March 03, 2010

by J. Mac McClellan

I got an e-mail from a Diamond DA42 owner who is upset that Flying gave Diamond its 2009 Editors' Choice Award for the re-engined DA42 light twins. This person owned an original DA42 with the Thielert diesel engines that simply didn't work. His airplane has been grounded for more than a year and the cost of getting it back into the air was unknown to him. He damned us here at the magazine for praising the original DA42 when it was introduced, and now for awarding the hard work of Diamond to recover from the disaster of the Thielert engines.

Flying Announces Editors' Choice Awards for 2009

An avionics software upgrade for the ages; and a pair of new-version piston twins made the list of Flying's Editors' Choice Awards for 2009. Avidyne's Entegra Release 9 upgrade is much more than a simple download. It's a game-changing update that brings one of the original glass panel systems for light aircraft back to the leading edge of avionics technology. For Diamond Aircraft, the challenge of losing its sole engine provider to corporate collapse could have been a death knell for its light twin, the DA-42.