To all the proud murican's thinking this is a great victory for the USA, please remember that the A380 program employs several thousand highly trained and talented American engineers in Texas, Kansas, Kentucky... paying American taxes, making critical components for this airplane.

No. This only really impacts engines because of cool-down/heat-up periods but for the airframe and components it's almost better to fly a lot.

True. I wasn't involved with them then but that incident is still mentioned regularly by the SMA team. For a while, they only operated with STC's so they had little experience or control of how to do this right on a decent scale; this (and some technical issues) almost killed their product.

SMA doesn't touch the propeller anymore, Hartzell takes care of that now. And the engine is now on its second version (4years of development and 2 to certify) which has so many tweaks that almost none of those issues remain. Biggest problem remains purchasing cost which is at least twice that of an equivalent Avgas…

Yes, but right now they are either very expensive purpose built engines (SMA305 or Continental TD300) or re purposed automobile engines that suffer from short lifespans (Thielert, austro-engine). They offer great range, virtually no loss of power at higher altitudes (yeay turbos!) and ease of operation because in most…

I understand the need to put some SEO into your choice of title but if that's the worst car you've ever driven, you've either been very spoiled or you weren't paying attention.

I dunno about middle eastern buyers but let me tell you, this is going to be a hit in the middle kingdom; Chinese buyers can't get enough hyper-priced, by-invitation-only luxury playthings; this would be right up their alley.

development cycles for cars, even this one, are several years. This car is based in the original 307 platform and was announced to be one of PSA's world cars starting 3 years ago, so before the DF investment.

That title: well done.

this.

I can't make it this year but I urge you all to go check out the SMA stand. My colleagues/friends there will be displaying their new 6 cyl boxer diesel engine (460 ci!) and the 4 cyl that's on the Cessna 182.

Another problem with flares or any such systems, is their weight, impact on operations, and certification.

I know they've collaborated on aerodynamics studies in wind tunnels and shared approaches to composites manufacturing.

5 doors? So now it's Mini that's copying the Chinese...

A Kegresse for only $10K? Sign me up, the ones for sale in Europe (very rare) are about $100K!

Reminds me of a rich Chinese guy I met a few months ago. As he was sipping a mix of XO and Sprite, he was complaining that western brands are just racist and abusing Chinese people and their money, not giving them the respect they deserve, yadiyadiyada.

I have to completely agree. I was privileged to meet mister Mulally back during his Boeing days and the guy struck me as the essence of no-BS badassery. He was very kind, humble, yet when he spoke you could feel his absolute command of the subject he was discussing and his sense of conviction. Everybody stopped to…

I'm with GE's French partner in the CFM JV, but at corporate, so I'm not involved in engine development. The blades on the new LEAP engine are 3D woven, it's pretty amazing. I'm including the video link, please don't interpret it as corporate propaganda

not to worry, it is a much less prestigious, though still awesome, Simca 1000.

Ok. I just knew that name as the alphabet for blind people...