Ok. On a serious note now.
Yesterday, after several conversations with Rod Sage over the past couple of days I did happily and enthusiastically send him my 10k deposit for a supercharger. How did I come to this conclusion especially since if anything I had been mostly opposed to the supercharger. Well, it happened like this.
First, foremost, for my wife, myself, soon to be newest member of the family (Portuguese Water Doggy) the Diamond 40 has always been in so many ways the perfect plane for our defined missions which is basically frequent trips of 50 to 500 miles with a trip or two to Florida or somewhere way down South for the winter and a trip out West into the Rockies somewhere at least once a year.
last Wednesday, January23rd, Chris B posted on this thread in which he placed a down payment on a supercharger which prompted me to basically review the entire history of acquiring an stc for a supercharger, its development and where it stands today as pretty much an end product. All I'll say is, until you have reviewed the entire history of this project it's pretty difficult to see all of the challenges and changes that have taken place which have progressively improved the final product.
That being said, everyone has there reasons for wanting a supercharger, turbocharger etc. We all want to go faster and pretty much use "speed" as a measuring stick to justify whether or not it's worth the expense.
After reviewing all of the posts and talking to Rod, I view the supercharger more as a performance enhancing tool that does a whole lot more than just make one go faster. Speed is only one of its attributes.
While everyone has there reasons why they will or will not add a supercharger to their aircraft, I have listed below the reasons why I have as follows:
1.) Simplicity of design. Unlike some of the other installations, (Cirrus Cessna) it weighs about half and takes up about a quarter of the space which in turn by its very nature increases efficiency. Less parts and pieces to break and maintain.
2.) Its very conservative design which limits its performance by its very nature eliminates excessive wear and tear on the engine. While not entirely impossible it's unlikely one would over boost the engine.
3.) Essentially I'm carrying my current sea level performance all the way up to 7,000' da and then performance bleeds off the same way from there on up in just the same way as it would from sea level prior to supercharger installation with the exception that I am now flying in thinner air and going faster as a result. I can fly my airplane lop with rpms exactly where I want as I did pre-supercharger. Really, the only thing different about my airplane after I have the supercharger installed is my plane will always be thinking it's flying at sea level until approx. 7,000' da. It's so simple it's scary.
4.) Although I'm a flat lander and we don't have the Rockies here to cross everyday, we do have the Great Lakes that I like to go over on a regular basis. Anyone who lives anywhere near the Great Lakes knows how cold the water is when it's not frozen. Depending on how long I plan on being over the water, I like to get as high above the water as I can reasonably get. The supercharger will make the climb much easier.
5.) My wife and I went out to Aspen and Telluride for the first time ever last year. Long story short, it was incredible. While that trip can be done in a non-aspirated airplane, a supercharged plane makes it that much easier.
6.) When you look at what is costs to super charge the DA40 compared to other comparable aircraft, in my opinion, even after stc, it's a bargain.
So, how did I sell my wife on the supercharger? Like Chris, I started out telling my wife how much safer the supercharger would make our trips over lakes and over mountains. Superchargers are great I said. My wife thought I was talking about a new NFL football team.
Then I tried explaining "density altitude" and how much better the plane would fly at various levels. My wife thought "density altitude" was a new reality tv show and wanted to know what channel it was on.
Finally, I told her we could easily fly to Aspen and Telluride every year, bring our new puppy with us, not have to worry about keeping our combined luggage under 25 lbs. and stay there for weeks on end if we wanted to. That worked. We had sex all night and the next morning I wrote Rod a check for 10g and the rest is history.
A big thanks to Brock, Rod and any other unknowns who have persisted in the development of this product.
I personally think this is a game changer for the DA40.
I think you mean 1200 hours since 5 gallons (1 hour in your example) would be $25.
if you need it for mountain flying, it may be justified....
I feel so strongly about this that I seriously considered getting a 182T instead of the DA40, but the prospect of sliding this supercharger into the nose was very attractive. And after hearing my parents moan about the repair bills for my Dad's turbo-normalized flat-six (with complicated waste-gate, etc), I *really* like the simplicity and elegance of this solution.
