Diamond Aircraft Industries

[4] According to Michael Feinig, a future managing director of the company, the firm's leadership had recognised that there was a market for a range of modern light aircraft, and that the general aviation sector had been then dominated by mostly old designs from established manufacturers.During the late 1980s, amid the various corporate changes in both identity and ownership, the company's management had proceeded with its work towards the goal of rapidly expanding Hoffman's product range.[5] In 1992, as a measure to establish a strong foothold with the competitive North American market, owner Christian Dries decided to launch a second manufacturing facility located in London, Ontario, Canada.[5] The firm continued to work on multiple new aircraft types in order to further grow its product line; these were developed in line with a company-wide philosophy of seeking to offer aircraft that lacked any equivalent in terms of performance to any existing major product being produced from any of its competing manufacturers; this was a measure to consciously avoid instances of direct head-to-head competition.[5][4] According to Flight International, the DA40 was capable of outperforming many similar aircraft which at that time had carried substantially greater purchase costs than the DA40 outfitted with a basic configuration.[5] Even prior to its introduction to service, a heavy order book for the DA42 had already been accumulated, and plans had been mooted for the development of a dedicated unmanned air vehicle (UAV) platform based upon the type.[6] Speaking in 2004, Feinig stated of the company's ambition "Our vision is to be number one manufacturer of propeller-driven single and twins... and we aim to hold that position within five years".[7] The wider market for general aircraft had plummeted as an impact of the Great Recession; the gradual recovery from this event would take many years and would not be without consequence on several of Diamond's existing production lines and development programmes.[8][9][10] In March 2011, the president and CEO of Diamond Aircraft Canada, Peter Maurer, indicated that his company's future was in doubt and relied on getting the D-Jet to market, as piston sales remained slow since the start of the Great Recession in 2007.Local Conservative Party of Canada Member of Parliament Ed Holder stated that Diamond owner Christian Dries had told him that he would close the London plant and announce the closure just before the federal election if support was not forthcoming.Maurer indicated that the company was still working on private investment options but that would take more time and that in the meantime they were continuing to lose their laid-off staff.Maurer indicated that when upcoming loan repayments are due that the company cannot meet those obligations out of propeller aircraft sales and without an infusion of capital cannot get the D-Jet to market.[23] At the April 2017 AERO Friedrichshafen show, along with diesel variants of the DA50, the composite Diamond DART 280 light-single piston-engined helicopter concept was launched.[25] At the December 2018 MEBAA, the Saudi Arabian National Company of Aviation-CAE Inc. Training Centre in Dammam ordered 60 single-engine DA40 NG and twin-engine DA42-VI, to be delivered over five years, with Garmin G1000 NXi glass panels and diesel engines.