Skycatcher's End

[Merlinspop]

Yes in two dimensions: 1) the extra weight of the engine + the extra fuel required based on 6 GPH vs 3.5 GPH, estimated at about 60 pounds and perhaps closer to 100 pounds when tanks are only required to fueled to the tabs for training flights, and 2) the delay while Continental developed the LSA 'D' version of the O200.

Ultimately the perceived advantage of the O200 was overshadowed by the weight penalty.

I wonder if there is an opportunity for someone to buy all the still-in-container Skycatchers at firesale prices and re-engineer them to use the 912 (either the carb or injected). The new O-200Ds can be sold separately to the E-AB market to help offset the cost of the Rotax engines. There'd be a lot of challenges and risks involved, so I think key to this would be how low Cessna would be willing to go to divest itself of the unsold airframes. It wouldn't surprise me if they did the same as Beech did with Starship.

[designrs]

Will this be viewed as good news or bad for the LSA industry in general? None of the 'majors' could make the LSA business model work, yet other brands (CT, Carbon Cub, etc, etc) seem to be successful.

Those that are surviving are in the NICHE market:
CubCrafters: Huge niche market.
CT: High wing, useful load, one of the first to sell quantity of LSA in the US
Vans: Building off their strong and long established kit following
SportCruiser / Evektor: Low wing, metal, can survive relatively low quantity production numbers
etc.

Cessna's LSA niche market was training and high-wing folks.
Both were severely impacted by the lack of useful load.
It's pretty bad when you can't get enough useful load for training missions.

[3Dreaming]

Had Cessna stuck with the original plan to use the Rotax the plane would have been a different animal all together and might still be viable. Ironic that the thing Cessna thought would be most attractive in differentiating their offering from other LSA's, the air cooled trusty O200, could end up being the cause of its demise.

To clarify here... your point being that the O200 drastically and negatively impacted the useful load?

To the tune of 65-ish pounds. It's a crazy amount of weight to give up on an LSA design. Not to mention 6gph cruise fuel burn compared to a Rotax burning 4.5-5gph in cruise making the same power. It was just a bad, bad call to use that engine. Even a Jabiru 3300 would have been better, if they really wanted all air-cooled and no gearbox, it weighs about 178lb. And the Aussie Jabiru factory is much closer to the Chinese Skycatcher factory than Continental is.

It would be great if some other company buys the program, re-fits a Rotax and some other weight savings, and sells it as a re-branded airplane. It would still have all the exhaustive engineering Cessna put into it, plus the improvements. If they could beat the price of a new CT by $10k or so and get a 550-580lb useful load, I think they might sell a bunch. The CT has gotten portly as the models have progressed, to the point that the new CTLS has about 500-550lb useful, and the heavier CTLSi is 480-520...getting down to original Skycatcher levels! (for reference, my 2007 CTSW has 585lb useful, some others have 600+)

The Skycatcher could beat the utility of the newer CTs if those changes were made, and I think utility is largely what has put the CT on top of the LSA heap.

Continental is owned by the Chinese.

[Jim Stewart]

Will this be viewed as good news or bad for the LSA industry in general? None of the 'majors' could make the LSA business model work, yet other brands (CT, Carbon Cub, etc, etc) seem to be successful.

Those that are surviving are in the NICHE market:
CubCrafters: Huge niche market.
CT: High wing, useful load, one of the first to sell quantity of LSA in the US
Vans: Building off their strong and long established kit following
SportCruiser / Evektor: Low wing, metal, can survive relatively low quantity production numbers
etc.

Agreed. I see Vans and possibly Zenith both showing positive growth numbers filling gaps.

[zaitcev]

If Jack Pelton remained CEO, he could possibly drag the program further along, but of course even his might could not overcome O-200's weight.

Basically Cessna is institutionally incapable of competing in the small airplane space. Once you start looking at juicy military sales, that's it. Remember Beechcraft and the LAS debacle?

[AZPilot]

Cessna top management is now pretty much devoid of airplane people. It's now about P&L.

Some rocket scientist there decided to put all their Skylane eggs in the JT basket, killing off piston 182s.

As the CEO said the jet line is their business model.

[MrMorden]

Continental is owned by the Chinese.

But is that where they are produced? If so...I stand corrected!

[3Dreaming]

Continental is owned by the Chinese.

But is that where they are produced? If so...I stand corrected!

Andy, I was just adding a statement. Not saying you were wrong.

[c162pilot]

From AOPA.COM:

https://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All ... a-CEO.aspx

snip

"However, after the press conference, Jodi Noah, who heads up the propeller-driven product line at Cessna, said the company had Skycatchers available for delivery and that it was still in their product line. She did note that a report from AOPA Online in March that nearly 90 Skycatchers were in inventory was “about right.” A more recent check of FAA records suggests that about 87 of the light sport airplanes are still owned by Cessna."

/snip

[drseti]

So, seems to me it's the end of an error.

[Merlinspop]

So, seems to me it's the end of an error.

Very punny!

[CTLSi]

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[CTLSi]

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[FlyingForFun]

Delete

[N918KT]

I flown the Skycatcher before during training at one of my former flight schools. The "stoke" was very easy to adapt to and seems natural. But I don't like the ground handling and the heavy use of right rudder on takeoff roll. The only thing I wish is that if Cessna used a 6 pack gauges instead of a glass cockpit. I like glass, but I really like getting down to the basics.

Edit: I used to like the Skycatcher before but now, the Evektor LSAs are now my favorite kind of LSA.