Fix the high cost [Was:] High Cost of Sportplanes

[Evan Carew]

Anyone in the fiberglass / aluminum sheet metal industry ( or other
successful enthusiasts ) interested in contributing to some
experimentation. If you are interested, and willing to have the results
released to the public, I think we could make a real contribution to
this debate & perhaps offer some solutions to the small plane industries
labor problem.

What I am thinking of is a bake off to design two reference structures.
One of fiberglass & one of aluminum. Each must be finished (primed &
painted), and each must have an exact tally of labor for construction. A
separate tally should include the cost (tho not labor) involved in the
tooling.

The goal of this bake off is to provide the industry with a method which
could produce an airframe with 500Hrs or less of labor, and a defined
amount of materials. Since there seems to be a kind of religious quality
to preferences for building materials, both general types will be used,
thus providing a gage by which others might choose their preferred
construction method.

To start the bake off, two reference structures, one for each building
method, would have to be designed in CAD. These reference structures
would each have the same structural goals and strength specs. Each
reference structure would not necessarily have to be to scale. Remember,
the goal here is NOT to prove that one construction technique is
superior to another, but rather to provide a choice of feasible methods
to the commercial LSA designer/builder. If designed in a public forum
such as this one, the structure & building techniques would be peer
reviewed & presumably employ the full collection of best construction
practices, and should yield procedures simple and cheap enough to be
used by companies of limited means.

If enough people with the experience and means to volunteer for this
first phase, then the remaining phases would be worth hashing out later.

[Smitty Two]

In article >,
Evan Carew > wrote:


>
> The goal of this bake off is to provide the industry with a method which
> could produce an airframe with 500Hrs or less of labor


500 hours for just the airframe? Can we work with both hands and use our
thumbs?

[Evan Carew]

You can even use your two good typing fingers, so long as you count in
the time it took you to mold the fiberglass parts & or do the CNC work &
initial metal forming.

Smitty Two wrote:
>
>
> 500 hours for just the airframe? Can we work with both hands and use our
> thumbs?

[Gordon Arnaut]

Evan,

Here's a back-of-the-envelope calculation to see if the $50,000 sportplane
is feasible.

If I was to offer $10,000 to someone on this list to assemble a Zenith 601,
would I have any takers? I think yes. There are probably guys here who have
built one of these -- or similar -- before and have all the tools and know
what's involved.

The kit from Zenith costs about 15k, let's say the Rotax is another 15k, the
10k mentioned for assembly, and add another 10k for various bits and pieces.
That is $50,000 total.

No there would not be a profit for me, but Zenith, Rotax and everyone else
is still making a profit, including any and all middlemen.

Now if I had my own design and could stamp out the metal myself, instead of
having to buy a kit from someone else, would I be able to make a profit?
Yes. I would make at least as much profit as Zenith makes on the sale of one
of their kits.

So there you have it, the $50,000 sportplane -- without any structural
changes to the industry.

The more I think about, the more this is a no-brainer. I think the people
who doubt the viability of the $50,000 sportplane are simply conditioned by
the marketing propaganda spread by the various commercial interestes and
their mouthpieces, the magazines.


Regards,

Gordon.




"Evan Carew" > wrote in message
. ..
> Anyone in the fiberglass / aluminum sheet metal industry ( or other
> successful enthusiasts ) interested in contributing to some
> experimentation. If you are interested, and willing to have the results
> released to the public, I think we could make a real contribution to this
> debate & perhaps offer some solutions to the small plane industries labor
> problem.
>
> What I am thinking of is a bake off to design two reference structures.
> One of fiberglass & one of aluminum. Each must be finished (primed &
> painted), and each must have an exact tally of labor for construction. A
> separate tally should include the cost (tho not labor) involved in the
> tooling.
>
> The goal of this bake off is to provide the industry with a method which
> could produce an airframe with 500Hrs or less of labor, and a defined
> amount of materials. Since there seems to be a kind of religious quality
> to preferences for building materials, both general types will be used,
> thus providing a gage by which others might choose their preferred
> construction method.
>
> To start the bake off, two reference structures, one for each building
> method, would have to be designed in CAD. These reference structures would
> each have the same structural goals and strength specs. Each reference
> structure would not necessarily have to be to scale. Remember, the goal
> here is NOT to prove that one construction technique is superior to
> another, but rather to provide a choice of feasible methods to the
> commercial LSA designer/builder. If designed in a public forum such as
> this one, the structure & building techniques would be peer reviewed &
> presumably employ the full collection of best construction practices, and
> should yield procedures simple and cheap enough to be used by companies of
> limited means.
>
> If enough people with the experience and means to volunteer for this first
> phase, then the remaining phases would be worth hashing out later.

[Jimbob]

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 09:58:41 -0400, "Gordon Arnaut"
> wrote:

>
>If I was to offer $10,000 to someone on this list to assemble a Zenith 601,
>would I have any takers? I think yes. There are probably guys here who have
>built one of these -- or similar -- before and have all the tools and know
>what's involved.


What is the required hours for assembly for the kits you mentioned?

Lets say they did it in a month. That would be a gross salary of
$120K. But I don't think that is even close. Other hours assuming
std 40 hour work week and national holidays observed..

Hours to Build Gross Salary
250 $80K (Nice entrepreneur salary)
500 $40K (OK salary, lower middle class)
750 $26,666 (Eh, some people might bite)
1000 $20K (Not a chance)
>1000 Poverty Level


I will ignore business overhead until the hours are locked down. Then
I can give you specific #'s.


Jim

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

[Gig 601XL Builder]

"Gordon Arnaut" > wrote in message
...
> Evan,
>
> Here's a back-of-the-envelope calculation to see if the $50,000 sportplane
> is feasible.
>
> If I was to offer $10,000 to someone on this list to assemble a Zenith
> 601, would I have any takers? I think yes. There are probably guys here
> who have built one of these -- or similar -- before and have all the tools
> and know what's involved.
>
> The kit from Zenith costs about 15k, let's say the Rotax is another 15k,
> the 10k mentioned for assembly, and add another 10k for various bits and
> pieces. That is $50,000 total.
>
> No there would not be a profit for me, but Zenith, Rotax and everyone else
> is still making a profit, including any and all middlemen.
>
> Now if I had my own design and could stamp out the metal myself, instead
> of having to buy a kit from someone else, would I be able to make a
> profit? Yes. I would make at least as much profit as Zenith makes on the
> sale of one of their kits.
>
> So there you have it, the $50,000 sportplane -- without any structural
> changes to the industry.
>
> The more I think about, the more this is a no-brainer. I think the people
> who doubt the viability of the $50,000 sportplane are simply conditioned
> by the marketing propaganda spread by the various commercial interestes
> and their mouthpieces, the magazines.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Gordon.

I think you have one huge failure in you calculation. The labor cost.
$10,000 is way to low. If you take an employee or employees and only pay
them ONLY $10.00 per hour when you load all the costs of taxes, insurance
and other associated B.S. you are looking at $22.50/hour. That only gives
you 444.44 man hours to build the plane. Even Zenith quotes higher than that
for the airframe only.

[RST Engineering]

I'm sure if you took your figures down to your local venture capitalist they
would embrace you with open arms and give you all the up front money you
needed to get your project going. After you became wildly successful you
could tell those nasty magazine editors how they knew nothing about the
industry.

Jim


> The more I think about, the more this is a no-brainer. I think the people
> who doubt the viability of the $50,000 sportplane are simply conditioned
> by the marketing propaganda spread by the various commercial interestes
> and their mouthpieces, the magazines.

[ChuckSlusarczyk]

In article >, Richard Riley says...
>
>:"Gordon Arnaut" > wrote in message
...
>:> The more I think about, the more this is a no-brainer. I think the people
>:> who doubt the viability of the $50,000 sportplane are simply conditioned
>:> by the marketing propaganda spread by the various commercial interestes
>:> and their mouthpieces, the magazines.
>
>Some of the doubters are people who've been in the business of making
>light airplanes. Been there, done that. Left without the T-shirt.
>
>I encourage you to go forward. Please let us know when the chapter 7
>sale is, I could use some more aircraft tools at 3 cents on the
>dollar.

Hey Richard I got an airplane company he can buy and put his skills to work and
show me how to get rich. Nows the time to put the money where the mouth is
LOL!!! I've had employees who wanted a raise tell me I'm making a fortune and
then say it only costs you $4,500 to build a kit that sells for $11,000. When I
said "tell ya what ,I'll put you in charge of the bills and buy every kit you
can produce for $5500 .You'll make $1000 per kit plus tour paycheck" .But if you
can't, any overruns come off your $1000. Guess what ...no takers:-)
Everybody is an expert especially those who never hung their neck out to run a
busines.

See ya

Chuck S

[Gordon Arnaut]

Chuck,

I'm not purporting to have some kind of "plan" to show you or anyone else
how to get rich. That's not what I am interested in.

I'm simply stating a fact: sportplane prices are way too high. It is my
opinion that they can and will come down substantially.

I think the silly magazines should have more integrity than simply
cheerleading this opportunism.

If you think that $100,000 is a realistic price for these sportplanes, why
don't you come out and so so?

You said you're selling kits for $11,000. That's about $90,000 less than
these sportplanes are selling for. That is a big difference and I don't see
the logical path from your $11,000 kit being realistically priced, therefore
the $100,000 sportplane must realistically priced.

Regards,

Gordon.



"ChuckSlusarczyk" > wrote in message
...
> In article >, Richard Riley
> says...
>>
>>:"Gordon Arnaut" > wrote in message
...
>>:> The more I think about, the more this is a no-brainer. I think the
>>people
>>:> who doubt the viability of the $50,000 sportplane are simply
>>conditioned
>>:> by the marketing propaganda spread by the various commercial interestes
>>:> and their mouthpieces, the magazines.
>>
>>Some of the doubters are people who've been in the business of making
>>light airplanes. Been there, done that. Left without the T-shirt.
>>
>>I encourage you to go forward. Please let us know when the chapter 7
>>sale is, I could use some more aircraft tools at 3 cents on the
>>dollar.
>
> Hey Richard I got an airplane company he can buy and put his skills to
> work and
> show me how to get rich. Nows the time to put the money where the mouth is
> LOL!!! I've had employees who wanted a raise tell me I'm making a fortune
> and
> then say it only costs you $4,500 to build a kit that sells for $11,000.
> When I
> said "tell ya what ,I'll put you in charge of the bills and buy every kit
> you
> can produce for $5500 .You'll make $1000 per kit plus tour paycheck" .But
> if you
> can't, any overruns come off your $1000. Guess what ...no takers:-)
> Everybody is an expert especially those who never hung their neck out to
> run a
> busines.
>
> See ya
>
> Chuck S
>

[Gig 601XL Builder]

"Gordon Arnaut" > wrote in message
...
> Chuck,
>
> I'm not purporting to have some kind of "plan" to show you or anyone else
> how to get rich. That's not what I am interested in.
>
> I'm simply stating a fact: sportplane prices are way too high. It is my
> opinion that they can and will come down substantially.
>
> I think the silly magazines should have more integrity than simply
> cheerleading this opportunism.
>
> If you think that $100,000 is a realistic price for these sportplanes, why
> don't you come out and so so?
>
> You said you're selling kits for $11,000. That's about $90,000 less than
> these sportplanes are selling for. That is a big difference and I don't
> see the logical path from your $11,000 kit being realistically priced,
> therefore the $100,000 sportplane must realistically priced.
>
> Regards,
>
> Gordon.
>
>

There's a BIG difference in a kit from, say Zenith and a completed 601XL. I
don't know what you do for living but labor and its associated costs ain't
cheap. If you are willing to invest your time and your own labor into
building a plane for yourself as I am go a ahead and go for it. Start
building. But to slander the makers of LSAs by calling them price gougers
because they have placed a price on their labor that others are willing to
pay when you can't come up with costs that are even close to what they have
in the aircraft makes you whiny.

[[email protected]]

Gordon Arnaut wrote:
> ...
>
> You said you're selling kits for $11,000. That's about $90,000 less than
> these sportplanes are selling for. That is a big difference and I don't see
> the logical path from your $11,000 kit being realistically priced, therefore
> the $100,000 sportplane must realistically priced.
>

Seems like that implies about $90,000 in labor/ancillary materials
like paint and rivets, tools and other logistical costs, like
floorspace to go from kit to completed plane. Seems excessive
but is a plane built from an $11,000 typically comparable to
a 100,000 plane?

--

FF

[Gordon Arnaut]

First of all, who exactly is willing to pay the going prices for the
sportsplanes?

How many people do you know who have written a check? I think there have
been about enough sales to count on the fingers of one hand.

Second, price-gouging is a fact, not my "whining," as you so inappropriately
put it. (Your own tone is more whine-like than mine has ever been).

I have seen a huge jump in prices of sportplanes here in Canada since the US
rule went into effect. Remember we have had these planes here for years. Two
years ago the retail price of a Tecnam P-92 Echo, which is a two-place
high-wing with a Rotax 912, was CAD $65,000. At the exchange rate at that
time it came to less than US $50,000.

Today that same plane is pushing CAD $100,000 and is selling in the US for
$80,000 in bare-bones trim. Yes the Euro has strengthened since then, but
the inescapable conclusion is that the manufacturers are betting that there
are some desperate medical-lacking pilots who want to fly at all cost and so
they want to squeeze everything they can out of this opportunity.

I am confident that once they realize they have priced themselves out of the
market that they will adjust to a more realistic level. Not only that I
anticipate new entrants who will see an opportunity to make money and will
take it.

But as for yourself, If you are happy with these prices, why don't you put
your money where your mouth is and buy one? It will save you a lot of
building time. But that's besides the point, because I get the feeling that
you are blowing air out your derriere, without actually having looked into
the issue in any meaningful way.

Regards,

Gordon.




"Gig 601XL Builder" <wr.giacona@coxDOTnet> wrote in message
news:hbDYe.70305$7f5.57394@okepread01...
>
> "Gordon Arnaut" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Chuck,
>>
>> I'm not purporting to have some kind of "plan" to show you or anyone else
>> how to get rich. That's not what I am interested in.
>>
>> I'm simply stating a fact: sportplane prices are way too high. It is my
>> opinion that they can and will come down substantially.
>>
>> I think the silly magazines should have more integrity than simply
>> cheerleading this opportunism.
>>
>> If you think that $100,000 is a realistic price for these sportplanes,
>> why don't you come out and so so?
>>
>> You said you're selling kits for $11,000. That's about $90,000 less than
>> these sportplanes are selling for. That is a big difference and I don't
>> see the logical path from your $11,000 kit being realistically priced,
>> therefore the $100,000 sportplane must realistically priced.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Gordon.
>>
>>
>
> There's a BIG difference in a kit from, say Zenith and a completed 601XL.
> I don't know what you do for living but labor and its associated costs
> ain't cheap. If you are willing to invest your time and your own labor
> into building a plane for yourself as I am go a ahead and go for it. Start
> building. But to slander the makers of LSAs by calling them price gougers
> because they have placed a price on their labor that others are willing to
> pay when you can't come up with costs that are even close to what they
> have in the aircraft makes you whiny.
>

[Gig 601XL Builder]

> wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> Gordon Arnaut wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> You said you're selling kits for $11,000. That's about $90,000 less than
>> these sportplanes are selling for. That is a big difference and I don't
>> see
>> the logical path from your $11,000 kit being realistically priced,
>> therefore
>> the $100,000 sportplane must realistically priced.
>>
>
> Seems like that implies about $90,000 in labor/ancillary materials
> like paint and rivets, tools and other logistical costs, like
> floorspace to go from kit to completed plane. Seems excessive
> but is a plane built from an $11,000 typically comparable to
> a 100,000 plane?
>
> --
>


And don't forget those other ancillary materials like engines and avionics.
But I guess we can ignore them they're universally cheap.

[Gig 601XL Builder]

"Gordon Arnaut" > wrote in message
...
> First of all, who exactly is willing to pay the going prices for the
> sportsplanes?
>
> How many people do you know who have written a check? I think there have
> been about enough sales to count on the fingers of one hand.
>
> Second, price-gouging is a fact, not my "whining," as you so
> inappropriately put it. (Your own tone is more whine-like than mine has
> ever been).
>
> I have seen a huge jump in prices of sportplanes here in Canada since the
> US rule went into effect. Remember we have had these planes here for
> years. Two years ago the retail price of a Tecnam P-92 Echo, which is a
> two-place high-wing with a Rotax 912, was CAD $65,000. At the exchange
> rate at that time it came to less than US $50,000.
>
> Today that same plane is pushing CAD $100,000 and is selling in the US for
> $80,000 in bare-bones trim. Yes the Euro has strengthened since then, but
> the inescapable conclusion is that the manufacturers are betting that
> there are some desperate medical-lacking pilots who want to fly at all
> cost and so they want to squeeze everything they can out of this
> opportunity.
>
> I am confident that once they realize they have priced themselves out of
> the market that they will adjust to a more realistic level. Not only that
> I anticipate new entrants who will see an opportunity to make money and
> will take it.
>
> But as for yourself, If you are happy with these prices, why don't you put
> your money where your mouth is and buy one? It will save you a lot of
> building time. But that's besides the point, because I get the feeling
> that you are blowing air out your derriere, without actually having looked
> into the issue in any meaningful way.
>
> Regards,
>
> Gordon.

They priced the product where they think it will sell. If they are wrong it
will be them that lose out.

If I wasn't already pretty far into the building process I probably would
buy LSA 601XL.

[Ernest Christley]

RST Engineering wrote:
> I'm sure if you took your figures down to your local venture capitalist they
> would embrace you with open arms and give you all the up front money you
> needed to get your project going. After you became wildly successful you
> could tell those nasty magazine editors how they knew nothing about the
> industry.
>
> Jim
>
>
>
>>The more I think about, the more this is a no-brainer. I think the people
>>who doubt the viability of the $50,000 sportplane are simply conditioned
>>by the marketing propaganda spread by the various commercial interestes
>>and their mouthpieces, the magazines.
>
>
>

And after he did that, he could start his own magazine where he reviewed
other manufacturer's aircrafts, saying whatever he damn well pleased.
Giving 'unbiased' reviews, and telling any advertiser he didn't like to
****-off. Looks to me like Gordon has a very bright future ahead. Maybe
he'll get so busy that his post will have less drivel.

--
This is by far the hardest lesson about freedom. It goes against
instinct, and morality, to just sit back and watch people make
mistakes. We want to help them, which means control them and their
decisions, but in doing so we actually hurt them (and ourselves)."

[Evan Carew]

This particular thread was for volunteers interested in exploring and
reducing the actual costs incured in building aircraft structures. Since
the issues have already been hashed out in previous threads, if there
are any takers, please let me know off line at .

Evan

[Roger]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 03:30:12 GMT, Evan Carew >
wrote:

>This particular thread was for volunteers interested in exploring and
>reducing the actual costs incured in building aircraft structures. Since
>the issues have already been hashed out in previous threads, if there
>are any takers, please let me know off line at .
>
>Evan
maybe so, but I'd think any additional information would be of
interest to all of us.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

[Evan Carew]

Good point. I should have made clear that all information gleaned from
this experiment will be posted on my web site, along with regular
updates in this forum.

Roger wrote:
>>Evan
>
> maybe so, but I'd think any additional information would be of
> interest to all of us.
>
> Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
> (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
> www.rogerhalstead.com

[Smitty Two]

In article >,
Evan Carew > wrote:

> This particular thread was for volunteers interested in exploring and
> reducing the actual costs incured in building aircraft structures. Since
> the issues have already been hashed out in previous threads, if there
> are any takers, please let me know off line at .
>
> Evan

Not sure what you mean by "takers." Do you mean people who might
actually want to seriously discuss forming a company to make and market
airplanes, or do you mean people who just want to delve into it a bit
more for the intellectual exercise?

[Evan Carew]

Smitty,

Ideally, I would like to treat this as a community project where the
community contributes the expertise & labor and benefits from the data.

Evan

[Accessory Section 8]

Evan Carew wrote:
> Smitty,
>
> Ideally, I would like to treat this as a community project where the
> community contributes the expertise & labor and benefits from the data.


It comes down to "the tragedy of the commons". You are asking people
to privatize the costs and commonize the profits, the reverse from
human nature and good business.


The biggest problem in sport aviation is the low volume involved. If
you get the volume up the costs will come down a great deal.

Overseas production could offset this somewhat. However, getting
people to build aircraft in most countries, even on an experimental kit
basis, is tough. The list of countries that have job shops you can send
a print to, notated in the English language and dimensioned in US
units, and have a hope in hell of getting a part back more than very
vaguely resembling the print, at total costs significantly cheaper than
in the US, is quite small.

[Bret Ludwig]

Richard Riley wrote:<<snip>>


> When the cow's giving birth at 3 AM some freezing winter morning
> someone has to go help. If it's the "community" cow and not mine, I
> might just stay in bed.

How did cows produce calves before there were humans?

Anyway, there are a lot of aircraft designs that for all intents and
purposes are in the public domain. Their designers have passed on
without a clear trail of inheritance. The FAA has allowed aircraft
built in conformance to these Type Certificates to be issued Standard
Category C of A's.

The cost of R&D of basic light aircraft, in any event is not a deal
breaker if you can get some amortization, as a previous poster said.

One necessary step is for the use of a powerplant, also as another
poster said, NOT specific to light aircraft. There simply is not the
volume necessary. An engine built around an existing auto, motorcycle
or similar powerplant WITHOUT the direct involvement of the original
engine manufacturer is pretty much a necessity. If the core engine
manufactuirer has to get involved they will jack the price to Lycoming
levels or worse (PFM).

[Evan Carew]

Section 8,

Interesting use of words there. In my experience, "the tragedy of the
commons" is common jargon for lawyers. I however, work in the computer
science field and am familiar with the Linux OS phenomenon. In that
case, an entire OS & suite of applications was created out of love.
Granted, the cost of such a creation is much lower than for aircraft
structural design, however, I'm guessing that most of us in this news
group have enough tools and materials to put together such reference
structures as we are talking about here.

Evan Carew

Accessory Section 8 wrote:
> Evan Carew wrote:
>
>>Smitty,
>>
>>Ideally, I would like to treat this as a community project where the
>>community contributes the expertise & labor and benefits from the data.
>
>
>
> It comes down to "the tragedy of the commons". You are asking people
> to privatize the costs and commonize the profits, the reverse from
> human nature and good business.
>

[[email protected]]

Evan Carew wrote:
> Smitty,
>
> Ideally, I would like to treat this as a community project where the
> community contributes the expertise & labor and benefits from the data.
>
> Evan

There is on such project already on the way in yahoo groups. You should
be able to find it if you look. Essentially they are collaborating on
the design and the poop is that if you collaborate you get a free set
of the completed plans.
Though that still isn't open source.

Thier contribution requirement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It
isn't going to keep one of their widows from sueing the rest of them
one one "contributing" member kills themselves doing something stupid.
Their actually making themselves more exposed to liability that way,
not less. They aught to just use code names and release the results
anonymously. In a litigiously insane society, anonymity becomes a
shelter for innovation.

There are in fact a few sets of "documentation" available on the net
gratis. One is a gyro the other is a glider. It has been the request of
one such designer not to use the word "plans" because he is explicitly
not recomending you build one and only use the docs as a point of
study.

I have done a decent amount of reading on the topic of your interest
and am pleased overall at your enthusiasm. There are technical,
financial and political problems that answer the question "why not?",
in regards to building a cheap aircraft. It would take a few pages to
document them all, and you haven't done enough research yourself to
warrant the effort.

Sufficed to say, the technical problems are the small ones. But I
encourage you to continue with your research. Hopefully one day there
will be enough folks to call "bull****" on the current situation and
some change will come of it.

Can I buy an "e"

-Matt

[Evan Carew]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

shrike,

Interesting analysis. As one of the few who gets it, I think you can
appreciate why I chose the open source solution to publishing the data.
Any use of the community data is acceptance of an as-is contract where
any derivative works may not be patented or hoarded as trade secrets.
This also tends to insulate the technology publishers reasonably well
from litigation.

It is important to note that the point of this project is rather narrow.
I am not advocating the development of a specific set of plans for a
completed aircraft structure, but rather a set of procedures to set up a
shop to build such a structure in the cheapest manner. A quick analysis
on my part (followed up by data from other members on this list)
identified labor costs as being the #1 largest cost in pricing an
aircraft structure for sale in the LSA or small GA market. Granted,
there are other issues such as political, high engine prices, high
instrument prices, high materials prices, FBO desirability, etc. that I
am not addressing here, however, one must start somewhere.

Its even worth noting that should labor costs magically go to zero, the
cost of a commercially made aircraft would still probably not go below
50K USD.
Airframe + avionics + engine + labor Insurance Profit Overhead
kit basic 912 Magic
20000 + 4000 + 16000 + ( 0 * 45 ) +10000 + 10000 + 1000 = 61000


As you can see, even getting the largest component down to zero still
doesn't get you an airplane as cheap as an SUV ( for obvious reasons ),
it does however, get you to the point where you can start to compete
with the 69K LSA commercial planes from eastern europe today. At this
point, you are free to start chipping away at the other high price items
like the engine. For instance, an 89hp Jabiru can be had for 11k, thus
saving 5K from the 912 price tag.
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[TaxSrv]

"Evan Carew" wrote:
> Its even worth noting that should labor costs magically go
> to zero, the cost of a commercially made aircraft would still
> probably not go below 50K USD.

> Airframe + avionics + engine + labor Insurance Profit
Overhead
> kit basic 912 Magic
> 20000 + 4000 + 16000 + ( 0 * 45 ) +10000 + 10000 + 1000
= 61000
>

Woah there, overhead of mere $1,000/unit is not possible. At 100
units annually, pretty good if there's many competitors, that will
be only $100K. That's for manufacturing space and equipment,
warranty costs, legal, accounting, information tech, administrative
space, insurance other than product liability, taxes other than
income, phone, utilites, janitorial, etc., etc. And where's your
marketing costs? Advertising, promotional literature and videos,
and say $50K total cost for just one sales guy, who'll be one busy
beaver at 100 annual units. Figure $10K to go to AirVenture; wanna
go to all the others? And gotta demo plane?

Fred F.

[rpellicciotti]

Well said. A lot of people on this list have some idea what the
materials cost to build and airplane but they have no idea what it
takes to run a business. A lot of people have accused the LSA
manufacturers of price gouging and getting rich. My experience so far
in this business is that a lot of people are making money off of LSA
manufacturers.

Air show exhibit space sellers, promotional video producers, brochure
designers and printers, magazine advertising departments, logoed
clothing makers and the companies that sell the raw materials and
components for aircraft are the ones making all the money right now.
LSA manufacturers are spending much more than they are making at this
point (it is called investing for those of you in Rio Linda). At some
point, one hopes the income will exceed the outgo. Time will tell.

Rick Pellicciotti
LightSportFlying.com

[[email protected]]

Evan Carew wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> shrike,
>
> Interesting analysis. As one of the few who gets it, I think you can
> appreciate why I chose the open source solution to publishing the data.
> Any use of the community data is acceptance of an as-is contract where
> any derivative works may not be patented or hoarded as trade secrets.
> This also tends to insulate the technology publishers reasonably well
> from litigation.

Sometimes the contract is the end of the negotiation. Sometimes it is
the beginning. A hold harmless agreement; though common in end user
licenses; are trounced by safety law. In most states you cannot legally
sign away your own right to safety. Consequently you'll find many
software agreements specically disclaim the use of the software in
situations requiring fault tolerance. For example, MS would really you
rather NOT use Winblows to run say a pacemaker.

So while the open source license protects the right to redistribution
it only marginally protects the authors. In the case of Open
Engineering an aircraft that exposure is amplified.

>
> It is important to note that the point of this project is rather narrow.
> I am not advocating the development of a specific set of plans for a
> completed aircraft structure, but rather a set of procedures to set up a
> shop to build such a structure in the cheapest manner. A quick analysis
> on my part (followed up by data from other members on this list)
> identified labor costs as being the #1 largest cost in pricing an
> aircraft structure for sale in the LSA or small GA market. Granted,
> there are other issues such as political, high engine prices, high
> instrument prices, high materials prices, FBO desirability, etc. that I
> am not addressing here, however, one must start somewhere.
>

Yes you do have to start somewhere. Try Excel, and reading the
certification requirements in the FARS. (Available online) All the
stuff your talking about will be defined more by the financial model of
the company, than it will by the aircraft selected. The bird has to fit
into the budget, the budget doesn't fit the bird. (Unless your on a
government contract)

To reiterate the aircraft is the _small_ part. And while everybody is
enthusiastic about aircraft technology, very few people have the
patience to sit in front of a spread sheet or a lawbook and fidget
until they understand those issues.

Labor _hours_ can be drastically reduced with modern tooling, there is
no question about that. Whether manufacturing _costs_ can be is a
different issue. You have to figure land labor and capital as a
percentage of projected revenues to be able to tell whether the new
tooling makes sense.

Stop thinking about the plane. Start thinking about the financial model
that supports the project. Then start thinking about the people who
wouldn't want you to succeed and what they would do to prevent you from
succeeding. (The people you would put out of business) That will give
you a picture of the bull you are casually talking about riding. Once
you have that picture ask youself whether you're still interested in
riding it.

This whole thread is really about defining what constitutes "barrier to
entry" in the light aircraft market. There is a whole science involved
in doing what your doing. I think the reason your getting a lot of
attitude is that your talking about financial issues in a engineering
forum. Really you should start addressing your questions to somebody
who understands business finance. You've got the cart before the ox
IMHO.

If your interested in open-sourcing and distributing a free aircraft
design optimized for modern tooling I totally applaud. Then you best
bet is to set up a non-profit to do that (Can be done online for
~$250), and start soliciting help. Once you have one or two designers
and robot guy on board, start soliciting the automotive manufacturers
to lend you an old robot to test your theories. Write a few grant
proposals. They might just give you one to write it off as a donation.
If you associated the project with a University you'd probably get a
lot better response.

You can do it! But right now your barking up the wrong tree. Come back
to this forum when you have questions about the plane, and not about
the financial issues. Right now your just ****ing people off.

-Matt

<SNIP>

[Evan Carew]

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TaxMan,

As a first step, then, lets agree on some realistic commercial numbers.
From earlier comments, Overhead / plane where 50 & 100 are sold / year
look like:

Airframe + avionics + engine + labor Insurance Profit Overhead
kit basic 912 Magic
20000 + 4000 + 16000 + ( 0 * 45 ) +10000 + 10000 + 1000 = 61000


12000 rent + 50000 sales + 20000 marketing + 10000 general marketing = 92K
Divided over 50 units per year = 1800 / unit
Divided over 100 units per year = ~1000 / unit

I would like however for you to keep in mind that the purpose of this
exercise is to reduce the process cost of a LSA airframe, not to spend
time figuring the minutia of how cheaply to run a company. This
community effort's purpose is to prove a reduced airframe production
cost in the form of a published procedure with estimated costs, not
prove a commercial price. If this overhead cost structure looks even
close to what "sounds good", then I think we should put this issue to
bed. Since we are talking about building reference structures to get an
idea of the direction and cost of a process, then I think we can agree
that the same model should apply to the initial commercial reference
numbers, i.e., all things being equal, if you can take a large chunk off
one or two of the biggest numbers, then you have solved the problem.
Overhead, as you can see, is not one of the biggest numbers.
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[Evan Carew]

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shrike,

I'm not trying to attract flames here, but this is exactly an
engineering issue. Other issues having to do with entry into the market
are not part of this discussion. There are already other companies in
this market who could choose to use this technology to reduce their
costs for instance. The point is NOT to define a new viable company with
a new process, but rather to inform those already in the business, or
those just getting started of at least one cheap process. In addition,
since we aren't defining an actual airframe, but rather a process,
liability issues will be minimized.
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[[email protected]]

Evan Carew wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> shrike,
>
> I'm not trying to attract flames here, but this is exactly an
> engineering issue. Other issues having to do with entry into the market
> are not part of this discussion. There are already other companies in
> this market who could choose to use this technology to reduce their
> costs for instance. The point is NOT to define a new viable company with
> a new process, but rather to inform those already in the business,
> or
> those just getting started of at least one cheap process. In addition,
> since we aren't defining an actual airframe, but rather a process,
> liability issues will be minimized.
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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>
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> WQl/BLqKhUfmFZUno8VstEo=
> =gqRd
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Did you forget to take your meds today? Your either a troll or your
about 16yo. In either case your playing grabass. I'm sorry I ever tried
to help you.

-Matt

[TaxSrv]

"Evan Carew" wrote:
>
> As a first step, then, lets agree on some realistic commercial
numbers.
> ...
> 12000 rent...

Stuck on the very first number. How many sq. feet you figure
there, to build and market 100 planes/year? By golly, at our
airport there's decently sized and appointed hangar bldg for you, a
former bizjet maintenance facility. The annual ground lease the
bldg.owner (would be you if you had built - for $1 mil,) pays to
the airport is $50,000! So, I guess Acme Airplane Co. leases a
bldg. elsewhere. That means you still lease space at the airport
for testbed and demo planes. Since this is a commercial operation,
the airport might charge much extra, not just T-hangar rates.
Figure $20K there. You'll have travel and dead time costs for the
employees shuttling back/forth, and some duplication in staffing to
work on and sell the planes. Like your one busy sales guy has to
go 30 miles to meet a prospect who shows up an hour late.

Remember if 100 units turns out to be a pipe dream, your overhead
don't shrink much. Was that a 5-year bldg lease you signed?

Fred F.

[Bret Ludwig]

TaxSrv wrote:
> "Evan Carew" wrote:
> >
> > As a first step, then, lets agree on some realistic commercial
> numbers.
> > ...
> > 12000 rent...
>
> Stuck on the very first number. How many sq. feet you figure
> there, to build and market 100 planes/year? By golly, at our
> airport there's decently sized and appointed hangar bldg for you, a
> former bizjet maintenance facility. The annual ground lease the
> bldg.owner (would be you if you had built - for $1 mil,) pays to
> the airport is $50,000! So, I guess Acme Airplane Co. leases a
> bldg. elsewhere. That means you still lease space at the airport
> for testbed and demo planes. Since this is a commercial operation,
> the airport might charge much extra, not just T-hangar rates.
> Figure $20K there. You'll have travel and dead time costs for the
> employees shuttling back/forth, and some duplication in staffing to
> work on and sell the planes. Like your one busy sales guy has to
> go 30 miles to meet a prospect who shows up an hour late.
>
> Remember if 100 units turns out to be a pipe dream, your overhead
> don't shrink much. Was that a 5-year bldg lease you signed?

The LSA will be cost-effective when 10,000 units in two or three years
is a realistic goal.

[Bret Ludwig]

As an aside, look at the way the Germans managed to build airplanes at
the end of the war-or the way huge mine trucks are built today. Most
are built in buildings that the assembled truck could barely fit in and
certainly never be driven out of without dismantling the building. I'd
say you could build a light aircraft designed for manufacturability in
a building roughly the size of a McDonald's and truck them to the
airport with a bread van.

Any mass produced successful sport aircraft today ought to have
folding wings, whether it's trailered or if it goes in a community
hanger. There is a folding wing mod for the venerable Ercoupe (it's
STC'd or their equivalent in Canada, I'm not sure here) and five or six
of them will fit in the hangar footprint of a Skylane.

In fact, there's a hell of a case for combining such an operation with
either an A&P school or a sheltered workshop-don't laugh, Rosie the
Riveter was only one of the famous nontraditional aircraft workers in
The Big One. Doug the Dwarf, Roger the Retard, Crazy Chuck, and Ollie
the Old F*** were there too!

[Montblack]

("Bret Ludwig" wrote)
[snip]
> Any mass produced successful sport aircraft today ought to have
> folding wings, whether it's trailered or if it goes in a community
> hanger. There is a folding wing mod for the venerable Ercoupe (it's
> STC'd or their equivalent in Canada, I'm not sure here) and five or six
> of them will fit in the hangar footprint of a Skylane.


I started a fresh thread: Folding wing for Ercoupes?


Montblack

[TaxSrv]

"Bret Ludwig" wrote:
>
> The LSA will be cost-effective when 10,000 units in two or three
years
> is a realistic goal.
>

FAA's projection is actually for about 10,000 LSA planes in the
total fleet, but flat at that level thereafter, after a few years.

This includes all types of LSAs, including previous "fat
ultralights" now to be in compliance. If there's a dozen or two
major players to produce the planes we'd prefer -- the top end of
LSA limits-- that's not much annual production for each of the
players, so costs are a real factor. With FAA projection of a
future flat market, what decision does an investor make to design
and produce the best performing LSAs?

Fred F.

[Ernest Christley]

Evan Carew wrote:
> Section 8,
>
> Interesting use of words there. In my experience, "the tragedy of the
> commons" is common jargon for lawyers. I however, work in the computer
> science field and am familiar with the Linux OS phenomenon. In that
> case, an entire OS & suite of applications was created out of love.
> Granted, the cost of such a creation is much lower than for aircraft
> structural design, however, I'm guessing that most of us in this news
> group have enough tools and materials to put together such reference
> structures as we are talking about here.
>


I'm also a lover of Linux, and OS/2 before that. I am deeply inbedded
with the Open Source philosophy. I'm also building an airplane. The
difference here is that on Linux, a single person can design a file
system or a sound driver all by themselves, and it can be integrated
with the whole. You can't design a rudder and stick it on any ol'
airframe. An efficient aircraft has to be designed as a whole. Each
aircraft is a single set of compromises flying in formation, and for the
most part, you can't mix compromises.

The closest you'll get to an Open Source aircraft design is to create
something in its entirety and then present it to the community for them
to tell you what's wrong with it. After spending several thousand hours
on development, most people will push back at the criticism.

Don't be fooled. An Xplane model that says its a high-wing using XYZ
airfoil at position gamma is not a design. What type of rib? How is it
attached? What size is the spar attachment bolt? All the questions are
uniquely answered by a 'brazillion' other considerations, all of which
I, and probably yourself, are uniquely UNqualified to answer. I say the
latter because like yourself, I have a background in computer science
(and just enough aviation knowledge to know that I don't know enough).

--
This is by far the hardest lesson about freedom. It goes against
instinct, and morality, to just sit back and watch people make
mistakes. We want to help them, which means control them and their
decisions, but in doing so we actually hurt them (and ourselves)."

[Evan Carew]

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Ernest Christley wrote:
>
> Don't be fooled. An Xplane model that says its a high-wing using XYZ
> airfoil at position gamma is not a design. What type of rib? How is it
> attached? What size is the spar attachment bolt? All the questions are
> uniquely answered by a 'brazillion' other considerations, all of which
> I, and probably yourself, are uniquely UNqualified to answer. I say the
> latter because like yourself, I have a background in computer science
> (and just enough aviation knowledge to know that I don't know enough).
>
ARGGGHHH! Ok, no offense here, but this isn't about a design, rather,
its about a process. The question is "How can we reduce the cost?" The
answer isn't "Design it this way", but rather "Build it this way."

To answer this question, I am proposing to build two reference
structures, each a conic section, one of metal & the other of
fiberglass. Both must be finished. Period. The point is to collect
community input on how to complete each one with the least amount of
labor & cost.
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[Bret Ludwig]

Ernest Christley wrote:
> Evan Carew wrote:
> > Section 8,
> >
> > Interesting use of words there. In my experience, "the tragedy of the
> > commons" is common jargon for lawyers. I however, work in the computer
> > science field and am familiar with the Linux OS phenomenon. In that
> > case, an entire OS & suite of applications was created out of love.
> > Granted, the cost of such a creation is much lower than for aircraft
> > structural design, however, I'm guessing that most of us in this news
> > group have enough tools and materials to put together such reference
> > structures as we are talking about here.
> >
>
>
> I'm also a lover of Linux, and OS/2 before that. I am deeply inbedded
> with the Open Source philosophy. I'm also building an airplane. The
> difference here is that on Linux, a single person can design a file
> system or a sound driver all by themselves, and it can be integrated
> with the whole. You can't design a rudder and stick it on any ol'
> airframe. An efficient aircraft has to be designed as a whole. Each
> aircraft is a single set of compromises flying in formation, and for the
> most part, you can't mix compromises.
>
> The closest you'll get to an Open Source aircraft design is to create
> something in its entirety and then present it to the community for them
> to tell you what's wrong with it. After spending several thousand hours
> on development, most people will push back at the criticism.


Almost all homebuilts before the Rutans', and many factory built light
aircraft, were designed by rule of thumb, cookbook, That Looks About
Right, and modelmaking experience, with AC 43.13 and its predecessors
as execution guides.

A "smart CAD" system could be used to be able to generate a number of
designs from certain elements. Keep in mind most successful lightplane
manufacturere used a given assembly, structure or design in multiple
aircraft. The T-34 is a Bonanza, the -34C adds (IIRC) Baron main gear
and structure. The Cessna Bird Dog uses a 195 vertical tail and rudder
(actually, rudders are the most fungible part of subsonic aircraft
design.) The highwing fabric Pipers and their clones the Maules are
basically Chinese menu airplanes.

If you are certifying to a "consesnus standard" such an AI system
could be used to verify a large number of possible configurations.

[Ernest Christley]

Evan Carew wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Ernest Christley wrote:
>
>>
>> Don't be fooled. An Xplane model that says its a high-wing using XYZ
>> airfoil at position gamma is not a design. What type of rib? How is
>> it attached? What size is the spar attachment bolt? All the
>> questions are uniquely answered by a 'brazillion' other
>> considerations, all of which I, and probably yourself, are uniquely
>> UNqualified to answer. I say the latter because like yourself, I have
>> a background in computer science (and just enough aviation knowledge
>> to know that I don't know enough).
>>
> ARGGGHHH! Ok, no offense here, but this isn't about a design, rather,
> its about a process. The question is "How can we reduce the cost?" The
> answer isn't "Design it this way", but rather "Build it this way."
>
> To answer this question, I am proposing to build two reference
> structures, each a conic section, one of metal & the other of
> fiberglass. Both must be finished. Period. The point is to collect
> community input on how to complete each one with the least amount of
> labor & cost.

No offense, but your proposal wont prove anything. I built a tubular
fuselage in about 3months. That was over 3 yrs ago, and I've been
working steadily since. Throwing together the shell is quick and easy.
Getting all the details together takes forever. Building a tail cone
can be done in a day in either glass, aluminum or steel tube.


--
This is by far the hardest lesson about freedom. It goes against
instinct, and morality, to just sit back and watch people make
mistakes. We want to help them, which means control them and their
decisions, but in doing so we actually hurt them (and ourselves)."

[Bret Ludwig]

TaxSrv wrote:
> "Bret Ludwig" wrote:
> >
> > The LSA will be cost-effective when 10,000 units in two or three
> years
> > is a realistic goal.
> >
>
> FAA's projection is actually for about 10,000 LSA planes in the
> total fleet, but flat at that level thereafter, after a few years.
>
> This includes all types of LSAs, including previous "fat
> ultralights" now to be in compliance. If there's a dozen or two
> major players to produce the planes we'd prefer -- the top end of
> LSA limits-- that's not much annual production for each of the
> players, so costs are a real factor. With FAA projection of a
> future flat market, what decision does an investor make to design
> and produce the best performing LSAs?

Easy, don't get involved.

On the other hand, IBM predicted the world market for computers at a
two-digit figure. There are a lot of things to figure in, and I'd be
crazy to say I understood any of them really well.

Are the population dynamics of the nation conducive to LSA growth?
Will the initial spate of fatalities in LSAs result in a onerous
crackdown, the FAA washing its hands of the whole thing like the FCC
did with CBs, or what? Will LSAs displace existing two seat standard
category aircraft? What will happen to fuel and aluminum prices? Will
other countries adopt rules conducive to these types of aircraft and
create a light-lightplane industry making them far cheaper than we
could?

Since day one I thought LSA was a complicated solution to a simple
problem and that any aircraft built with present technology meeting its
requirements to be something I wouldn't particularly want. Since my
idea of a good all around two seater is a T-6 (the real one, although I
wouldn't turn the ersatz one down if they let me fly it with bang seats
unloaded), I anm not the target market!

But the fact is no one really knows. My guess is it will sell SOME
number of aircraft, but that the US government will manage to throttle
it back if it were unexpectedly successful. Just a SWAG.