JUSTIN WASTNAGE / LICHSTENSTEIN, NEUBRANDENBURG & WIENER NEUSTADT
General aviation aircraft have not kept pace with technology, but modern, lighter designs from Europe are threatening to transform the market
Why, asks Thielert Aircraft Engines' (TAE) special projects manager Ralph Czyrnik, as he performs pre-flight checks on a diesel-powered Cessna 172 Skyhawk, "should general aviation pilots be forced to accept 1950s technology?" The checks take around 10s and, once cleared for take-off, Czyrnik pushes the thrust lever straight to maximum, a scenario only possible with new-generation piston engines.
Aircraft in the lighter end of the general aviation market have not benefited from the aerodynamic refinements, and avionics and propulsion advances that larger models have. A reluctance to undertake expensive product development has left prospective market entrants with few choices. Cessna introduced the Skyhawk in 1956, and it has gone on to be the biggest-selling aircraft ever, but it has had little structural modification in the intervening years. Its largest rival, the Piper Cherokee, has undergone several transformations since New Piper took over the assets of the company in 1992, but remains largely faithful to its 1960s' PA-28 design.
The US General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) reports piston-single sales falling at around 9% a year during the late 1990s, with the limited choice a contributing factor. The fleet is ageing, too, with GAMA recording the average age of piston aircraft in the USA as 31 years.
Cessna and New Piper plan to introduce new models for the lighter end, but the chronic need for new designs has spurred on several new entrants into the market. The need for cheaper, more reliable light aircraft is most acute in Europe, where the general aviation fleet is around one-fifth that of North America's, and aeroclubs find difficulty in attracting new flyers.
In the USA, Cirrus Design introduced its SR20 into the market in 1998, followed by Lancair with its Columbia 300. Both aircraft replaced traditional metal airframe construction with carbonfibre composites. In Europe several new projects were launched by small manufacturers in the 1990s with the same goal: to bring new, efficient designs to the stagnating general aviation market. Most of these companies are now bringing their projects to market, with several not only selling aircraft in Europe, but also penetrating the USA. This week's Aero 2003 Friedrichshafen air show will give many of Europe's GA manufacturers a chance to showcase these designs.
Market gap
Austria's Diamond Aircraft, which had produced popular motorgliders such as the HK36 Super Dimona, was one of the first European manufacturers to spot the gap in the market. "Cessna has missed its chance to develop a new product and it still dominates the market with what is essentially a 50-year-old design," says Christian Dries, Diamond's owner and chief executive.
The market for replacement aircraft was what first attracted Dries. "As an investor, general aviation was a wide-open market as it consisted of almost entirely old airframes," he says. After moderate success with its DA20 Katana piston-single, the company embarked on development of its first four-seater aircraft, the DA40 Diamond Star trainer, which entered production in 2000.
Germany's OMF Aircraft tells a similar tale. "In 1997 we identified a strong gap in the market for a new, real two-place trainer, designed to accommodate two passengers of around 100kg [220lb] each along with room for big bags," says managing director Derek Stinnes. OMF is now ramping up production of its OMF-160 Symphony two-seater and has begun development of a four-seat variant.
Composite aircraft, led by the Cirrus SR20/22, accounted for around 50% of new light aircraft sales in the USA last year, compared with only 10% five years ago and many manufacturers now view lightweight and durable composite airframes as the key to future prosperity. Composite production is relatively inexpensive, since rivetting costs are eliminated, and so demand should remain strong, not least since GAMA estimates that around 20% of the US fleet could be grounded by expensive new corrosion service bulletins issued for all Cessna 172s, as well as 300- and 400-series aircraft.
But composites initially suffered an image problem, with owners doubting the claims that plastic could be stronger than metal, and European firms had an uphill struggle convincing US customers to buy their products. Diamond's facility in London, Ontario, Canada, opened in 1999 to provide a production presence in North America, but managing director Michael Feinig says it was only when the 95kW (125hp) Continental IO-240-powered DA20-C1 was selected last year by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to provide introductory flight training for the US Air Force Academy that the brand really gained acceptance among the wider private flyer community.
Following the lead of Diamond and OMF are several other new European manufacturers. All are now able to bring new models to market quickly with the aid of three-dimensional computer design, new materials and advanced manufacturing techniques. Aquila, based outside Berlin, has achieved sales of around 100 of its A210 two-seat trainers in the first year of series production; start-up High Performance Aircraft is expected to introduce the first prototype twin-piston pusher TT62 at Friedrichshafen; and military trainer specialist Grob plans to launch a family of light aircraft based on the G140TP single-engined turboprop. The market seems to be swinging in favour of composites, as these aircraft involve a large amount of carbonfibre.
Meanwhile, Extra Aircraft, a German manufacturer aiming to produce new designs using traditional metal airframes, is under administration; and France's Apex Aircraft, manufacturer of the Alpha, Bul Aéro, Cap and Robin ranges of light aircraft, entered voluntary receivership following a downturn in orders. Even the steadiest of bases can be chipped away by cheap, attractive new market entrants, and France's EADS Socata is considering launching two new piston aircraft to fill its market gaps, and these would also use a significant share of composites in their final designs.
Diesel development
Materials are not the only key to success, however. Other factors in making GA more affordable and easier are also receiving enormous interest. One of the most significant innovations in the European automotive industry in recent years has been the development of turbocharged direct injection (TDi) diesel-cycle engines. In Europe, diesel is big business, chiefly because of fuel taxes roughly double that of the USA, and TD is from BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen have transformed the fuel's cheap agricultural image to a super-efficient sports car fuel.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, the development of diesel-cycle engines for piston aircraft has been greeted with enthusiasm by the European GA community. New composite aircraft designs can shave around one-third off running costs through aerodynamic refinements while the lower price of diesel can cut an additional third. TAE points to its own study, which shows a 600km (400nm) journey in a 100kW (135hp) Centurion 1.7-powered DA40-TDi single to cost around €14 ($15) in Jet A fuel compared with €50 in aviation gasoline required to propel a Lycoming-powered Cessna 172 single.
Diamond believes that US customers, less concerned by fuel costs, will still be interested in diesel-cycle engines, since TAE's Centurion 1.7 includes full authority digital engine control (FADEC), which replaces twin magnetos and other pre-flight checks with a one-button automatic starting procedure. The FADEC, based on an automobile control unit developed for Lotus, also permits the pilot to accelerate without worrying about fuel pump mixtures.
TAE has around 1,000 orders today, with 90% coming from Europe, and is leading the pack of manufacturers developing diesel-cycle engines, pushing ahead of established players such as France's SMA Engines with its 170kW Jet A-fuelled SR305.Yet TAE did not exist until 1999, when Thielert Group realised the enormous potential market in retrofits alone. Thielert had already invested in the latest computer-aided superalloy milling and casting machines for its Thielert Motoren division, which produces precision components for Formula 1 and Indy Car prototype engines, and had the design for its TAE-110 (later Centurion 1.7) modified automotive engine certificated within three years.
TAE says superalloys have made the diesel light enough to replace avgas engines and direct fuel injection means that performance now more than rivals traditional powerplants. TAE predicts annual sales of around 1,500 Centurion 1.7s, plus 600 of its 230kW Centurion 4s, by the time its facilities are at full capacity in 2006, mainly consisting of retrofits.
When Thielert Group decided to found an aero-engines division, rather than trying to source land and engineers in its home base of Hamburg, where both are scarce, it looked east, to the former communist-controlled states, to the town of Lichstenstein, close to Chemnitz (formerly Karl-Marxstadt). "Chemnitz was home to the Trabant automotive facility as well as AutoUnion DKW [forerunner to Audi] so there was already a skilled workforce in place," says TAE.
Metalwork craft
Similarly OMF, which in using facilities in Neubrandenburg, 200km north of Berlin, uses personnel from companies in the area's metalwork industry "that didn't manage to make the transition to a market economy" to produce the steel cages for the Symphony, a certificated development of the GlaStar kitplane, says Stinnes. Such was the intricacy of the welding work needed to modify the structure from the original design, that OMF originally subcontracted the work to two western German firms, both of which failed tolerance tests and the firm found local staff able to complete the task in-house.
OMF and TAE will have benefited, however, from German government aid given to companies that establish technological facilities in the eastern states. Aquila, for example, was founded by western German ex-Diamond engineers who chose Schönhagen airport as a base as it is just outside non-subsidised Berlin, in grant-qualifying Brandenburg state. High Performance Aircraft, in the north-eastern town of Rostock, has also taken advantage. Even Diamond is benefiting, with HK36 Super Dimona production set to shift from Wiener Neustadt outside Vienna to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in east Germany.
High labour costs
Despite federal funding, labour costs are higher in eastern Germany than countries further east. OMF has 65 employees in Neubrandenburg working on steel cages, composite half shells and final assembly, but was unable to find a cheaper alternative to shipping in aluminium flying surfaces from a subcontractor in the Czech Republic. Diamond's DA40 has 138 small components from Slovakia and other former communist central European states, where labour costs are around €10/h, which when combined with Austrian labour at around three times that, produces a mean labour cost of around €20/h, which is around half the cost of US assembly, says Feinig.
Low manufacturing costs, through a mix of new techniques and outsourced workers, should enable all these new companies to offer their new products in the ultimate market: the USA. OMF is to open a production facility in Trois-Rivières in Canada, and Diamond is expanding its own Canadian plant. Both companies also qualify for financial assistance from the Quebec and Ontario governments, respectively, which offsets the additional costs associated with entering the US market through a third country, albeit one part of a free-trade pact.
In retrospect, Dries says, Diamond should have gone direct to a site in the USA, not least since without a well-known brand name finding a partner to arrange customer financing was more difficult. "Now that we have 10 years history in the USA, our residual values are high and our accident rate is so low that finance is no longer a problem," says Dries. The Austrian company plans to assemble over 600 aircraft at its London, Ontario, facility by 2005 and Diamond estimates at least 60% of orders for its €830,000 D-Jet personal jet will come from the USA. "The single-engined D-Jet will be the platform from which we launch a whole family of aircraft," says Dries, predicting that Diamond will overtake Cessna and Piper in their home market to become the largest GA manufacturer. OMF, too, sees the USA as the key market, and arms its workers with US tools rather than use potentially incompatible metric nuts and bolts.
Asian potential
Diamond sees Asia as an unexploited market, with China particularly promising. The company already supplies aircraft for the Indian air cadet programme and Feinig points to a Chinese government study showing a requirement for around 5,000 aircraft under 2,000kg. Diamond, which has just completed a 55-aircraft deal with an airline-affiliated training school in China, is making the country a strategic priority, with a possible site for a third production facility. "GA regulation is soon to be passed over to civilian hands, which could set off a boom and we aim to sell at least 100 aircraft there per year," says Dries.
In the home market, too, there is hope for growth. Europe accounts for only 20% of the world's piston fleet, but sales have been steady for around 15 years. With the arrival of diesel engines, the continent has suddenly re-awoken, says Feinig. "As pilots begin to see that they can concentrate on flying and not have to worry about in-flight engine management, this should encourage more people to return to flying," says TAE's Czyrnik, as he performs the single-button shutdown procedure on the diesel 172.
Source: Flight International
