diamondaviators.net

Excellent new video posted by Diamond:



Nicely put together.

Nice to see some more polished marketing material coming out of London! I enjoyed the little dig about an extra engine being a better backup than a parachute.

Chris wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 2:37 am Nice to see some more polished marketing material coming out of London! I enjoyed the little dig about an extra engine being a better backup than a parachute.

It's TRUE!

I always tell my "Cirrus buddies" when flying from Michigan to Wisconsin -
"I'd rather land in Milwaukee than swim there after an engine failure"!
(especially in the cold winter months and FRIGID water)

Great video! Also enjoyed hearing about the 2nd engine over mountains, water and at night. Don't hear that talked about much anymore.

jb642DA wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 2:46 pm I always tell my "Cirrus buddies" when flying from Michigan to Wisconsin -
"I'd rather land in Milwaukee than swim there after an engine failure"!
(especially in the cold winter months and FRIGID water)

I noticed your plane was in the video... was that you and your wife as well? If so, very cool!

Yes - that was us! Don't tell anyone though!

jb642DA wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 2:46 pm

Chris wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 2:37 am Nice to see some more polished marketing material coming out of London! I enjoyed the little dig about an extra engine being a better backup than a parachute.

It's TRUE!

I always tell my "Cirrus buddies" when flying from Michigan to Wisconsin -
"I'd rather land in Milwaukee than swim there after an engine failure"!
(especially in the cold winter months and FRIGID water)

It's not just about engine failure.

My airplane has two engines but only one aging pilot. In the case of a pilot failure my wife would have better odds with a chute than a second engine. Pilot medical events are rarer than engine failures but passengers are acutely aware that the pilot is a single point of failure.

About ten years ago an Aero Commander lost an engine 10 minutes after departure. With one engine out he made it all the way back to the airport. Lined up with the runway, field made, short final, he got a little low and slow and gave it some power only to hit the ground inverted right in front of my daughter and me. I swore that day that I would never have a twin. Shouldn't swear. Now I rationalize that my DA42 is less likely to do the same.

Now a twin Diamond with Autoland, that's the ticket! Over water, mountains at night? The second engine. Pilot conks out? AutoLand - better than a parachute.

I think for AutoLand I'll have stepped up to a jet engine of some sort. I just got a close look at a Vision Jet and even though it is not a single hop across the country (not even sure it is two hops), it is a pretty sweet looking plane to fly. I'd be very comfortable in there. And the button that lands somewhere else when this single point of failure give way would make my wife much happier. TBM has it, too. I haven't really researched the decision much since neither one is very interesting to fly except A-to-B.

Also, there was a King Air that took off from Long Beach the morning before I brought my DA40 down for its annual. Well-trained pilot, charter operation etc. Water in the tank and failure of one engine and he rolled it right into the ground. According to my accident-engineer friend there are more fatals with two turboprop engines than with one.

And I read an account on Beechtalk where a guy in a Baron secured the bad engine in less than a minute and everyone was saying, "THAT'S how you survive!" and I thought, "I'm not sure I'm a good enough pilot for a Baron..."

Colin, I flew a G2 Vision Jet. It was just a demo for about an hour, but it was super easy to fly. Chute + Autoland makes a lot of sense...