went down. The club bylaws and rental agreement have explicit statements about the member who breaks the plane pays for any deductible and/or other expenses associated with repair of the plane - signed by all that has PIC privileges. Happily, we have never needed to run that legal road. A complex aircraft (retractable) would have a whole set of requirements for anyone exercising PIC - not needed with a simple training aircraft like a DA-20. Club dues also cover the hangar - once that cost was my burden to bear - now the club covers that cost. I have a spreadsheet that shows $17K in annual costs - but also shows ~$14K in "income" thus I am projecting my net cost of aircraft ownership this year in the club environment as $4K. Thus the club has allowed me to focus on an ADS-B solution for this year.

Most A&Ps can easily work on a Diamond even if they are unfamiliar with the aircraft - but the challenge for any owner is finding a good A&P. For me, that also includes one that is comfortable with a owner-assisted relationship. First the Diamond AMM and IPC are well written and easily downloaded on line - same with the Diamond Service Bulletins and Continental SBs. However, there may be some "spin up" to fully digest what maintenance is required/recommended - so if you are paying an A&P by the hour for him to get educated, then I would recommend doing a lot of that leg work yourself. Here is a link to a previous post of mine - with a spreadsheet of recommended maintenance from the AMM and Continental M-6 manual. download/file.php?id=1796

Anyway, you also asked about the "yoke to stick" transition. I had only one hour of DA-20 stick time before flying half way across country to pick up my DA-20. Not to make light of it, but that transition was easy. The DA-20 is very intuitive to fly. Actually, the harder transition to master is the left seat to right seat transition - your stick and throttle hands are switched and it takes some time to get use to pulling power off and flaring for landing.

[OmegaWulf]

Wow, $17,000! I'm assuming that is without any financing costs? So, that means I would need to add over another $400 to my monthly budget and purchase in cash. Dang. This is starting to look impossibly too expensive for me.

[OmegaWulf]

Well, I wrote a reply yesterday and it never got posted, so I'll try again:

$17k in annual costs; I assume that is without financing? So, based on my budget of $1,000/mo ($12k/yr)--and that includes financing--I'm going to be $400/mo under what I need and I would also need to purchase outright and not finance.

Thanks for the sobering info.

[RMarkSampson]

Believe this why AOPA has a strong endorsement for clubs. What may be unattainable for one, can be achieved with several likeminded people. The social part of a club is also nice - easier to find someone who wants to get up at the crack of dawn and take a breakfast flight.

$4K of that $17K is for a T-hangar at $360/month - a big variable depending on where you base your aircraft. and as I mentioned the insurance went up nearly 4X so subtract $3K for that club-only expense.

Ultimately my recommendation is to network to find a like-minded DA-20 enthusiast and see what you can do together in your neck of the woods.

Good luck and don't give up the faith. Step one is to work out the basic details. Step two is to take a deep breath and jump!

[gilly]

I bought a brand new DA20 eclipse in December of 2014 and to date have logged 960 tach hours which equates to about 1200 hours of real time. So I guess you could say I have a lot of experience with the aircraft, almost on a daily basis. I have mine fitted with a garmin 430 driving a G500 glass panel. I also opted for full wheel pants and the M&T cruise prop which I do NOT regret. At 3000 feet the G500 tells me I am easily getting a TAS of 138kts with the wheel pants off, and with them on I am getting 142-144kts. Not too shabby for only 125 horse power coming from the FI continental. I also have a DA40, Super Cub, C172, and Beech Mentor on my flight line, and have owned a champ, Bonanza 36, and Trinidad in the past so I have a good back ground to compare the DA20 to.

I will start with the bad, which honestly is not much: Yes it is not IFR certified. I think this dates back to the first diamond katanas that came into the US aimed directly at the VFR training market. I am told that the issue is lack of a heated pitot and lack of lightning strike protection. I have seen the early first models torn down and we have done several 100 hour and annual inspections on our newest version, and I can tell you that my 2014 model appears to have the same copper looking panels in the wing that the IFR certified DA40 has but alas it still does not have a heated pitot. My humble OPINION on this is that for liability reasons I SUSPECT that the newer DA20s do have strike protection now, but typical of diamond, much like their enhanced performance numbers, for what ever reason Diamond does not seem interested or see the profit in IFR certificating this airframe. They would rather spend their efforts on the 40. That being said, I have gotten "caught" in IFR situations before and picked up a IFR clearance and completed my flight without issue, most likely because I only ever identify myself to ATC as a "Diamond" and when they track my ground speed they assume that I am a Diamond Star. I have even picked up minor ice on the 20 and it handles it fine, however, you need to be very vigilant because it is hard to visually detect and I suspect that the airfoil degrades quickly when contaminated. So no IFR cert on the future radar. The nose wheel tire/tube combination is VERY expensive for all the more it is, and it simply sucks. The tire and tube are only made by one company and they will try to charge you 300-500 dollars for the tire and 90-120 for the tube. To make things worse, for what ever reason I have really bad luck with the longevity of my nose wheel tires and tubes, not to mention that most mechanics will moan when they see you coming in to have one replaced. My mechanic ruined three tubes the first time he tried replacing the front tire. Since then there has been a recall on the nose wheel dampener and since we replaced ours we have been seeing much better life out of the nose wheel tire. This by far is the worse part of the aircraft, but everything else is way ABOVE bar mechanically.

REGRETS: I wish I would have ordered mine with an auto pilot or at lease some type of altitude hold. The aircraft has electric pitch trim only, no wheel! This coupled with a hard core cruise prop makes for some challenging and long time spent trimming it for cruise flight. Best to just memorize rpm settings and matching them up with which green trim light on the pitch trim indicator gives you the speed you want and just firmly hold the stick until the plane eventually gets to cruise speed and the stick force gets light. To get the TAS speeds I mentioned above you are flying on the higher end of the tach gauge and with the slick airframe a bad trim job could have you nosing over very easily and putting you in danger of bumping red line on the tach. This is why I regret not getting an auto pilot. If i am mentally tired of monitoring it, I just throttle it back to cessna speeds which will keep you a healthy distance away from the tach red line.

Now the GOOD: Just about everything and that is saying a lot when you consider what other aircraft I have at my disposal. Fuel burn, I have a hard time getting it to burn as much as the book says it should even at the power settings I personally run it at. I guess if I never leaned the mixture I could get close to the advertised burn rates in the book. With the wheel pants off at 3000 feet leaned to an EGT of 1400-1450 I am burning around 4.5 gallons an hour. Doing pattern work I am sure I am exceeding advertised fuel burn during the climb, but the plane gets to TPA quickly and I often find myself throttling back to 2000 rpm on crosswind! And abeam the touchdown zone on down wind I close the throttle and fly a normal cessna pattern and with the 11 to1 glide ratio this is not even a challenge. The point I am trying to make is this slick little airframe spends a lot more time a very low rpms compared to other single engine aircraft during pattern work which easily makes up for higher burn rates on climb out. Insurance costs are different for everyone, but one thing is consistent, with only having two seats and one of the best safety records around, you are going to have a hard time finding something cheaper to insure. Maintenance costs are a pretty good deal as well, even with the nose wheel issues, it is my cheapest plane on the flight line to maintain. At first we use to budget about 18 labor hours for an annual inspection, but now that my mechanics are use to the airframe and how simple it is, it very rarely takes more than 8 hours to inspect it. Compared to metal airplanes, things just seem to not wear out as quickly. The one exception to this is brake pads, particulary the right side ones. We are going through a set of brake pads about every 100 hours. This planes does not have a steerable nose wheel so dragging brakes are your only method of taxi direction control. No big deal, not that expensive and according to the FAA this is something an owner can do on their own. Learn to taxi at or below 1000 rpms and you could probably do better than we do, students and renters hardly every taxi below 1000. =( Oil usage, mine is probably a freak so do not take this as normal, mine uses almost 1 quart every 50 hours which is when we do our oil changes here, so for all practical purposes I could say it does not NEED any oil between changes. My 20 flys almost every VFR day so 50 hours is fine, but if you are looking to buy one for personal use you will not be flying it as often and I would therefore shoot to change the oil every 25 to 30 hours. Infrequent use is hard on oil and engines in general so more frequent oil changes is a very wise investment towards engine longevity. Other than the normal inspections mentioned, the extras you should plan on are, a mag inspection every 500 hours (no big deal for us, no parts needed when ours came up), and there is a very invasive 1000 hour inspection on the airframe that will surely rack up some extra labor hours since the wings and horizontal stab have to come off the airframe. But to be honest I doubt very few personal single owner DA20's get to 1000 hrs before they are sold. I only mention this if you are looking at buying something used in or around this amount of time on the airframe. The inspection repeats every 1000 hours, and I would suspect at worse you might have to buy some new bushings or fasteners.

Over all to generalize operational costs, you can plan on a DA20 being about half the operational cost of your typical cessna 172 or piper archer, and it is faster to boot!

Hope this helps, if you really want to get into the fine details of things, I have all kinds of detailed information we could discuss if you like. Just let me know.

[tommy24689]

@gilly

Thanks for this information. I am looking at a da-20 right now, and the owner claims it is ifr certified for vmc, but to check on ifr field.

From what I've read here, no da-20 can be ifr. Do you suspect that this seller confused?

1996 Katana A1-100.

Thanks in advance.

I bought a brand new DA20 eclipse in December of 2014 and to date have logged 960 tach hours which equates to about 1200 hours of real time. So I guess you could say I have a lot of experience with the aircraft, almost on a daily basis. I have mine fitted with a garmin 430 driving a G500 glass panel. I also opted for full wheel pants and the M&T cruise prop which I do NOT regret. At 3000 feet the G500 tells me I am easily getting a TAS of 138kts with the wheel pants off, and with them on I am getting 142-144kts. Not too shabby for only 125 horse power coming from the FI continental. I also have a DA40, Super Cub, C172, and Beech Mentor on my flight line, and have owned a champ, Bonanza 36, and Trinidad in the past so I have a good back ground to compare the DA20 to.

I will start with the bad, which honestly is not much: Yes it is not IFR certified. I think this dates back to the first diamond katanas that came into the US aimed directly at the VFR training market. I am told that the issue is lack of a heated pitot and lack of lightning strike protection. I have seen the early first models torn down and we have done several 100 hour and annual inspections on our newest version, and I can tell you that my 2014 model appears to have the same copper looking panels in the wing that the IFR certified DA40 has but alas it still does not have a heated pitot. My humble OPINION on this is that for liability reasons I SUSPECT that the newer DA20s do have strike protection now, but typical of diamond, much like their enhanced performance numbers, for what ever reason Diamond does not seem interested or see the profit in IFR certificating this airframe. They would rather spend their efforts on the 40. That being said, I have gotten "caught" in IFR situations before and picked up a IFR clearance and completed my flight without issue, most likely because I only ever identify myself to ATC as a "Diamond" and when they track my ground speed they assume that I am a Diamond Star. I have even picked up minor ice on the 20 and it handles it fine, however, you need to be very vigilant because it is hard to visually detect and I suspect that the airfoil degrades quickly when contaminated. So no IFR cert on the future radar. The nose wheel tire/tube combination is VERY expensive for all the more it is, and it simply sucks. The tire and tube are only made by one company and they will try to charge you 300-500 dollars for the tire and 90-120 for the tube. To make things worse, for what ever reason I have really bad luck with the longevity of my nose wheel tires and tubes, not to mention that most mechanics will moan when they see you coming in to have one replaced. My mechanic ruined three tubes the first time he tried replacing the front tire. Since then there has been a recall on the nose wheel dampener and since we replaced ours we have been seeing much better life out of the nose wheel tire. This by far is the worse part of the aircraft, but everything else is way ABOVE bar mechanically.

REGRETS: I wish I would have ordered mine with an auto pilot or at lease some type of altitude hold. The aircraft has electric pitch trim only, no wheel! This coupled with a hard core cruise prop makes for some challenging and long time spent trimming it for cruise flight. Best to just memorize rpm settings and matching them up with which green trim light on the pitch trim indicator gives you the speed you want and just firmly hold the stick until the plane eventually gets to cruise speed and the stick force gets light. To get the TAS speeds I mentioned above you are flying on the higher end of the tach gauge and with the slick airframe a bad trim job could have you nosing over very easily and putting you in danger of bumping red line on the tach. This is why I regret not getting an auto pilot. If i am mentally tired of monitoring it, I just throttle it back to cessna speeds which will keep you a healthy distance away from the tach red line.

Now the GOOD: Just about everything and that is saying a lot when you consider what other aircraft I have at my disposal. Fuel burn, I have a hard time getting it to burn as much as the book says it should even at the power settings I personally run it at. I guess if I never leaned the mixture I could get close to the advertised burn rates in the book. With the wheel pants off at 3000 feet leaned to an EGT of 1400-1450 I am burning around 4.5 gallons an hour. Doing pattern work I am sure I am exceeding advertised fuel burn during the climb, but the plane gets to TPA quickly and I often find myself throttling back to 2000 rpm on crosswind! And abeam the touchdown zone on down wind I close the throttle and fly a normal cessna pattern and with the 11 to1 glide ratio this is not even a challenge. The point I am trying to make is this slick little airframe spends a lot more time a very low rpms compared to other single engine aircraft during pattern work which easily makes up for higher burn rates on climb out. Insurance costs are different for everyone, but one thing is consistent, with only having two seats and one of the best safety records around, you are going to have a hard time finding something cheaper to insure. Maintenance costs are a pretty good deal as well, even with the nose wheel issues, it is my cheapest plane on the flight line to maintain. At first we use to budget about 18 labor hours for an annual inspection, but now that my mechanics are use to the airframe and how simple it is, it very rarely takes more than 8 hours to inspect it. Compared to metal airplanes, things just seem to not wear out as quickly. The one exception to this is brake pads, particulary the right side ones. We are going through a set of brake pads about every 100 hours. This planes does not have a steerable nose wheel so dragging brakes are your only method of taxi direction control. No big deal, not that expensive and according to the FAA this is something an owner can do on their own. Learn to taxi at or below 1000 rpms and you could probably do better than we do, students and renters hardly every taxi below 1000. =( Oil usage, mine is probably a freak so do not take this as normal, mine uses almost 1 quart every 50 hours which is when we do our oil changes here, so for all practical purposes I could say it does not NEED any oil between changes. My 20 flys almost every VFR day so 50 hours is fine, but if you are looking to buy one for personal use you will not be flying it as often and I would therefore shoot to change the oil every 25 to 30 hours. Infrequent use is hard on oil and engines in general so more frequent oil changes is a very wise investment towards engine longevity. Other than the normal inspections mentioned, the extras you should plan on are, a mag inspection every 500 hours (no big deal for us, no parts needed when ours came up), and there is a very invasive 1000 hour inspection on the airframe that will surely rack up some extra labor hours since the wings and horizontal stab have to come off the airframe. But to be honest I doubt very few personal single owner DA20's get to 1000 hrs before they are sold. I only mention this if you are looking at buying something used in or around this amount of time on the airframe. The inspection repeats every 1000 hours, and I would suspect at worse you might have to buy some new bushings or fasteners.

Over all to generalize operational costs, you can plan on a DA20 being about half the operational cost of your typical cessna 172 or piper archer, and it is faster to boot!

Hope this helps, if you really want to get into the fine details of things, I have all kinds of detailed information we could discuss if you like. Just let me know.

[Rich]

The stuff missing from the DA20 for IFR certification relative to the other models is non-trivial. The major thing that occurs to me is the set of stuff included for static-discharge (aka "lightning protection"). The wings, horizontal stabilizer, their tip fairings, and control surfaces have conductive skin properties due to an outer layer of carbon fiber. These are bonded together with ground straps, and the wing is electrically bonded to the fuselage frame with metallic strips. Then there are the static-discharge wicks on the rudder and wing/stabilizer tips. All this electrical continuity is subject to periodic testing.

[krellis]

The DA20 can be used for VMC only training towards the IFR rating/currency/etc. , but may not be flown in IMC.

See this thread for more info - viewtopic.php?t=5720

[Kesk]

Most common specific problems on 20s are:

• Nose fork replacement. Not something that most places can repair as it requires rivets and special tooling.

• Nose struts can crack. Only seen like 2 out of hundreds of inspections but it is a possibility.

• Journal bearings, not a hard or long job but mechanics need to know what they're doing. Like the fork parts are expensive for the transverse tube bearings as they can sometimes need replacement.

• On the IO-240s the throttle bodies often go out.

• front and rear rudder cables. Shouldn't take more than a day for these but if they are not done right they will mess things up.

• 1K and 6K inspections. These usually don't find anything other than maybe some bearings in the wings but they are somewhat labor intensive.

Overall they are probably a bit more to maintain than a 172 but I think the problem is finding a place that knows what it's doing and has parts. The upside is that you don't have to worry much about corrosion at all and other than composite repairs there aren't really any major repairs that are difficult to do such as flap tracks on cessnas.