Can you define "Wildly Successful" for us?

Find somebody who bets. Is that wildly successful?

Find somebody who bets. Is that wildly successful?

I disagree with you thats not negative.

Find somebody who bets. Is that wildly successful?

30 copies a year is about how many Barons are sold each year is that your idea of Wildly Successful?

I disagree with you thats not negative.

This where we start repeating ourselves on a 100 plus page thread.

I believe there are many airplanes that have bombed and I think this will be one of them. My reason can be found throughout this thread.

Flying a plane is not that hard. Most sharp people can do it. Dull people don't often write multi-million dollar checks for airplanes. They will be fine.

Flying a plane is not that hard. Most sharp people can do it. Dull people don't often write multi-million dollar checks for airplanes. They will be fine.

Single engine jets don't make sense.

The only people interested in them are piston pilots using "piston think". Piston think teaches pilots that a twin is twice the engines of about the same size for no meaningful increase in speed or utility, so the single is far more economical.

This is simply not true for a jet. The SF50 has an engine more than twice as big as the ones on an Eclipse and due to the FL250 limitation, it burns MORE per hour than BOTH the engines on the Eclipse, and goes SLOWER doing it.

Further more, due to liability, the cost of the single engine on the SF50 will run about the same as BOTH engines on the Eclipse. The airframe AND engine manufacturer has to price in the economic cost of the airframe being a single. If the engine quits, FAR more likely to be an accident that will cost money to defend and settle. In contrast, an engine failure in a twin jet is REVENUE to fix it after a safe and easy OEI landing.

When you get to a jet, two engines are just as cheap as one when you consider ALL of the SYSTEM cost involved. When you have two, you have redundancy in the most natural way. And this isn't just propulsion, it is also in electricity, bleed air, pressurization. In fact, this is why SEJs are limited to FL250, you need two sources of pressurization to go higher (older SETPs are grandfathered in, it would be difficult to get them above FL250 today).

Also, the aerodynamics of an SEJ are terrible. There is no good place to put the engine. SF50 on top forces pitch moments, turbulent intake air, and requires split tail with the commensurate trim drag that causes. Eclipse 400 same issues. Piper Jet similar problems with now complex fin structure. Diamond with lots of intake losses in S ducts, plus water ingestion risk from nose wheel when it hits standing water on the runway. In contrast, the pylon mounted twin jet engines are no problem at all.

Further, there is no major engine out concern for the pilot in a twin jet. The asymmetric thrust is minimal, there is no prop to worry about, and there is no engine to mistakenly feather. So all of the nasty issues that plague piston twins simply don't exist in jets. The only thing you have to do when an engine quits on a twin jet is fly with a touch of rudder. Easy.

Then there is the training barrier. An airframe maker wants well trained pilots as that is the single biggest factor in the type safety record. If you make it easier for WEAKER pilots to fly it, you will get WEAKER pilots, and get more accidents which have nothing to do with how many engines the plane has. Any pilot who WON'T or CAN'T get a multi rating is one who shouldn't be flying a jet. It is the cheapest and easiest rating of all to get and if that's a barrier, imagine the other corners that will be cut.

Not a single established jet maker even considered making an SEJ. Why? It wasn't for product line protection, it was because they KNEW it wasn't a good idea because they KNOW the regulatory, technical, and economic rules. The only people who thought differently are piston aircraft makers applying "piston think" to themselves.

Every SEJ project to date except the SF50 has been canceled. Eclipse 400, Stratus, Diamond, Piper, and a dozen lesser ones. If the SF50 ever gets to actual deliveries, then the emperor will be shown to have no clothes, and the gig will be up. SEJs are a market fad that is almost over.

The SEJ is not a new idea, either. The Gulfstream Peregrine made a go of it in the 1980s and died due to lackluster sales and certification complexities of having just one engine. Guess it took 20 years for people to forget that.

Mike C.