Hmmmmmmmmm

A competitor says the merger is a good thing????????

What am I missing here????
 
Does this mean that Cessna has finally admitted that low wings are better?

Seriously, good for them. It should help the Columbia design survive and will bring Cessna forward a few decades in the manufacturing arena.

I had hoped Cessna would buy the certification rights to the RV-10 and put it into production.
 
Interesting...

Good or bad yet to be seen...

If they got in cheap enough, Cessna could chose to let Columbia designs die a slow death, and steadfastly stick to their tried and true with one less competitor to challenge them... but that probably would do Cirrus more good than Cessna.

Most likely this will let them compete with Cirrus and Diamond in certain markets (which arguably they aren't doing that well, product wise, right now). Their deeper pockets and greater service/distribution network could prove quite formidable with a more modern product. If this moves along aviation development, good. If it kills or marginalizes Cirrus or Diamond (over time)... not so good.

Say what you want about their planes, but they seem to have a better business model. All you have to do is look at the flightline of most flying schools to see their market. Not a lot of SR22's being used for primary training, and that's a whole lot of flying hours (and parts...) to be accounted for. This acquisition makes sense for them, in that it opens up new markets for them (i.e. high performance single pistons), probably much cheaper than developing a new product directly.
 
Merger

Yeah, competition is funny. Cirrus doesn't see other aircraft as competition, they see them as a kind of partner and we're all trying to get more people involved in aviation. Cessna is a large, beaurocratic organization and Cirrus is faster to change to meet the markets. They each have their niche, but I'm sure Mooney is more worried than Cessna.
 
Maybe

Columbia's will now all weigh 8000lbs to match the performance of the rest of Cessna's single piston offerings.

Oooh...The laywer says...You mean it won't survive a 20G landing..Best strengthen that then...Oh..its so heavy it needs bigger wings..Hmm Still a bit fast, How about an 0320 in there?...:D

There we are a nice SFAE and lawsuit friendly airplane...That no one wants to buy....

Frank
 
Good business?

Lancair = Columbia
Cirrus = SR20/SR22
Where talking Lancair's Columbia certified plane division right?

How was Columbia doing? They where bankrupt right? I suspect it was survival and a fire sale. Could see it coming. They laid off folks. Did not sell many planes. Columbia only had a little over 300 registered planes. Cirrus has about 3000 registered. Columbia had that unfortunate hail storm, which damaged a bunch of new undelivered planes. Can you imagine repairing composite skin / honeycomb core all over from hail damage. I felt bad for them when I heard that.

Aviation is a tough biz. Buying Cessna was probably chump change to Cessna, who likely makes more selling one Citation-X than Columbia cleared their entire history. I'm waiting to see when Cessna out-sources construction to India or China, watch. I feel bad for the Lancair folks. Hope they stay in bizz.

Personally I can't see spending $390,000 to +$615,000 (top-O-line) that does not do much more than a RV, which cost a whole boat load less. It's just a single engine piston plane. You're getting into the used turbo-prop price range. A new VLJ bizz jet is $1.2M with way more capability.

That would suck if Cessna made the Columbia an orphan.
 
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gmcjetpilot said:
How was Columbia/Cirrus doing? ...
Didn't the estate of the baseball player that flew into the NY high-rise sue them. ...
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Columbia/Cirrus? Two different companies George. I guess maybe you feel one glass plane is equivalent to another? The "baseball player" was flying a Cirrus.
 
Yep

n5lp said:
Columbia/Cirrus? Two different companies George. I guess maybe you feel one glass plane is equivalent to another? The "baseball player" was flying a Cirrus.
Click to expand...
Yes I know, just making it clear, since Cirrus was mentioned in other context. I wounder what Cirrus did right or at least a little better? Is their production cheaper. Are the Lancair's labor intensive to build, since it was an out growth of their kits, where Cirrus was a clean sheet plane with production in mind? Was it the safety recovery chute Cirrus promoted that sold more planes? Better sales and advertisement?
Paul Thomas said:
It was a Cirrus that Liddle flew into a building, I think it was a 2003 SR20.
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Yep that's right, it was a Cirrus. It was not liability, at least totally, the bankrupted Columbia, it was lack of sales. I actually retracted my comment about liability, since its not really relevant. Columbia's only has like 2.5% accident rate verses fleet. Cirrus is 2.9% verses fleet, which is 10 times larger. It's not directly a liability issue, but Liddle and CFI (in a Cirrus as you say) messed up. Their survivors sued, which is a factor in any aviation bizz. Even if Lancair did not get sued, investors look at that and pass on investment because of potential liability.
 
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Its a lot deeper than you think, altho I'm not a 100% sure Columbia and Cessna have come to terms. China is seeing a demand for over 10,000 pilots in the next 10 years and wants to do all training "in house". They want a high performance single with all glass cockpits for their trainer. The two options are Cirrus and Columbia. Cirrus is not interested and the Malaysian goverment wants out of Columbia A/C. Cessna wants the technology and manufacturing rights and will license them to China for a nice fee. China makes thier own a/c, Cessna reaps the spoils. My source was invloved in preliminary negotiations.
 
Cirrus / Cessna

Yes, I agree that Cessna buying Columbia will be an unfortunate demise of the plane as we know it. As for Cirrus, they were brought up because some thought Cessna might be trying to compete with them. While that may be true, I don't think Cirrus sees them as a threat. Cirrus did glass panels when the rest of the industry thought they weren't good and they are fantastic! Cirrus did a parachute instead of an "8000lb airplane (Quote re: Cessna from earlier post) to negate safetey issues, when the rest of the industry said it wouldn't work, and Cirrus fly-ins are fun, educational and modern - let Cessna try pulling that off, it'll never get past the first three committees.
 
Here is one person's **opinion**

gmcjetpilot said:
<<<SNIP>>>
I wounder what Cirrus did right or at least a little better? Is their production cheaper. Are the Lancair's labor intensive to build, since it was an out growth of their kits, where Cirrus was a clean sheet plane with production in mind? Was it the safety recovery chute Cirrus promoted that sold more planes? Better sales and advertisement?

<<<SNIP>>>
Click to expand...

All of the following should be viewed as **OPINION** although there are some facts included. :)

My opinion ...

I flew the early Lancair (Columbia) "prototype" and later the first "production" model. Spent a bit of time "considering". Much later flew the Cirrus.

At the time I thought that Lancair was technically a "better" plane but in reality inside it was "uglier". It simply was not as well finished at first glance. Solid plane ... needs finish work especially in the cockpit.

The Cirrus team was able to get major financing just before the market went bust ("dot bombs" etc. still going off). Lancair, it seems was trying to self finance and later come to the (money) market later for (less??) money. But **unfortunately** by the time they went to the trough, it was a bit dry. Thus, it seems, their whole ramp up of production and marketing efforts had to go a LOT slower than Cirrus. They changed hands a couple of times I think trying to get $$$. All the while Cirrus was enjoying ramp up in production and lots of marketing $$ being spent.

The chute helped the Cirrus marketing campaign but quite frankly, if you flew both of them in the early days, you would have been able to tell that the Lancair seemed more "solid". To me, it handled better as they made real improvements on the stick forces from the prototype to the production model. Now remember, in the beginning the Cirrus was much slower (smaller engine) and thus the "buzz" could/should have been in the Lancair favor if all else had been in order.

They (Lancair/Columbia) later got the interior looking a lot better and ended up with a very snazzy plane. I hope Cessna simply re-badges it and ramps up on the production and marketing effort. Unlike some, I believe they **CAN** do it. They just need to keep it a separate Division for a while and infuse a few of the Cessna people at a time.

So summary: I think it was bad timing/bad luck in efforts to raise the big $$ to ramp up production and marketing.

James' armchair assessment. :)
 
From what I understand, Cessna's 6 seat NGP programme will continue. Columbia 350 & 400 will pickup sales that would otherwise go to cirrus (Look at the two airplanes, the Columbia is a far superior design and better finished now than the average cirrus.) and Cessna has once again fleshed out it's lineup with the 162.

2-seat trainer
4-seat IFR trainer (172)
4-seat step up (182)
4-seat speed demon (Columbia)
6-seat back country hauler (206)
6-seat spead demon (NGP)
6-seat VLJ (510 mustang)
CJ1+ and so on...
 
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