Cessna: just making the old designs, which was reasonably successful.

Beech: ditto, less successful.

Mooney: ditto, even less successful.

Diamond: was successful.

Columbia: was successful, at least initially.

Who put money into piston singles? Not the old guard of Cessna, Beech, Mooney. Diamond and Columbia did manage a reasonable success but didn't have any money advantages over Cirrus.

This idea that Cirrus was this little upstart who beat people with huge cash reserves is totally bogus. Makes for a good fairly tale, but not accurate history.

Mike C.

Looks like a V tail Bo with elephant mans disease.

So when are they anticipating the first customer deliveries ?

I may be repeating myself: If the SF50 hits the published numbers, they will eventually darken the sky.

Last thing Cirrus said was by end of this year. They won't revise that until absolutely the last minute since they can extract progress payments now based on a false schedule.

I don't think there is any chance they will make it. If any deliveries happen this year, they will be PR shams just to make the date. The industry has a tradition of doing that.

I looked at the positions for sale on controller.com. As the progress payments become due, it is shaking out those who now don't want it. Serial numbers for sale are: 1, 12, 17, 23, 30, 36, 40, 43. So in the first 43, 8 are for sale, so looks like about a 20% drop out rate, and those are the positions that have NOT sold. How many have sold, don't know.

This suggests the order book is really only 400 true sales, maybe less. It seems they aren't darkening the order book, much less the skies.

Mike C.

How's this work? Will the PR shams be real or legal airplanes?

Of previous clean-sheet jets that came to market, how many had 400 true sales prior to the first delivery?

There are two sales outfits listing the slots on Controller.

No individuals.

http://www.controller.com/list/list.asp ... notfound=1

There are always folks who speculate on early slots for new aircraft, they figure there will be someone willing to pay to avoid waiting in line, or to pay to benefit from pre-production pricing.

Forrest

There will be a ceremony where serial #1 airplane will be "delivered" to the customer. Then serial #1 is retained by the company until truly ready. So it is a real airplane, just not quite ready. Eventually, a few months later, that customer gets to really use the airplane.

That's how Eclipse did their 12/31/2006 delivery of EA500 #1. It didn't really start being useful until about 6 months later (when deliveries truly started).


Eclipse certainly did based on the number of folks who paid money and got nothing at the end.

Given the 260 EA500s, the 450 Mustangs, and the 250 Phenom 100s that exist, perhaps the owner flown very light jet market is just saturated? If there are 500 SF50s, that would be the most numerous example of VLJ, which seems unlikely given how it is limited compared to the others.

Mike C.

How do you know the positions for sale aren't individuals who have hired these two brokers?

Note that both outfits claim to be brokers, not speculators, and list numerous other existing aircraft for sale. It seems clear those existing aircraft are owned by individuals. I expect the same for the SF50 positions.


So the question is, how much of the order book is fluff like that?

The telling part is that positions for sale above #43 are few because they don't have progress payments to make yet. Now that real money is due, people start to run away.

Mike C.

The sales contract language for delays:

DELAY IN DELIVERY

6.01 Cirrus shall not be liable to Purchaser for any failure or delay in making Delivery when such failure or delay arises from any cause beyond Cirrus’ control, including, without limitation, acts of God, accidents, strikes, labor causing cessation, slow down, interruption of work, war, insurrections, hostilities, riots, delays or failure in transportation, delay or inability to secure materials, parts or equipment necessary to manufacture or complete the Aircraft, governmental acts of constraint, or any delay of any subcontractor or vendor. In the event that any delay is anticipated, Cirrus’ sole obligation is to notify Purchaser of a new Delivery Date as soon as possible.

There are enough loopholes you can drive a Mack truck through them. For example, I'd say not getting the TC counts as "governmental acts of constraint". Or, they can claim any vendor, subcontractor, material, or equipment is late. To prove the absence of all the possible excuses in court would be impossible.

This makes the termination clause meaningless:

TERMINATION

7.01 Should Cirrus fail to deliver the Aircraft within Thirty [30] days after the Delivery Date, Purchaser may, as its sole remedy, upon ten [10] days written notice and failure by Cirrus to deliver the Aircraft within the ten [10] day period, cancel this Order, and Cirrus shall refund all payments made by Purchaser. This thirty [30] day “grace period” shall be in addition to any period of delay caused by events referenced in Section 6, which are outside of Cirrus’ control.

Mike C.

Mike,

You are determined to see bad news where there isn't any.

I checked for SF50 slots for sale on ASO and Trade a Plane.

The Ohio outfit showed up both places.

No individuals.

None anywhere.

It is possible that the individuals who decided to purchase early production slots for the Cirrus Jet all decided to list them for sale with these two outfits.

Possible.

Much more likely is that there is someone associated with each of these outfits who decided to speculate on delivery slots, and is now attempting to cash in.

It will be interesting to see if these positions turn over.

If slot holders were running for the hills, we should be seeing more individual offers instead of a couple brokers marketing multiple listings.

Cheap fuel, recovering economy, an Asian market making ready for a General Aviation Boom.

A pessimist always assumes there is bad news around the corner, an optimist assumes there isn't.

Both turn out to be right, sometimes.

Forrest

The For Sale ads on Controller could be as simple as brokers listing planes that are not for sale. Get a buyer willing to pay up then you go to someone with a delivery slot and make them an offer they can't refuse.

I see it all the time on Controller. Many PC12's listed aren't really for sale or don't exist at all. Start working the phones and you realize how many there really aren't.

Jason's point is an interesting one.

Has anyone on BT done business with either of these outfits?

One more thought:

There is a value for a pre-production slot.

Part of it is the ability to get a plane early - I can't figure out a value on that (I'm sure there is a BT'r who can)

Part is going to be the lower price that comes with an early commitment (Early Eclipse buyers got a better deal than later buyers, the latest folks got the worse deal of all - NO Plane)

That number is real and knowable.

A seller wishing to dump a slot would reasonably advertise this value and his discount to that value.

That doesn't seem to be happening.

My guess, the early adopters, plus the speculators have all bought, the folks who are going to wait for a certified airplane, are sitting on their wallets.

Forrest

Lone mountain is a big Cirrus dealer.

They may well be individually owned slots listed by a broker.
The cirrus owners who bought slots and are now selling probably fall into three groups:
-those who did well and already have their CJ3.
-those who now live in their parents basement and hope to make some money back on the slots
-those who realized that they dont need that particular plane or any plane at all

Selling positions is a special thing, individuals don't do it directly and only certain brokers do it.

Thus it is not at all surprising that position sales are handled by a small number of brokers and no individuals are direct listing.


A realist knows which way it will go.

Mike C.