I think it's the epaulets, Adam...

The 42 is a neat idea, but it is a clown plane twin. A Bonanza has more baggage room and more interior space. The engines in the 42 are jerked over Mercedes 4-cylinder car engines which are not good engines to start with IMO. Gear reduction units are not ideal either. The center stick does not bother me and if you think the visibility out of the front of that plane is limited come fly my Glasair

I think a better twin would be one with real baggage and passenger room along with air cooled diesel engines and no gear boxes. Simple is better.

I love the center stick, just surprised at how heavy the plane was in roll. The Bananza and the Baron you can fly with two fingers... you have to muscle the DA42. Is the visibility similar in the Glasair? I like planes with good visibility and big windows. For experimentals I love the RV with the tip up canopy.

The view to your left beats any bonanza ever made. I own both a da 40 and bonanza and the da40 has a much better view. That camera shot was from the backseat? Try the same shot in a bonanza.

Kevin

DA42 not DA40.

Glareshield is higher, and landing gear way taller.

The engines are governed by a lot of Airworthiness Limitatons for some very expensive items...basically every 600hrs you will drop close to $20,000 for gearboxes and fuel pumps and a host of other little European only Mercedes parts that have to ship from Germany for the engines. Now that Continental owns TAE, hopefully parts will be a bit more local (within the US) but everything I needed in maintaining a DA42 TDI had to come from Canada or Germany.

The props are extremely light, very fragile tips. The gearbox is also relatively light. I can't remember how much the engine weighs, my class book is buried in moving boxes at the moment.

I was very impressed about the fuel usage as well. Full power fuel flow was less then the G58 baron at idle.

Its fugly!

That ends the discussion for me.