"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
I don't think Cirrus has come even close to making money yet, on a total
investment basis. I haven't keep track of the total amount of venture
capital they've secured, but I think it was north of $200MM. That will
take a long time to recoup. They may well be profitable at the operations
level, but that isn't the same thing as "making money" overall.

I'm sure you're right but a quick look at the numbers makes me wonder how
they AREN'T going to recoup that $$. Cirrus is selling something like 50
planes a month. You'd think their profit margin on a 300k airplane would be
at least 20k. If so, that's roughly 10Mil in profit every year and a 20
year break even on the initial 200Mil investment.

Diamond's numbers are roughly the same. Supposedly the Austrian factory
pumps out 400 planes/year and another 100 come out of Ontario. Unless these
guys are operating on Dell like profit margins it's hard to see how they
won't make their investments back.

I suspect that Cessna has run the numbers and realizes that the cost of a
"clean sheet" light airplane would simply never be recovered in today's
market.

Agreed, but Diamond nonetheless managed to come up with 4 "clean sheet"
designs in less than 10 years - including a light jet. Why can't Cessna and
Piper do it? Is the FAA THAT much worse than the JAA (or whatever the
european equivalent is)? You also have to wonder how much longer Cessna and
Piper can afford to NOT bring out a new design.


-Brian
Iowa City, IA