One of the Diamond factory pilots has posted a new video of the DA50 as he flies it to the AERO Friedrichshafen 2023 show.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/yrlCfOaSoCs[/youtube]

It is a beautiful aircraft, but unfortunately has an absolutely abysmal fuel capacity at 49gal. I don't know what they were smoking at Diamond, but it should have come with double that amount, at least. You can see from video that at 75% it burns 12.5gal/hr, which means it can fly about 3hrs with IFR reserves. That's less than 500nm at 164KTAS. It's like a joke. A Piper Cub will go further.

They need to figure the range out or they won't be selling many of these.

They won't sell them here. My guess is that someone in Germany did a study of the average stage length in Europe and determined that three hours is plenty.

"Zer iss nossing rong vis ze aeroplane, you are yousing it incorrectly."

Just disappointingly slow given the FF.

I wonder how they eliminated the G1000 screen flicker, recording this video?
Looks like a GoPro 10, and no ND filter.

Murray

I sat in one at OSH in 2021 and was impressed with the size and build quality. I did not like the A-pillar view obstruction. I too could not fathom how small the fuel tanks are...my frame of reference is the stock 64 gal tanks in my 200 hp Mooney that allow tremendous flexibility in load vs. range. This plane absolutely does not, and I cannot fathom why. The marginal cost to add more fuel to the wing is essentially zero at this price point, and I think it would help with US sales. Perhaps, as mentioned above, they surveyed their home market and decided that was sufficient, and avoids any problems with full tanks and full seats?

Anyway, I think it is a beautiful plane, and one that I have no chance purchasing in the next couple of decades.

The prototype parked beside me at KICT this time last year. Had flown in for the FAA certification

Looks like a market for STC aux tanks.

It also would be interesting get a "President III Conversion" with the CD-300 / FADEC for the Baron!

Basic stats from the DA50 website. Numbers below are for a standard aircraft (no options).

Empty weight without options: 3197 (call it 3200) lbs
Maximum useful load (before fuel): 1,210 lbs
Maximum takeoff weight: 4,407 lbs
Fuel capacity total (usable fuel): 49 US gal / 326 lbs

So with full fuel, you have 884 lbs to work with in the cabin. That's 177 lbs per seat, if you divide the load equally among the available 5 seats and carry no bags.

A more typical loading would be, say, 375 lbs in the front seats and maybe 180 lbs (one adult or two kids) in the rear seats, leaving 329 lbs for bags, etc. with full fuel.

Or another 200-250 lbs of fuel (33-42 gallons) if the tanks were larger and the c.g. starts and remains within limits.

That's really heavy, and surprisingly little fuel for a 300hp engine. The guys at Cirrus will sleep well.

It is a very interesting approach. Most of the variants of the 300 ish hp aircraft seem to all come in with around the same weight and tank capacity.
Cirrus, piper, Mooney, Beechcraft, Columbia all seem to lie around having 100 gallons usable and a weight between 3300 and 4000 pounds. Don’t know what diamond was thinking when they came up with a 4500 pound takeoff weight on 300 hp and only 49 gallons. Especially when an a36 can do that exact 165knot cruise at 12.5 gallons.

Imagine a DA50 with tip tanks on it.

A wet wing conversion would probably drop weight and increase capacity. The aluminum tanks eat up a lot of space between spars and can’t be light.

All the newer diamond seem a little on the heavy side. It's crazy the bonanza platform which is almost 80 years old now, can still outperform these new designs in many ways. I guess you can't change the laws of physics.