Australian Diamond agent Utility Air says it can easily sell as many DA62s as it can get.
The problem, according to Utility Air Director John Oppenheim, is that they can't get enough to satisfy growing demand.
The DA62 is a seven-seat twin powered by twin Austro EECU diesels putting out 180 hp each, aimed at the same market once dominated by the iconic Beechcraft Baron and Piper Seneca.
No sooner had the company issued a press release on Wednesday announcing the 10th example sold into Australasia, than a customer walked onto the Diamond stand at Avalon and signed up for the 11th.
“We’re overwhelmed by the level of interest in the DA62 and its single engine counterpart, the DA50RG," Oppenheim said. “The level of sales we’ve achieved in the past 12 months is a credit not only to the superb aircraft, but also to the best in class service and support we can provide our customers.”
Utility has currently delivered three DA62s into Australia and one into New Zealand, a telling statistic when you understand no Barons have been delivered in the world anywhere for the past two years, and shipments of Piper's Seneca have also stalled.
"The people who are buying the DA62 tend to be private customers," Oppenheim explained to Australian Flying. "They're interested in adopting new technology, they're not afraid of having something that is cutting-edge.
"They're people who are operating in areas where avgas is not necessarily readily available, and they're people who are interested in a high-tech 'green' future. They get to fly an aircraft that will perform superbly, but is also kinder to the environment. The DA62 uses half the fuel of most comparable avgas-burning aircraft."
These sorts of benefits are nice to have, but ultimately customers choose an aircraft based on what it can do for them. Oppenheim believes the big Diamond delivers plenty of that as well.
"One of the nice things about the DA62 is its handling; it's a nice aircraft to fly. The stall characteristics are very mild and it has trailing-link undercarriage, which means it's almost impossible to land badly.
"The people who are buying this aircraft are very good pilots, but they're not commercial pilots, and the DA62 is the sort of aircraft that adds a touch of professionalism to the way they fly.
"Piston-engined twin aircraft are notoriously difficult to handle when one engine goes inoperative, but this aircraft performs on one engine and the FADEC [Full-authority Digital Engine Control] makes it very easy to control when asymmetric. I've flown in many high-performance twins over the years, but I've never felt as safe as I do in a DA62."
But in the aviation industry, selling an aircraft and delivering an aircraft are completely different metrics. Oppenheim sees a bouyant market for the aircraft, hampered only by supply from the factory.
"We constrained only by our ability to deliver aircraft at the moment," he said. "Diamond is producing just over 40 per year, and our allocation–quite rightly because we're only a small market–is only three aircraft per year. If we were offered six slots a year, we could sell them.
"The lead time is now the only objection we're getting from customers."
For the time being, Utility Air is very pleased with the market penetration of the DA62, which is rapidly becoming the twin to have for new aeroplane buyers.
They have contracts to supply 11 of the type, and with three days still to run on Avalon 2023, who's to say that figure won't be higher by the end of the weekend.