Mark Huber is an aviation industry veteran who has worked in the flight training, aircraft sales, aircraft component, and airport development businesses. He has flight time in more than 50 different and diverse aircraft, including helicopters, aerobatic aircraft, vintage warbirds, jet fighters, business jets and turboprops, and transport-category aircraft. He has jumped out of several of these—on purpose—with a parachute. His defense and aviation journalism has been published in a variety of national and international periodicals.

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Mark Huber

This is the healthiest market for new turboprops in years. In 2008, the last year before the global economy completely shed its wheels, members of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association delivered 538 turboprop aircraft before experiencing a steady decline in those figures in the following years. Last year shipments of turboprops bounced back with vigor to a record 645 aircraft and there is no shortage of new single- and even some new twin-engine models on the horizon. 

 


Meanwhile, the used turboprop market has firmed substantially, with the fleet percentages for most models on the markets showing only single-digit availability and high pricing as a result. According to the aircraft pricing service Vref, a 1985 Cessna Caravan trades for an astonishing 93 percent of its new price; a 1981 Cessna Conquest II twin even higher at 99 percent of new; a 1991 TBM 700, 85 percent of new; a 2008 TBM 850, 81 percent of new; a 2009 Piper Meridian 75 percent of new; and a 1990 Pilatus PC-12, 74 percent of new. 

 


This kind of used pricing makes new turboprops all the more attractive. U.S. turboprop manufacturers dominate the market with a better than 80-percent share and most of this output is for the export market, which seems to have a better understanding of a turboprop’s value, especially unpressurized singles such as the Cessna Caravan and Quest Kodiak that can operate from unimproved runways. 

 


What once were almost exclusively civilian turboprops are being pressed into military service by cost-conscious nations, also driving demand. Last year the United Arab Emirates (UAE) unveiled an armed Cessna Caravan and Air Tractor 802 crop duster at the Dubai airshow. 

 


While U.S. manufacturers likely will dominate the turboprop market for some years to come, the rising dollar, pushing through four-year highs against a basket of international currencies that includes the euro, could make competing foreign products such as the simple single Mahindra/Gipps Airvan 10 much more attractive on price to some buyers and jump start programs such as the speedy Avic Primus 150 single in China. 

 


One thing is certain: as energy prices remain firm at current levels, the airlines are rediscovering the value of turboprops–nothing hauls as much as efficiently on short hops–and so is general aviation. 

 


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