When Diamond introduced an unlikely light twin nearly 15 years ago—diesel powered, no less—it seemed like a long shot. Yet the DA42 found surprising traction in a market no one knew was starved for economical trainers. With its new DA62 twin now flying the demo circuit, Diamond isn’t expecting to repeat the trick in sheer sales numbers, thanks to a princely price and buyers far scarcer than they were a decade ago.
But even at over a million a copy, the DA62 is already attracting enough business to make it a market presence rivaling Piper’s Seneca and Seminole and Beechcraft/Textron’s G58 Baron, which shares a similar north-of-$1.0-million price tag. While in its sales salad days, the DA42 sold as many as 160 units a year. After the bottom dropped out of the economy in 2008, Diamond moved a couple of dozen twins a year to a combination of schools and private owners. It ran into a rough spot with the then-Thielert diesels in 2007, but eventually recovered with improved motors.