BeechTalk - BT

Username Protected · **Posted:** 27 Aug 2009, 13:43

Frankly, I had completely forgotten about the D-Jet. Diamond's installed base position is similar to Cirrus, so maybe they have a shot.

Sign me up for the Maule Jet right now...or maybe I'll just put a JATO bottle on the AirCam I'm building...

Username Protected · **Posted:** 27 Aug 2009, 13:48

Heck, an AirCam gets off the ground in 200 feet anyway. All a JATO would do is set it on fire!

Username Protected · **Posted:** 27 Aug 2009, 13:48

My point exactly.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 27 Aug 2009, 14:15

^I thought you were in the gym^

Username Protected · **Posted:** 27 Aug 2009, 22:57

Username Protected wrote:

It came on the market promised below 1M$, I wonder what the price will be at delivery. :stir:

For a moment when they released their plans, I thought Cirrus would succeed in bringing this jet to the market. When they started telling after a while that there was a possibility that they would drop the V-tail I thought what the hell are these guys doing. Know what you want. Klapmeier wasn't really happy when at Oshkosh Eclipse came landing their SE V-tailed jet just like that. I would really loved to see his face.

Unfortunatly they will probably not succeed. What will happen with the people who has putted deposits down on the cirrus jet ?

The D-Jet is already at $1.9 mil. I'll bet Piper is going to be near $2.5 mil at delivery. The VLJ market is going to be too expensive for the "personal jet". They'll have to focus their marketing towards an entry corporate jet. Origionally at near $1 mil, VLJs looked to be a real success, but at $2 mil and up....it's a toad.

The VLJ guys had to develop smaller and lighter weight components instead of utilizing off-the-shelf components that are lower cost. They found themselves in a catch 22.

When you hit numbers like these, you can repower an early Citation and be in the area of what the VLJs will cost at delivery. Throw in some new avionics and you have a real serious airplane that will leave the VLJs in the dust with decent effeciency.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 28 Aug 2009, 07:08

Username Protected wrote:

Excuse me, we're not talking about some butcher man starting to build jets, these guys know how to build planes. I can't imagine you calculate your cost, add some profit margin, come out to 1M$ and then when you make it you have to sell it for TWICE ???

:liar:

The problem is that their costs wern't even close to $1 mil. They were way off. It cost far more than they thought to develop the specialized parts.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 28 Aug 2009, 11:19

I agree with Yves. This isn't "rocket science".

A brand new Bonanza from the factory costs $650K. Who ever thought they were going to get a jet to market for $1M?

Username Protected · **Posted:** 28 Aug 2009, 12:51

If they all missed their price targets, it's probably harder than we think to pin. Yea, I guess it could have been nothing more than a game to get deposits.

The problem with VLJs is that space and weight becomes more design critical than ever. They designed a lot of unique, smaller components and ran into cost trouble. Eclipse announced at around $1 mil, redesigned the turbine at $1.6 mil, then increased the price to over $2 mil before they closed. That's a pretty lousy track record.

The Cessna Mustang has the market trapped. Many were delivered around $2.3 mil and it's a real decent little jet. All the VLJs on the drawing boards have to sell well below the Mustang pricing to compete and it looks like they can't.

Watch Piper try to sell their single turbine for around the same price as the Mustang! Piper's counting on growth in Asia to save them. Maybe? :scratch:

Changes at Cirrus