THE DA50 RG ORIGIN STORY - Diamond Aircraft

though we were not born with wings we've always had the dream to fly how powerful was that dream that we in universal harmony found a way to invent an instrument to build our own wings to fly the origins of the planes oster is actually a small country we have history like for example in classical music that is known everywhere in the world like mozart we've had crazy lack of progress in the legacy ga business in order to go anywhere whether it's one inch or one mile you have to take some risk somebody needs to do it [Music] good as legacy engines have treated us we can do better and somebody has to be first the dna of diamond has set by the original founder of the company these are the things we are going to bake into every single airplane that all doesn't come without some risk [Music] has always been right at the front edge of that they're not afraid of being first this is not some weird science project of some wild-haired professor inventor in some barn someplace that look at this i've invented this new contraption this is what we need people they used to look at it with a very skeptical eye not that way anymore they want it [Music] most of the technology that exists in aviation sources from the 40s and 50s in terms of its original design that we're still flying today it's a testament to how good they are that they last that long but the design characteristics are of that era cars didn't have seat belts standard until 1959. so imagine people of that era were designing aircraft with very little experience of what that would look like christian dries the founder of the company he had a lot of his own personal experiences with general aviation airplanes few of those involved some incidents that he was extraordinarily fortunate to have survived he said if i'm going to do this what can i do different to an industry that had just ignored the things that the automotive industry focused on for many decades we didn't have very safe cars in the 50s 60s even into the 70s in some cases that safety culture started to build on the automotive side and because of his involvement in the automotive industry why can't we bring some of these ideas and concepts into general aviation nobody's really ever done it so he said that's what we're going to do christian trees said you know if you want to build a really great airplane you start with a really great wing but in that era no one was designing new airplanes because the industry had completely gone off the sales cliff in 1980 so when diamond came along he saw the potential for what was really happening in aviation and that was the confluence of composite airframe technology with computers a modern aviation company to provide entry-level aircraft for personal use training use starting with small and going to larger but he had to start at a time when no one was doing it in that era where would you turn to find the expertise to build composite certificated airplanes if no one had done it well he turned to a motor glider company those engineers knew everything about building beautiful sleek composite aircraft wings the original aircraft that was purchased the company hoac which later became demona is the h-36 motor glider basis of the design of the d820 was based on that motor glider [Music] christian dries went to those engineers and he said okay that just got us going now it's time to implement my vision which is i want to build the world's safest most efficient aircraft and you have free reign to design it exactly to that purpose those engineers had the freedom to look at how do you solve problems of airplanes i think what they did in that moment was the most important thing that aviation has seen they went back and analyzed exactly what caused problems and safety issues with aircraft they analyzed all the accidents put them into categories what they learned were stall spin accidents fire and fuel containment loss of control crosswinds occupant protection concepts which were not part of the 50s design era then they pulled out a clean sheet of paper in each category they took a fresh look created ideas brainstormed to what could be done and settled on a design concept they created a wing system that would be used on all the airplanes that doesn't stall and spin only needed one spar but they built two so they could get rid of fires and aircraft so with the goal of building the world's safest most efficient aircraft line and using it as a foundation to go from single to twin to bigger cabins this was all part of the original vision that christian trees had the suv of the air concept all you have to do is look on the roads everywhere you see that is predominantly what people want to drive around in because of the flexibility and the utility why not take that up into the air this is where the idea started from doing a df50 means hey we need more space we need something really with more ramp appeal we wanted to have this diamond factor as well but it has to be safe a lot of times the design starts on a napkin over conversation and it evolves from there until you have the blueprints and the proof of concept and the first production aircraft it's a constant evolution [Music] i always wanted to be a metal worker sometimes it turns out differently i was working as an intern here doing poor production work and then i was getting more and more deeper in aviation study for my whole life i was always impatient with this company i was doing an intern doing laminating in the workshop doing final assembly here in the plant and then i got the unique chance to create an aircraft the day 50 was my diploma thesis so i was pretty excited that i had the chance at diamond to realize an aircraft because only a few people in the world have the possibility to design their own aircraft we started from scratch with hand sketches christian was an innovator he was always motivating us to make something which is good make it perfect we are also pilots when we were discussing it mostly ends up that we say let's see aircraft let's go flying to understand what we are talking about that we can always test at all time how it really feels in reality here at diamond oster we're having nearly 800 people working from 28 different nationalities we have more than 100 engineers be a very big international family here i heard about the diamond about the high level of the engineering and design i'm aerospace engineer i was so inspired and i decided to apply we do the design from the very first idea we already think about active and passive safety we're the best in safety record we have everywhere the safety included we are doing failsafe design in the rings double shielded tanks monocoque cabin high absorbing roll bar absorbing elements below the seats airbags in the seat belts it's everything safety the customers don't see it but when he was needed he has it when we developed it we didn't know about the sound you see in the calculations just the performance and what the surface can do for this airplane then after first few flights we heard this is a nice sound it's like a signature of this airplane and now if i walk for example in the city i hear with sound okay this is our d50 landing this development always kept not only the safety but the elegance maybe the elegance that you would think of when thinking of vienna with classical music it's a city full of history and diamond is as well a company full of history and now our biggest milestone i would say actually we completed our compulsion it's a symphony orchestra everyone is making his own sound and a footprint in the aviation so and we're very proud of it it's now complete absolutely with the da50 we love to be proud of what we own people don't want to drive ugly cars they don't want to live in an ugly house they don't want to fly ugly planes this airplane it is the wow airplane when i think of the 50 i think of beast mode [Music] this aircraft feels aggressive it has that look of like an american muscle car it's got the big engine on the nose it's gone with a matte finish on it with red accents and it really does add to the drama of this aircraft looks best it really looks fast makes you think of top gun or of james bond movies julie i think even tom cruise would give it a go you can see from the front we have those two big air scoops black nose large propeller very beautiful tail the elegancy of the lines poses them all into a good combination of style and aggressiveness everything just looks very aggressive and very tough which i think is a bit of a departure for diamond they're very smooth and elegant and classy typically but the da-50 looks mean it looks tough it stands up tall and proud it just has a nobility look to it absolutely ramp available [Music] it's got that really cool mean look that tall tail that long wing that big cowl up front and that menacing propeller on the front of the airplane a muscle car driver would really appreciate it lots of aircraft designers will tell you that for an airplane to fly good it has to look good the ramp presence is not apparent by looking at a piece of paper with some specifications on it if you looked at the specifications of a maserati you wouldn't get that understanding of what that really means until you walk up to it and get in it and and drive it and i think the same thing goes for the d850 you stop and you say wow like that's a beautiful airplane it feels like a luxury suv with wings the elegance of a sports car combined with the versatility of an suv it really channels all of your attention just extremely good looking the noise is very nice with the propeller and it's so beautiful it's probably close to a silver aston martin yes and not only delivering safe planes but really having so sexy looking planes sexy but we don't tell this right [Music] there is an old saying that an airplane flies like it looks and i think that's especially true for the d850 [Music] fundamentally flying diamonds is basically like wearing wings it's pretty spectacular diamonds are they're the best in the air they love to fly and people love to fly them it's not a sit in and let the airplane fly you which it'll do this is to go up and enjoy it [Music] the way it accelerates but then when you come at that point of rotation and just you begin to realize it's just there when you when you pull back that that really stable platform which is so intuitive to fly feeling is very fine [Music] me as a production test pilot i take the aircraft to all sides of the performance envelope so we take it on the high-speed flight regime we take it on the low-speed flight regime and we evaluate the characteristics at every point of the envelope yeah i was just astonished i mean it's a very nice handling characteristics given by the great adjustment of all the control surfaces just a thrilling aircraft to fly put a lot of effort into matching the aerodynamic components with the control characteristics fairly large aircraft it still gives you this kind of feeling of speed so as soon as you lift off the runway you just feel fast you know man i'm fast it gives you a speedy feeling but also with a certain amount of elegance [Music] when you're maneuvering in this airplane it's got a really rock-solid feel can stand the airplane on a wingtip it's wonderful to turn around a point and with the stick and rudder controls it really becomes a pilot's aircraft [Music] the intuitiveness of the center stick is definitely a unique feature having the model of a 3d space in your hat you can just tell the center stick where you want to go and the aircraft will do it unlike for example a side stick with the d850 i think all of us realize flying it it feels really natural you feel one with the aircraft rather quickly the best moment i would say in the aircraft is just the landing is always smooth doing a bad landing in a df50 is close to impossible because it just flies so well and as soon as you fly it close to the ground it actually takes up the nose a bit up by itself and you will nearly always do a main gear touchdown [Music] it's actually even platinum to land in crosswind conditions a very wide track of the landing gear as you can see they're mounted fairly outward on the wing that also makes great landing and handling characteristics on ground yeah with the df50 the first landing basically all of us nailed it which is not that common for the first landing in a new airplane but the trailing landing gear and also the handling we could all achieve that that the first landing was already a success also have way more confidence than a yoke or in a side stick playing because you just have better feedback if conditions are not ideal you really have an extra advantage there's no bouncing not too much flair every landing is silky smooth and landing is where being a pilot really comes down to your skill and your experience and the df50 makes that very easy because the airplane is so easy to fly because it's so natural you just keep thinking you know my landings are looking better and better my takeoffs everything's coming together i feel comfortable in the air it truly inspires pilot confidence the moment you step in and you feel this kind of elegant touch on the inside but this brutal power in front of the aircraft yeah that just gives you big excitement [Music] one of the most important things is to enter the aircraft so what is the feeling and what is the experience if you enter the aircraft most aircraft their doors open like regular car doors and it's just a normal event guardian doors were famous from the mercedes sl300 this was one of the first things we wanted to incorporate because when the pilot approaches the aircraft he's opening the door when you open these gullwing doors it's just like a little magic moment like oh come enter the diamond world so there we want to give him really large entries front and back we had different doors at the beginning but it was clear that we want to make something in premium class and it needs to have carving doors the goldwing doors became a trademark of diamond not only they look great they make the aircraft very accessible large cabin large doors and very easy to get in very easy to get out the d850 is designed really as like a luxury suv everything that you would find in a car to make a long road trip an easy experience you're also going to find in the d850 just the interior detailing seems very refined very european very bmw mercedes these seats are produced by a company called volsdorf in austria and croatia everything is hand selected handcrafted seating and stitching the quality of design as well as the materials that are selected completely different level of luxury very high quality leathers we've got carbon fiber finishes and touches all throughout there are no compromises with this aircraft the aircraft's interior was very well thought out the creature comforts right from a water bottle to a handy little pocket to keep a small notebook for accepting clearances from atc this aircraft has five seats and it's wide enough for two adults to sit side by side in the front without having to touch elbows it's comfortable it's the same interior as the da-62 so it's the largest cabin for a single piston aircraft you have space for days in that aircraft i'm fritz and i buy for me and my family a time a day of 50. that's it's a big dream when you have your own airplane i'm a big man and tall and most airplane is too small for me this airplane is a zero compromise airplane when it comes to space you won't find anything any bigger and you can put little tiny people in it or you can put great extra large size people in it and they're all comfortable it's fine and dandy to have a go fast airplane but you can't move inside of it this airplanes like the difference between the sports car and the suv bioplanes you have to roll in and out of these you step into as opposed to rolling in or rolling out you don't have to be uh a contortionist to get in and out of these planes we three sit in back and the door was closed and i mean it asked for it the door was closed yeah the door was closed and we say yeah if it's an hour and a half flight this would be okay in case you need to take that extra passenger here's the plane that can do it for becky to have place too a big place not only that you fit five people but behind the five people you still have plenty of space to put in luggage so going skiing golfing or anywhere with the family the rear door the baggage door it's huge you can put your golf clubs your four adults and go the family pet which we find more traveling these days you find people putting mountain bikes back there you've got room to put you know the larger things that you never would have thought bring in your plane and go i think this is the most spacious single engine aircraft i've ever flown gives you comfort that you will usually only find in twin engines it is a pleasure to travel it is like first class lumbar support to full recline to wide cushy seats great visibility it just makes for just such a magic experience you have a lot of leg room you have a lot of head room your arms comfortably fit to both of your sides you fit into the aircraft easily even if you're a bigger person i mean look at martin can easily fit into our da 50. the long wingspan and flexibility of the carbon fiber wings they can absorb a lot of the oscillations that you have in the atmosphere especially for people they're not accustomed to flying small aircrafts it's much more similar to flying a large commercial airline as a passenger i don't want to be cramped i don't want to feel claustrophobic i want nice open windows i want to be able to open my own door i want to be able to get out or feel like i can get out if i need to and i think it gives you all of that how much luggage you can put in this aircraft it's really the perfect aircraft for family flight the d850 has room to grow there's room for the family and room for the family to grow as well this aircraft has everything that the da62 would offer but with a single engine on it so you don't need to think about getting your extra rating to fly this aircraft you can just step in and go the a62 and tf50 has the same body it's the same cabin size carried the thought that they had in the da62 and improved on it they've made it a little more ergonomical with with some of the changes environmental controls the electric rudder trim on the fedex control it's like the d862 it wants to fly at the same time it's it wants to land it's going to have this very similar landing characteristics than the 62 which is simple and forgiving due to the function of calendar time we've had the the luxury of being able to put some additional design changes incorporate some additional technical improvements to the airplane the airplane will give you all of the things that you're looking for in the da62 but it will have a lower initial cap cost and then the maintenance cost because there is only one engine to service is going to be lower as well so your direct operating costs per hour are going to be less than the da62 moving from a da40 to a d50 you're probably going to feel weird for about 30 seconds before you never want to go back it's a much wider cabin you have a much faster aircraft than the 40. you're going to feel right at home in terms of engine controls same avionics everything is going to feel like it's in the right place in the right position like changing from an economic car to a luxury one i don't think anyone that has done that wants to go back or needed more than 30 seconds to get accustomed to the luxury airplanes tend to become more complicated with more power they get more knobs they get more buttons and it's different with the d850 it's still really not too complex to fly it transition from a da40 to a d850 is really easy the da-50 is the perfect next step and the transition is going to be so seamless from one plane to the other that's a dream that's a dream a big dream i think 40 years ago i think every time i will one time i will learn to fly but i don't have time i have family and hobbies and working and don't time and then after i i learned and i think that's it's a big dream when you have your own airplane that's a nice dream people really love the personalization that you can put into this aircraft when it comes to picking your exterior and the appearance of the aircraft we've done some very unique things and it will really help you put that personal flair on your aircraft [Music] your plane made for you specially made for you that dream it's coming true [Music] for some of these people it's a dream for a lot of them they've been entrepreneurs they've built their businesses and this is kind of the next level in their lives personally and professionally so it truly gives them a way to get home to their family in the evenings to expand their business and to grow so it's it's definitely cool it's cool to be part of [Music] i like to explore the world or europe or america before i do with my car or there's my motorcycle and now the next step is flying [Music] i'm matt i'm robin and we're flying the diamond d850 around the world i don't think there's one person that is interested in aviation that somehow hasn't harbored that thought somewhere that wouldn't that be a fun thing to do you know i want to be the the modern day world explorer but it's imminently doable and you don't have to do anything to the plane you simply get in it and go the plane is just robust in the way that it's built really an opportunity to open up even more airfields for them to fly into some places that maybe you wouldn't take a competitor being able to go into the himalays just is a different level in this yamdis in south america it's even higher with the 300 horsepower twin turbo it'll climb in and out of the mountains just fine you won't have any problem going in and out of leadville the highest airport in north america we just realized the privilege that we have to fly a private airplane where basically well nobody flies to take a route by the easter islands it would not be possible without the jet day one capability of the df50 we have all the newest navigation equipment we have the communication with the built-in satellite phone which is just essential if you're in remote areas well your average person wouldn't do that what it does do is that it proves that i can probably go 500 miles to see grandma if that guy can fly this plane around the world the df50 burns jet fuel like most of our other aircraft in our lineup 100 low lead is still contributing to 70 of airborne lead contaminants in the u.s we expect that the environmental protection agency will put an end to leaded fuels altogether at some point in the very near future so the fact that we're burning jet a has no lead content is certainly an advantage as we move ahead we have better availability less cost for the fuel it's more efficient and we completely keep the lead out of the environment in the d850 you're burning 20 to 25 less fuel than you would in a competitor aircraft and your trade-off is just a little bit less speed so if you're looking at a trip from dallas to austin for example you'd be about five minutes slower than a competing aircraft i don't think a single pilot that has flown a fedex-controlled aircraft ever wants to go back to a non-fatal controlled aircraft a lot of people like the idea of having a twin turbo v6 on their aircraft you have it on your car why not have it on your aircraft trying to start a node gasoline engine and it's backfiring and you're pumping the the mixture trying to get it right none of that it literally feels like you're getting into a modern car and starting up once having used fedex doesn't matter if you're in an airliner environment or flying biz jets you appreciate the system because there's no more you know carp heat um rpm setting and throttle plate and leaning and that kind of stuff it's just you know zero 100 power you say what you want or you set what you want with one lever massive advantage [Music] all the conventional engines they look straight out of the 50s the cd 300 continental had come out and designed something entirely new something kind of revolutionary [Music] diamond engineering and continental engineering have been very very closely working together on this program i think it's perfect match for the d850 the customer that wants to fly these airplanes is used to high standard this is the latest and greatest engine for such an application state of the art facility a lot of the parts are manufactured in-house content's been around for many years we have produced over 7 500 jet jedi engines cd 100 series we have over seven million flight hours so it's a proven technology [Music] fedex is too easy to use they both work together at all times and talk to each other they control fuel control all the pressures all the temperatures you can start the engine basically by just switching on the master you will not have to fiddle around with those additional pumps easily smoothly press the button and the faded will make the engine come alive for you so much information that's being downloaded recorded a pilot will very rarely ever be surprised by an engine event it also then provides the data log which makes it for easy maintenance you plug in your cable you send the data to the service center and you can see very quickly what needs to be troubleshot it's almost like operating a jet it's like operating your car it takes the pilot workload to a different level the electronic control unit in the aircraft you're only putting in the amount of fuel that the engine actually needs at that moment in order to create the right amount of power in a lot of cases older engines are ineffective because they put too much fuel into the cylinder and a lot of that fuel ends up just traveling through the exhaust system and out the tailpipe as a hydrocarbon the specific fuel consumption is very impressive at a 0.355 pounds per

horsepower per hour so one of the benefits of compression ignition diesel engine provides turbocharged aircraft from the old technology are very high pressurized big block engine aircraft has a lot of disadvantages that come with that style of turbo you burn more you have more maintenance you worry more about engine management and cooling but all the diamonds are turbocharged faded control which means i have no engine management as a pilot to do i can fly at high altitudes and it's the most efficient way to do it it's criticality of 8 000 feet and the service ceiling of the d850 with that engine is 20 000 feet so it gives you that altitude performance the engine is rated for 300 horsepower takeoff and 270 horsepower continuous flight it is a very powerful engine on takeoff but on the other hand as soon as you get up in cruise and you reduce the power the engine becomes very very silent it becomes a very pleasant airplane to fly you don't feel a lot of vibrations in the cabin at all we have a gear reduction of 1.66 with a slower turning propeller a lower noise so it's a very quiet engine it's a very smooth experience the engine is liquid-cooled which gives it a very stable cooling radiators similar to your car really in a traditional air-cooled engine you would find cool cylinders at the front and hot cylinders at the back with the d850s liquid-cooled engines the ability to distribute the heat throughout the entire engine block will keep the engine at a constant temperature from front to back the engine is equipped with two alternators the alternators are providing the electrical current not only for the engines for the electronic controls but also for some of the aircraft features such as the air conditioning it's one of the benefits of two alternators in the integrated system with the diamond aircraft every engine that we build we test we test it through a very rigorous process to make sure that all the parameters of that engine are functioning properly there's a lot of testing goes on in altitude and cold climate and heat the tolerance that we use in aerospace for our engines are the tens of thousands of inches to certify and to develop these engines we have to think about every regime every environmental arena that these airplanes to the a50 are flying in we're putting thousands of hours on these engines so by the time the consumer sees it they've been in development for a long time by them flying around the world we have a very extensive service network and we're expanding that obviously in conjunction with diamond with their customers the initial tbr time between replacement is 1200 we have a plan in place to increase that fairly rapidly for the customers continental has had the same path with the cd100 engines and we successfully increased those to 2100 hours tbr so we're very confident to get to a higher tbr very quickly to minimize downtime where the customer sends the engine back after they receive the new one it's ready in the shop waiting for it and you swap them it's really all about minimized downtime it's about convenience and you get a brand new engine every time you reach that tbr time between replacement our partnership with diamond is just bringing workload reducing technologies to pilots in the g1000 nxi system for the da50 rg just look at the features it gives you as a private pilot this is just mind-blowing can do so many things you can control the aircraft in so many manners which aren't even available on an airbus [Music] actually you can fly the u50 you fly speed vector what you would do as a pilot you would set the crew speed that you want to go and the power setting is the resulting variable trend vector or speed vector show you whether you're trending to speed up or whether you're training to slow down then whenever you see that trend vector disappear you know that you're going to stay at that specific airspeed [Music] the keypad which you have in the center which once you use it i would assume you would never go back to using the knobs if you look in the d850 cockpit actually will flip out from the armrest it's a really cool implementation like you'd find in an aircraft like part 25 market instead of going here and having to go letter by letter scrolling you know left and right here you actually have an alphanumeric keypad and you just punch in the letters and in this manner you could put in all the waypoints you need for your flight plan coming from a legacy g1000 system is an easy transition at a g1000 nxi absolutely no special training or anything like that we've kept the button and knob ology the same it's a very seamless transition synthetic vision is a big situational awareness enhancer so you can see all of the 3d terrain and airports environments directly on the primary flight display surface watch technology kind of stacks on top of our safe taxi technology to give you a little bit more awareness in the terminal environment things like hey you're on runway 2-2 or you're on taxiway hotel enhancing their situational awareness on the ground electronic stability protection there's ever an inadvertent flight into imc or you get into an unusual attitude one press of the level key will roll wings level as well as bring your pitch back to zero pitch attitude the yaw damper capability is great workload reducer especially if you're traveling with passengers in the back and that tail starts to wag just a little bit hitting that yaw damper really just helps smooth everything out we do have fuel rangering capability both the fuel exhaustion and to your reserves you can see at different power settings that range dynamically adjusts support for sirius xm weather that also provides additional capability like radio entertainment in the cockpit so my wife always loves to listen to the radio while we fly rather than listen to me talk on the radio the fsb weather which is that free adsb weather that's uploaded from the ground station so we integrate both of those in the g1000 nxi system on the da50 there's also an option for worldwide weather data link which also provides some other benefits like texting and voice calling to stay in connection with other ones on the ground it's a perfect system to do something like fly around the world map rendering happens instantaneously you can actually select vfr charts ifr low or ifr high charts and you see we're still actually overlaying traffic on that moving map page with those charts you don't sacrifice any situational awareness we also have the flexibility of loading jefferson approach charts on here we also support checklist capability the pilot wants to hand fly but just wants to be told hey this is your pitch reference you can do that with the flight director it'll give you that navigation guidance if you just nest that attitude indicator under the flight director you'll actually follow the flight path that you've loaded into the system ifr flying is always a challenge uh in in any aircraft but the gfc 700 coupled with the garmin g1000 nxi just makes that workload incredibly easy garmin's gfc 700 autopilot that we've integrated into the d850 has a number of advanced features able to do fully coupled approaches and fully coupled missed approaches reducing that pilot workload and just trying to make those stressful situations like a go-around easier with g1000 nxi we have all of the charts actually built into the system it's very simple to actually pull up a dedicated chart for that approach by hitting the chartsoft key on the mfd display that chart is actually linked to the flight plan that you have loaded so if you have an approach in that flight plan it's automatically going to bring up the rnav runway 9 approach that we have loaded so there's no actual selection of the specific chart that you need localizer ils vor approaches we'll actually load the appropriate nav frequency in the nav box here and upon reaching the appropriate point in the approach we will actually automatically switch that frequency into the active so there's no longer going to be any ambiguity on whether or not you've actually loaded the appropriate localizer or ils frequency and activated it it will actually turn shoot the approach down to minimums i'm currently working on my instrument rating and i know instrument flying is one of the harder aspects of flying you would think but it's almost like you're not even having to do much work diamond has really put together with garmin an interface that is just very intuitive faster processing speed smoother map panning which really gives us availability to do additional functionalities in the future and we're going to be able to support technology growth for years to come the diamond aircraft they have such low accident rates compared to the rest of the ga fleet that it's nearly unfair that an insurance company would charge the same premium for a diamond as it would charge for a different manufacturer they are the closest thing in terms of safety that you can get as to flying on an airline on the ga aircraft at diamond aircraft safety is in our dna and this is not just a little sentence that looks nice and sounds nice it is where we are coming from if we go back to the founding days we're simply concepts and over the years and the several decades that have passed of the fleet in the field the founding dna if you will has proved to be 100 right this philosophy was in every design and construction of every single diamond plane and even with the df50 the simplicity of operation with a fedex-controlled engine it's single lever it's a push-button engine start it's a push-button ground test and i think for those pilots and owners these days that are not flying as much as corporate pilots or commercial pilots it's going to be easy for them to stay current and safe in the airplane diamond built the world's best control system for a light aircraft with a special push rod control system ailerons that go all the way to the tips that are long and big long flaps the standby instrumentation is always in the center you're either training in the clouds or if you had an actual avionics emergency in the clouds you don't have to move your head too much you're not looking down and around in a spot for the back of instrumentation in aviation there's a really awful thing sometimes with older airplanes where you'll survive a crash but then you'll die of smoke inhalation or of a post-crash fire in the diamonds they protect the fuel so it's a metal tank between these bars and it's also steel braided flexible fuel lines so in a crash situation you don't end up with a fuel leak that causes a fire only needed one spar but they built two so they could create a protected space crushable aluminum cells the goal was to get rid of fires and aircraft big deal saves a lot of lives the occupant protection design that they built in many aircraft of the past they'd have issues with the seat tracks by mounting the seats into a special position underneath 26 g roll bar the seats are designed with crash elements under them so that in the worst case scenario airframe will absorb the impact not your back diamond df50 features a full carbon fiber composite fuselage a monocoque structure so in the unlikely case of crash you as occupants will have the maximum safety available from a structural point of view another thing that i love about this airplane is that passengers on both sides have their own emergency exit door if god forbid something were to happen and you need to get out fast you're going to be able to do that when you're closing those doors uh all you have to do is push that red handle down it's visual it's tactile input you can't miss the fact that your door is not closed because you'd have a handle in the way so it really does add to the safety as well ground handling is quite nice for the airplane especially on the runway it doesn't have a tendency some high performance singles have where it wants to go off the runway because of the amount of torque you have the an aircraft that is inherently safe to fly because it's docile it's very hard to get it in a flight situation where you would lose control over it investigations have shown that turning stalls are still responsible for a majority of the accidents that happen in general aviation one of the most dangerous transitions in flying situation is after takeoff and you're making your first crosswind turn generally going to be nose up lower air speeds higher power settings so you're going to be battling the torque from the propeller so you're generally close to the stall but even if you get into a store with a d850 power on in a turn the aircraft will be controllable all around its lateral axis i've tried it out quite a bit i had a flight where i basically didn't do anything else than stalls for more than three hours even in the most critical situations that i could come up with the aircraft was always very well behaving and very well recoverable diamonds are designed perfectly for slow flight this is where sometimes aircraft have trouble many aircraft you get to the edge you get slow it drops and it can be very abrupt what's different about every diamond is it never really stops flying tips of the wings are designed to never lose all their lift that is the safety characteristics of the aerodynamic design of a diamond wing so stahls you just simply come down like a leaf like literally you could put her in a stall and almost hover on a spot just have like a very low air speed and gently without any violent movement around the air any axes of the aircraft you just kind of gently stole her and she would lose altitude you could probably come down in this stalling attitude all the way to the ground and that just shows brilliant stability my husband learned to fly we actually ordered a new diamond we had several other manufacturers aircraft available to us but i wanted him in the safest plane in the sky so we ordered one for him to learn to fly for the diamond brand it is that standard of safety it's that level of quality it always makes me feel so comfortable selling the aircraft i've had the unfortunate experience of having clients go down you know if you've done this long enough it's going to happen so it always is reassuring to sell them the diamond aircraft because it is the safest plane in the sky there are planes with parachutes and there's an immediate assumption that somehow that plane would automatically be safer as we've transitioned to newer and newer technology it started to become an odd thought it's like if i sold you a plane and gave you a parachute to wear would that make the plane safer [Music] diamond has racked up the world's greatest safety record by a multiple of three to five times better than average there's nothing better so parachute or no parachute it's not about one piece of device it's about the entire flying qualities of the aircraft controllability and all the details of how they designed it to be the world's safest [Music] all we have to do is look at our history absent of ballistic recovery parachutes in any diamond model over the last almost 30 years hands down without question through a whole range of different types of operations whether it be commercial use private fly hands down statistically the safest airplanes spill are built by diamond absent of a ballistic recovery shoot it's extremely rare that you have serious accidents in airplanes if you look at the total number of operations of the hundreds and thousands millions of hours that they operate and the numbers of incidents you compare that with the carnage that goes on on the highways on a daily basis that we never hear about to me safety side of things the industry in general ballistic recovery shoot or not is head and shoulders above the things that we normally see in our day-to-day lives diamond safety record kind of lends itself to not needing a parachute typically clients coming in looking at the aircraft have already done their homework so we're not having a lot of conversations of why doesn't have a parachute the honest answer is they don't feel like it needs one you know their safety record speaks for itself my favorite part of the 50. i love the double slotted flaps so i'm from the stahl community from alaska double slotted flaps on the experimental kind of bush plane allow for much slower flight much more stable flight the flaps on the 50 are the same kind of flaps that are using large jets like airlines or large business jets and they increase the wing area when you're about land it decreases the wind loading so that makes the aircraft very very docile at low speeds and very very hard to actually stall it if you fly anywhere in the winter it is definitely scary to think about you know i might run through an icing layer and i might need to get through the diamond you take off you retract the gear so the gears not hanging down picking up icing turn on the pumps for the tks system it coats all over the wings the props definitely have a tendency to picking up icing a little quicker prop itself is heated usually just like pedo heat with the flick of a switch in the cockpit the pilot is adding an electrical current to a heating element on the propeller blades and then that will prevent any ice accumulation on the prop with that big horizontal stabilizer at the back of the aircraft you've got additional stability along with the long wings and the ailerons that are all the way aboard the vortex generators on the aircraft the controllability of the airplane is very predictable and very safe what we did in alaska in the winters we'd have to plug them in leave them in a hangar put we even put blankets around the engine to keep it as warm as possible and we had very few chances to start it diamond start really easy start just like a car even in cold weather the glow plug cycle and the engine just turns over seeing that the aircraft is a twin turbo and can't fly into the flight levels oxygen is an option air condition is on a separate alternator you can switch on the air conditioning as soon as motor is on any time at any point in flight pitot tube yeah we opted to have it mounted on the far side of the wing in order to have an undisturbed airflow we're not only using the dynamic pressure of the p202 but also the static pressure without a difference in between the indicated airspeed and the true airspeed that you find will be very small in compared to other systems [Music] we regard the a50 as a big step for our da40 and g it's something like you develop from bmw x1 to x6 so it's a big step our aim is really for this aircraft is to those pilots to love flying and light extraordinary luxury aircraft really european style company because they are really concentrated on good quality they are not presumed for a large big scale volume but really a best product [Music] there are things which diamond came up with even after fritz has given the okay for the airframe where you just realize okay it's not because they have any commercial interest but because they really want to help you out as a member of their diamond family [Music] gratified to see that the founding principles of of safety now that the company is under a new ownership we're not going to compromise occupant safety for anything bin has been the driving force at diamond to invest to design and build and bring to market the a50 and tweak it as time goes by to make it relevant to make it right that's what progress is all about it's nice to know that it will continue to be and always will be like that i think it's the the all all is is very very good a very good quality for inside outside this i think is one of the best airplane you can buy we have brought so many innovations and so many passion into the aircraft through the big aircraft and that's so stable and so smooth in the air gives you everything what a pilot wants yeah my family is of course very proud i'm a father i'm one boy he was already sitting in the df50 he was turning on the master switch and it was getting loud and he was scared yeah so that was really amazing yeah i'm a proud of the product itself because i know what was the effort in each area i can't tell oh this is my favorite part is a great engineering state of art our first serial production airplane the part we watched it from our windows in the office upstairs and it's like piece of us like going somewhere it's all inspiring to me to see the amount of human capital and talent and creativity that has gone into the advancement of aviation technology at the level of the da50 i would have to say it's the technology that draws us together like a tesla you get attracted to a technology and an advancement that makes sense it has the right why beginnings with christianity brought a passion to the industry it was more about the airplanes somebody once said that if if you enjoy what you're doing you'll never work a day in your life and so i think if you have a passion for what you're doing it's not just a job we do it because we enjoy it the best moments are when customers approach us they've owned the airplane for a while and they come back and and they refer to themselves as a member of the diamond family that means the most flying makes me feel so alive there are a few things in life that give you a feeling of complete peace while also providing that adrenaline rush of oh my goodness i can't believe this is actually my life when you're up there in a diamond you're looking out on these beautiful long wings you're above the clouds you're going at a great speed and you're feeling like you're in your own personal airliner you're able to have this incredible flying experience all while knowing you're flying the safest ga plane in the world they don't do anything the same way everybody else does the courage has paid off the original founder and all of the people who have been involved over the years and the you know and the current management and ownership of the company are pushing that forward and they just there's no stopping it i wouldn't be selling diamond if i didn't believe in the brand the product the aircraft my own family flies in a diamond aircraft and i think that says a lot [Music] for me it's that's the element of aviation you connect people with it and being able to see my family in combination with the trip one of the most important stops because it really comes to show what aviation does and it's connecting societies it's connecting people not just face to face but you can actually also give your loved ones and your relatives a hug rather than just facetiming them so yeah that's that will be a really sentimental stuff [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

2022-04-07 05:21

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