PiperSport LSA finished, but that's a good thing.

[gofastclint]

What a great plane. For Piper to put their name on it in the first place means 2 things. It's good quality and cheap for them to buy. Now with the original manufacturer still making the plane and no big blood sucker there to take so much extra money from you, now it the time to buy from the original manufacture at a decent price befor some other vampire jumps on board.

 

 

[Smokey]

There's always 2 sides to a story.

 

Apparently the ACFT manufacturers went into the deal thinking they would be able to push Piper into buying them out for megabucks.

 

Piper pulled the pin when their attitude came to the surface.

 

So now you're left with the bloodsuckers and have lost the quality assurance oversight.

 

I for one would be a little wary of a company whose principles had already displayed their motivation in this way.

 

Then, if another company does come along and buys them out, there will be some lack of loyalty to pre-existing customers. That's not being nasty, that's just human nature.

 

As with everything else, consider all the angles.

 

 

[Spin]

I don't have any behind the scenes info, however it seemed a strange deal for Piper in the first place - nothing new in manufacturers buying an existing design and marketing it under their own name, however here the identical aircraft was being sold in the same markets, with the original name on it, even the paint schemes remained the same(???) From all accounts it is a good aircraft and potentially a shrewd move by Piper, allowing them to hit the market well ahead of Cessna, but you would have thought Piper would have nailed down the terms of the deal upfront. I'd have loved to have been a fly on those boardroom walls.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

from how i read the press releases, piper only wanted to sell it in northern america

 

 

[Smokey]

I don't have any behind the scenes info, ........... I'd have loved to have been a fly on those boardroom walls.

Hi Spin

 

Couldn't agree more, unfortunately I don't have any inside info either but would love to find out what really happened behind those doors, both in the US and in Cz.

 

Here are a couple of articles published at the time, I think I saw a couple others which said essentially the same thing.

 

http://www.eaa.org/news/2011/2011-01-12_piper.asp

 

http://www.aviationadvertiser.com.au/news/2011/01/piper-dumps-czech-lsa-builder/

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Ill find out on saturday, the dealer will be calling in for an overnight with the demonstrator.

 

 

[Spin]

Thanks for the links Smokey - the more I look at it the more I think CSA are the winners in this deal, they have received a huge amount of exposure and representation across new markets, plus they managed to sell a few extra aircraft over the past year. It is a bit of a concern though that the manufacturers aren't seeing the volumes of sales that they anticipated when they started selling into the LSA market, I understand that Cirrus were going to do something similar to Piper but have pulled the pin in favour of concentarting on their existing piston and new jet aircraft.

 

 

[Mick]

I guess the worry for the Sportscruiser / Piper Sports is that the manufacturer has been in financial trouble and had management issues before Pipers involvement. Without Piper's endorsement will they go in the same direction again? I know the original Sportscruiser agent in Austrlia ( based in Gympie ) took a long time to get their first demostrator, for nearly a year they ran ads in the Aviation Trader saying it would be arriving next month and then it did not arrive.

 

I do hope the aircraft succeeds as it is a really nice machine.

 

Spin, the arrangement with Cirrus you mention was with FK Planes of Germany. Cirrus were talking to them about a deal to market the FK 14 as the Cirrus LSA. I wonder if part of this not going ahead was that Cirrus were only interested in the low wing FK 14 as it fitted with their low model ( like Piper with the Sportscruiser ). This would have left FK to do their own marketing for the high wing FK 9 and bi-plane FK 12. I would imagine this would not be an ideal scenario for FK.

 

 

[bluey the fly]

Mick i think the sportscruiser will do just fine without piper, as piper have well advertised and endorsed the product.I heard that piper wanted one size fits all moto with glass dash and balistic chute as standard adding lots of weight and expense.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Thats exactly right. Took the aircraft for a fly with the rep, and its a very nice little plane. He confirmed the rumours that piper neglegted to do some simplemaths and the BEW was around 395 kgs...DOH!!!!