Power with Panache
The leading hand rattled off a long string of language complete with complementing hand gestures. I didn’t get a word of it because it was in French, and to be embarrassingly honest, my French is at best mauvais. When he stopped, my guide and interpreter, Caroline, turned to me and said:
“Savour faire. He says it’s all about making aeroplanes with savour faire, and none of the others do that.”
Two little words that summed up the entire philosophy of Daher and the TBM 930 single-engined turbo-prop (SETP), and I couldn’t have said it better myself (obviously). From the slick production line at Tarbes in the shadow of the Pyrenees, to the company restaurant and the finish of their aeroplanes, Daher (it rhymes with “stayer”) tries to do everything with that extra touch of something that’s hard to define … in English anyway. You already know what the French call it.
Daher’s six-place corporate people-movers are fitted with either the Garmin 1000 flight deck as a TBM 910 or the Garmin 3000 as the TBM 930. Powered by a single Pratt & Whitney PT6A-66D turbine putting out 850 shp, the TBM 900 series wears well the reputation of the fastest SETP in the world.
And although “fast” is a very valuable label when it comes to selling aeroplanes, it is rarely enough. Daher Sales Promotion Director Philippe de Segovia points out that speed is great for a weekend toy, but an aeroplane’s value is based on being much more.
“People are buying the TBM for the speed, but what is the speed for?”, he ponders. “You have aircraft that are faster, like jets, but the overall speed has to be taken into account with the range. Also, there is the payload. With full payload, the TBM will achieve a range
