Hurant Karibian wrote:
This is the response I received from Mistral when I inquired about
price.
Dear Sir,
I thank you for taking the time to let us know your opinion. I am
personally very interested by opinions such as yours, the more so when they
are critical.
They will help us shape our strategies and policies.
I don't want to bore you with justification that you may or may not be
interested to know, but I wish to start the PR campaign you rightfully
suggested we
should do by giving you some additional information on our products,
prices and company culture.
We are well aware that our products are sensibly more expensive than
other experimental engines. But our products are designed and built to
certification
standards, which is not the case of most if not all of our competitors.
In design and manufacturing quality and reliability, these two types of
products
simply cannot be compared. Our company has a policy to design the best
and safest possible aircraft engine... unfortunately it won't be the
cheapest.
You know, as a father of four, flying day or night for my business, in
all type of weather over mountains most of the time, I am extremely
concerned with
engine reliability. A few years ago, several incidents had me very
upset and very concerned with the quality and reliability of my plane's
"tried and true"
certified engines. I started asking friends if there was not, somewhere
in the world, a better engine technology, especially a more reliable one. A
friend
suggested that I visit this little company, an hour-drive away from
where I live. I saw their engine under development and, being an engineer
myself, knew
there WAS a better technology. A few months later, together with some
partners of mine, we had bought the project and founded MISTRAL Engines. My
points
are:
- How really reliable are the "tried and true" engines you
mention? You may have been lucky with your engines during your flying
years, and I wish
you continue to be. I was less lucky and nearly lost my life and that
of my two passengers because of totally unsatisfactory manufacturing quality
and plain
disregard to quality control procedures than certain "tried and true"
engine manufacturers have let themselves slip into.
- What value does a pilot put on his engine's reliability,
taking into consideration his type of aircraft and his type of flying (day,
night, VFR
only, solid IFR, mountains, water, etc).
Finally, may I draw your attention to the fact that our prices are the
same or lower than the prices for comparable new Lycomings offered by Van's
Aircraft,
the cheapest source of new Lycomings that I know of (BTW, these engines
are identical to the certified ones, but are stamped experimental and cannot
be
installed on a certified aircraft). In addition, our prices include
items (especially a fully-redundant FADEC) that are either options or simply
unavailable
on our competitors' engines. Furthermore, one should compare lifetime
costs and not just sticker price. After 1800-2000 hours, one has to
overhaul a
Lycoming at the cost of $15-25,000 and more, that is $7.50-14 per hour,
depending on the model. You overhaul our engines after 3,000 hours for
$10-11,000,
or $3.50 per hour. That alone is a $12-20,000 saving over the lifetime
of the engine. If you crack a cylinder on a Lycoming, it will cost you $1000
plus
labor, roughly. Our engines have NO cylinder to crack, NO valve to
burn, NO crankshaft to catastrophically break, NO push-rod, NO rocker-arm,
NO connecting
rod, NO camshaft to wear or fail, etc. Regular maintenance costs are
only a fraction of those of reciprocating piston engines. MISTRAL engines
can readily
use mogas. Not all Lycomings can, at least not without sacrificing some
performance.
I apologize for my wordiness but, as you mentioned yourself, only
factual information can counter sticker shock.
BTW, the gasoline-powered certified version will cost the same +/-5%
than comparable, "certified-series" Lycomings or Continentals. The
jet-fueled version
will be a bit more expensive.
Sincerely yours,
Francois Badoux, CEO
MISTRAL Engines SA
37, ch. Philibert-de-Sauvage
CH-1219 Geneva
Switzerland
Tel: +41-22-797 4323
Fax: +41-22-797 4359
Mobile: +41-79-210 5925
email: f.badoux@mistral-engines.com
Web: www.mistral-engines.com
I think you will need one heck of a PR show to get people to pay more
for an experimental engine than the tried and true Lycoming. How much will
the
certified version cost?