Austrian manufacturer gears up for Asian boom as it unveils multirole DA42 version
Diamond Aircraft is to open its first factory in China in August as it gears up for a boom in demand for light aircraft to train airline pilots and for recreational flying.
The joint venture – at an as-yet undisclosed location – will initially build 41 single-engined DA40s and 19 DA42 twins ordered by a training school affiliated to Pan Am International Flight Academy (Flight International, 9-15 November 2004). But Diamond chief executive Christian Dries says that within four years China could be its biggest market and the plant will be building "hundreds" of aircraft a year, including for export.
Dries says a world shortage of carbonfibre is the main obstacle to the ramping up of production of the DA42 Twin Star at its factory in Wiener Neustadt, Austria to five aircraft a week. The company has 538 orders for the twin – half of them from the USA, where it offers a Textron Lycoming IO-360-powered version – and, with the exception of a few slots for cash buyers, deliveries are allocated until 2007.
The company also has 186 orders for its D-Jet very light jet, which will start ground run testing in Austria in September, before the test aircraft is disassembled and flown from its Canadian factory in London, Ontario by the end of the year. US certification for the $1 million, single-pilot, five-seat aircraft is expected in mid-2007.
Diamond unveiled its DA42 MPP (multipurpose platform) at Aero 2005, held in Friedrichshafen, Germany on 21-24 April. The aircraft – pitched at the law enforcement, environmental research and news-gathering markets – is fitted with a Russian-built UOMZ electro-optical sensor, cockpit sensor station and enlarged "bubble" canopy for improved visibility. The variant has no orders, but Dries says the "eye in the sky market is very big".
MURDO MORRISON/FRIEDRICHSHAFEN
Source: Flight International
