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I've never considered Cirrus a brand that offered training aircraft. The SR20's prospects as an initial training platform appear to me as a poor choice for students and flight schools alike. Furthermore, I don't think the DA40 is the best trainer either, atleast not so when compared to the DA20. So it strikes me as odd when I continue to here Diamond advertise the Star as a training platform above the DA20, or even more shockingly so, the proposed DA50

But not even Diamond's unveiling of a five-seat, 44' wing span, nearly 4,000 lbs gross weight DA50 as a marketable trainer caught me off guard like this headline: "Cirrus Tapped for Lufthansa’s Airline Pilot Training Program" From Flying Magazine it reads, "In addition to Lufthansa’s pilots, airlines like Swiss Air, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings, All Nippon Airways (ANA) and KLM will use the SR20s for their own pilots, as will the German Air Force, when the aircraft are delivered between October and February." WHAT?! I don't even know where to begin rationalizing this decision . . .

In other news I see the G1000NXi is listed as standard equipment on the XLT now, putting to rest my immediate fears this model was ending production due to it's exclusion from Diamond's G1000NXi press release.

As DA20/DA40 owners, we gripe about the lack of product support from Diamond, but will manage it to enjoy a superbly designed product. For a multi-billion dollar business designing a multi-million dollar training program around an aircraft platform, the single engine Diamond fleet would be a non-starter.

H60 pilot wrote:In other news I see the G1000NXi is listed as standard equipment on the XLT now, putting to rest my immediate fears this model was ending production due to it's exclusion from Diamond's G1000NXi press release.

Just to confirm that new DA40 XLTs are still available, while visiting the Diamond Canada factory yesterday to pick up my new DA62, I saw both Lycoming DA40 XLT and Austro DA40 NG models concurrently being produced on the same aircraft production line.

After years of on and off training in a 172, I finally got my PPL in an SR20 and I thought it was a fine platform for primary training. I certainly enjoyed it and felt confident. After moving to an area where there were no rental Cirrus aircraft, I switched to a DA40 and got hooked. I think the DA40 is the best training aircraft ever built. Among other things, the safety statistics are incomparable. Of course, the US Air Force Academy dumped an entire fleet of 2 year old DA40's in favor of the SR20. I never understood why that decision was made.

Very glad to hear that Dave.

I mean in no way to suggest Cirrus builds substandard aircraft, quite the opposite evidently given their market penetration. But in terms of flight training only, that is teaching a student body how to safely operate an aircraft, I don't understand the business sense behind the above mentioned choice for trainers. Unless I'm missing something, a two seat trainer would be ideal in terms of the cost to benefit ratio.

Question for you Dan: Why would the single engine Diamond fleet be a non-starter for these companies but a single engine, 100LL burning, five passenger Cirrus isn't? I would expect at least Diamond's diesel engine products to be in high demand for these multi-million dollar training programs but I'd be wrong again.

. . . abstract thought. Dave, on first glance I thought your profile pic was a on a Cirrus production ramp. Those are sharp looking 62's! I hope the London plant sells the crap out of those and maybe trickles some of that fit and finish into the lower end products.

Let's hope the support that the buyers of Diamond's latest and greatest million dollar products receive also trickles down to the common folk that own the obsolete and orphaned products like 6 pack DA40's and DA20-A1's.

shorton wrote:After years of on and off training in a 172, I finally got my PPL in an SR20 and I thought it was a fine platform for primary training. I certainly enjoyed it and felt confident. After moving to an area where there were no rental Cirrus aircraft, I switched to a DA40 and got hooked. I think the DA40 is the best training aircraft ever built. Among other things, the safety statistics are incomparable. Of course, the US Air Force Academy dumped an entire fleet of 2 year old DA40's in favor of the SR20. I never understood why that decision was made.

Because Cirrus has a marketing and support team that market their products and support the owners. Diamond has an owner who says the North American avgas market is dead. There is no comparison on flying qualities or safety as you mentioned, but support from the factory carries a great deal of weight on fleet purchase decisions.

krellis wrote:Diamond has an owner who says the North American avgas market is dead.

Let me suggest you read the latest issue of Aviation Consumer, which has a major story about the DA50 with extensive quotes by Christian Dries (Diamond Aircraft CEO and owner):

http://www.aviationconsumer.com/issues/ ... 065-1.html
(Note: you might have to have a subscription to Aviation Consumer to read this).

To paraphrase what's in the article, the reason Dries says that Diamond is introducing the DA50-VII with the Lycoming iE2 FADEC 380 hp TEO-540 engine is specifically to address the North American market where avgas is still cheap and readily available. This is being done for the DA50 to go directly against the Cirrus SR22.

Dave,

All I can say is those were Mr. Dries exact words to me standing outside the Katana Kafe in Austria.

Maybe he has had a change of heart, don't really know. Maybe members of his management team convinced him otherwise.