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Cessna Skycatcher
After selling about 195 of the new LSA Skycatchers, they have announced that the remaining 80 will not even be sold, but used as a source of spare parts.
Maybe someone here knows what went wrong with this plane, other then it not being profitable?
Does it have major flight problems or is it just too expensive for the training market? Has anyone flown one or owned one.
I know I looked at it at EAA and it seems pretty sparse , but it is a basic airplane.
It seems a shame that the company most responsible for the modern era trainer, the 150, now doesn't produce or sell one at all.
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The plane was designed for sale to higher end flight schools rather than individual pilot-owners. The flight school market for LSA's just never materialized for even inexpensive planes let alone this very high priced entry. Most flight schools who can afford fairly new aircraft have stuck with 172's.
Even Piper's rebranding of the much more economical imported LSA trainer ran into issues.
As for things in general, I could go on all day about Cessna and Textron management / marketing issues...
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Typical Textron wishful thinking that the initial interest in it was going to not only be sustained but even yield growth!
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I've got just a bit of time in one, Bill. It flies like a very light Cessna (which sort of makes sense). Stall is normal with plenty of notice before-hand. It got me at 240# and 6-4 and a 120# pax off the ground OK in summer temps in Ohio.
There's no interior in it, so it's like flying in a tin can....loud even thru the Zulu's.
A quirk, interesting thing to me at least....the only oil pressure gauge in the airplane is in the MFD. Makes it hard to check right away on start-up. Cessna should know better on that. :-)
This one was purchased by an exec as his retirement present to himself. Haven't seen it out in months.
Jim
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Excellent topic but belongs in Hanger Talk where more people will find it and respond. No one is selling one here.
So many believed Cessna would take the LSA market by storm. And why not. They had an 85 year design, operations, manufacturing, maintenance, parts inventory, training and outstanding reputational head start on all the other players. They would dominate the market. And it would be good for all the competitors because Cessna would bring legitimacy and validation to the naisent category. Or so many inside and outside the industry thought so.
It failed to materialize of course. Less than 200 sold mostly to flight schools, Cessna Dealers(they had to buy originally) and Cessna Pilot Centers. So what happened? Nothing was wrong mechanically. It didn't have flight problems(although in the flight testing phase, Cessna lost 2 of them). Since production began, it's had one MSB to make the wing stronger.
So what happened. In the simplest marketing terms, it did not deliver what the market wanted. Major reasons for failure:
--Useful load was awful and well below the majority of competitors
--The competition outperformed it in spades
--The price increased in less than one year of first delivery from $109K to $150K and that really killed it. And for what...a little airplane that cruised at 100mph, had a bare bones interior and make sure you and your instructor(or wife or girlfriend) weighed under 300 lbs combined with full tanks. So much for so little. And so little in comparison to so many competitors.
Cessna said they needed bigger margins or were they just greedy? Many have said that Cessna is also pricing themselves out of the market with the 172. The 182 is gone from the line-up replaced by the diesel powered Turbo Skylane JT-A program--a program that appears to be still far enough away from certification. Why would they eliminate the decades long highly successfull 182 in the first place and currently nothing to replace it. Bizarre strategy! There are rumours floating around that Cessna may be looking at getting out of the entire piston market in favour of expanding their very lucrative jet line-up.
Last fall CEO Scott Ernest said Skycatcher had "no future". He could easily say it because it wasn't his baby. It was Jack Pelton's. I am of the believe that the timing of Jack's out of the blue premature departure/ouster and the timing of the price increase were much more than mere coincidence. I am of the opinion that JacK did not support the price increase and that led to his demise as the CEO of Cessna.
