$30,000 pitch links

[Stuart Fields]

An ad on ebay has a set (2) pitch links for a Bell 412 listed as a buy it
now for $8,000!! They further state that the Bell list price for these two
little links is $30,000!!! I just finished making a set for my Safari
helicopter, and my set looks functionally very similar, and I couldn't find
$400. in them even if I charged myself $100/hr for the labor. Does Bell
make these out of Unobtanium? Or do they manufacture these in Zero G at the
Space Lab? Why do I fly an experimental helicopter when I could buy a
used Bell 47 for the same price as my kit???? A friend recently purchased a
Bell 47 and had to replace just part of the balance beam on the rotor head:
$1200!!! These prices greatly exceed one-of-a-kind custom prices that you
could get in a red hot machine shop.

[pittss1c]

I know of someone that works for a bearing company.
The have part numbers for extremely expensive helicopter bearings.
The also have part numbers for inexpensive general purpose bearings that
cross reference to the exact same part.
On paper it is a liability thing. Try buying an individually wrapped washer
from Beech and figure the cost.

Mike

"Stuart Fields" > wrote in message
.. .
> An ad on ebay has a set (2) pitch links for a Bell 412 listed as a buy it
> now for $8,000!! They further state that the Bell list price for these two
> little links is $30,000!!! I just finished making a set for my Safari
> helicopter, and my set looks functionally very similar, and I couldn't
> find
> $400. in them even if I charged myself $100/hr for the labor. Does Bell
> make these out of Unobtanium? Or do they manufacture these in Zero G at
> the
> Space Lab? Why do I fly an experimental helicopter when I could buy a
> used Bell 47 for the same price as my kit???? A friend recently purchased
> a
> Bell 47 and had to replace just part of the balance beam on the rotor
> head:
> $1200!!! These prices greatly exceed one-of-a-kind custom prices that you
> could get in a red hot machine shop.
>
>

[Flyingmonk]

Bell's cost breakdown for their $30,000.00 pitch link.

material $23.65
labor $175.23
direct overhead $43.25
subtotal $242.13
markup/profit $1,575.00
lawyer fee $28,182.87
--------------------------------------------------------
grand total $30,000.00

The Monk

[Bret Ludwig]

Flyingmonk wrote:
> Bell's cost breakdown for their $30,000.00 pitch link.
>
> material $23.65
> labor $175.23
> direct overhead $43.25
> subtotal $242.13
> markup/profit $1,575.00
> lawyer fee $28,182.87
> --------------------------------------------------------
> grand total $30,000.00

It's bull****.

Probably the amortized cost for product liability insurance is about
two hundred bucks. Still equal to the direct build cost, but hardly
28,000.

Figure out what Bell Helicopter actually pays a year and divide it
out. Good business analysis can determine this cost for any public
corporation to within twenty or so percent.