DIAMOND DA50 RG COUNTERPOINT
After reading Gary Bond’s DA50 RG flight trial in the September 2023 Aviation Consumer, I don’t get it. It has some really neat features and the latest ultra-modern tech, but for $1.15 million it doesn’t make cents for me. It’s relatively slow, heavy (at 4400 pounds) and it has limited range with only 49 gallons of usable fuel. It has a 300-HP diesel engine and can make 272 HP max continuous power and it burns Jet-A fuel, but the DA50 is certainly no jet.
The literature says it can cruise at 172 knots at 14,000 feet at 90 percent power, but the evaluation aircraft didn’t fly in that regime. If it did, you’d be out of fuel in three hours at that setting. At 75 percent power you get 160 knots on 12.4 GPH, and in four hours the tanks would run dry.