D-Jet (With Chute?) -- Price Climbs 40 Percent

Diamond Aircraft announced Sunday that its D-Jet personal jet will have an introductory price of $1.38 million -- 40 percent more than the $850,000 figure that was named when the plane first went into development. Company officials also told reporters attending the annual Diamondfest at the company's North American headquarters in London Ontario, Canada, that the price jump is tied closely to buyers seeking all available options and among those, the company now intends to offer a whole-plane parachute system as an option on the 315-knot five-place single-engine jet.

The cockpit will also come adorned with a massive glass panel display -- two 12-inch PFDs and a central 15-inch MFD. AVweb contributor Rick Durden was there for the unveiling. Of course, there were lots of questions about the big price hike and company officials said it was in response to customer demand. They said most customers are ordering the planes loaded with every possible option, anyway, so they might as well all be built that way. The first 50 airplanes are slated for delivery by the end of 2008.

A Faster, Decked-Out DA40

Diamond also used the event to unveil a jazzed-up version of the DA40 that might be a competitor for the likes of Cirrus, Mooney and maybe Columbia (if you don't mind going slower with Diamond).

With a Powerflow exhaust and a new composite three-bladed Scimitar prop, Diamond's been able to coax a maximum speed of 160 knots out of the new DA40XL, which is about 30 knots faster than the standard DA40 and might be enough to make future owners of high-performance singles to look at the Diamond with its $329,800 price tag, as opposed to airplanes that are 20 or 30 knots faster but also cost about $150,000 more. And, in these fuel-conscious times, it's worth noting the Diamond will burn about 10 gph at 150 ktas at 6,000 feet.

There'll also be no lack of electronics on the Diamond. The DA40XL will come with a new Garmin GFC700 Digital Automatic Flight Control System, which includes a flight director, altitude pre-select, GPS roll steering, overspeed protection and two-axis autopilot all integrated with the G1000. There will also be an Avidyne TAS and a satellite datalink system. Again, Diamond officials said they developed the DA40XL because customers were already ordering the standard DA40 with every option they could hang on the airframe.