In the business of selling aircraft, manufacturers often massage statistics of safety and performance to put there aircraft in the best light and this is to be expected. Hard cold stats of units sold is hard to massage and twist into a different representation so we thought we’d do a simple analysis of comparable aircraft of particular interest to us in the category of what are considered widely as “First Aircraft”. In other words the planes that folks coming into aviation would consider as suitable as their first aircraft that fit into a narrow band of performance (more than 140kts of speed, 4 seats and not considered High Performance or Retractible).

In the area of single engine 4 place aircraft that are sold in volume new as personal aircraft most would agree there are essentially three main aircraft. The Cessna 182T, the Cirrus SR20 and the Diamond DA40. We exclude the C172 because though it is a tried and true training aircraft, its speed limits it as a highly usable traveling aircraft on the same level as the three named above.

The chart above shows sales data for these three comparable models from 2004 through 2011.

Review of the numbers indicates something that many folks might not have guessed and that is the Diamond DA40 has been the top seller in the category 6 out of 8 years. The Cirrus SR20 for all its marketing hype, parachute and sales feet on the street has never topped the chart or out sold the DA40 and has been in third place in 5 of 8 years. Read the rest of this entry »

We are all very excited about the enhancements done to the DA42 line. The plane is now dubbed the DA42 VI as the plane is the 6th design iteration in the line of Diamond twins.

This presentation provides a detailed explanation of what they did to dramatically improve the performance of the aircraft. Stay tuned for availability announcements.

Diamond released this video of their latest new design, a big cabin 5-7 place diesel twin dubbed the DA52. We will all be waiting with interest to see the path to market for his remarkable modern aircraft.