Diamond’s Christian Dries: One Of A Kind

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I have a handful of vivid memories of Christian Dries, founder of Diamond Aircraft, but none are more searing than watching him storm across a windswept ramp in Austria all but foaming at the mouth. He wanted me to commit to my notebook his solemn pledge that the airplane I was looking at would absolutely, positively be the last he would ever certify. It was the prototype of what became the Diamond DA62, the latest innovation in a modesty long line of innovative airplanes.

As he usually was, Dries was steamed at “the authorities,” specifically EASA, for making his life as an airplane builder a living hell through a construct of impossible-to-satisfy but ruinously expensive certification hoops. I knew Dries well enough to understand that it was just his characteristic bluster, but I thought of it earlier this year when the press release announcing the final terms of Diamond’s sale to Chinese interests trickled into my inbox. The presser described Dries’ future role as an advisory consultant.

Frankly, Diamond will never be the same. The entire company was an embodiment of Dries’ creative energy and mile-a-minute thought stream directed at the future of aviation. It was cooked into his DNA and he infused it throughout the company through sheer force of will. As is so typical of entrepreneurs, Dries had more ideas than the company could possibly bring to fruition and I suspect many of the ones that never made it off the sketch pad deserved to remain there.

Even those that ultimately succeeded struck me as nutty at the time, not the least of which was the DA42 twin. It appeared in 2002 as a surprise entry at the Berlin Airshow. Here was a new airframe with entirely new and untested engines that were diesels, for Pete’s sake. It’s an article of faith that untried engines in a new airframe court developmental disaster and although the DA42 did stumble, its teething pains were sorted and it stands as a highly successful model. When the Mercedes-based Thielert engines proved tentatively problematic, Dries responded with typical bravado by starting his own engine company, Austro. Although heavier, Diamond engineered around that and the Austros became the most refined engines in aviation, albeit on low volume.

Diamond distinguished itself by building airframes with essentially no bad habits. All of them are mild mannered and pleasant to fly. That and Diamond’s attention to things like putting the fuel tanks between heavy spars with armored fuel lines and providing generous flail space in the cabins yielded a low accident rate unique in piston GA. The first time I researched the fatal accident rate of the DA40, I found it to be effectively zero. I couldn’t find any fatal accidents.

Diamond had—and has—an unusually active Skunk Works, again driven by Dries’ tireless devotion to things that fly. Will the new management duplicate that? I suspect for a while, yes, just by dint of momentum. But a few years in, I’ll be surprised if there’s much of Dries’ residual passion remaining. Rare is the company handed off from an entrepreneur that retains that same fire in the belly that caused it to be started in the first place. And the grim business cases that govern new aircraft model launches encourage reticence at the expense of boldness.

I wish Wanfeng Aviation Industry the best with their new purchase. My observation has been that Chinese companies have tended to be hands off in managing their acquired aviation assets and that’s probably a good thing. Still, Christian Dries strikes me as the definition of sui generis. He’ll be a hard act to follow.

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