On the copy of fuselages - it IS a fairly perfect copy. I have quite some
hours in Pégase (which I like), ASW19 and ASW20.

You're right that the prices of new sailplanes do skyrocket. However, it
might not have been rocket science to make a 40/1 glider with 15m span, but
then pushing the performance towards 50/1 with 15m means more and more
development work for just another extra point (and, you need to switch to
carbon/kevlar fibers which do have another price tag).
I'm not ready to pay for this extra point (because at the end of the day,
someone has to pay for that work plus a mark-up) but appearently there are a
lot of customers out there who are ready to pay for it. These customers sell
there 10-15 years old ships to pay for the new one, and the second hand
market in Europe is fairly large.

I don't think that this is the reason for a decline in soaring - it's rather
the attitude of many a club member who thinks he needs to fly an ASW27
instead of an ASW20, or a Discus2 instead of a Pégase - without having ever
reached a personal performance limit on a Pégase...

--
Bert Willing

ASW20 "TW"


"Michel Talon" a écrit dans le message de
...
Bert Willing wrote:
Well, the fuselage is a perfect copy, the wing planform is a perfect
copy,
the structure is a suboptimal copy and the airfoil is a new (and
definitively better) development.


The Pegase fuselage looks like the ASW20 fuselage but not the point of
being a perfect copy, i don't think so. All fuselages of this period
look the same.

So with all these copies and the French government paying for the
airfoil -

The same as universities paying for airfoil development everywhere in
the world.

no wonder why the selling price of a Pégase is fairly interesting if you
don't need amortization.

And even though development cost was low, pricing was interesting and
marketing was largely supported by FFVV subventions, Centrair went bust.
Now
if you can't make money under these conditions, how to make money if you
have to pay for engineering ?!


As i said Centrair is not an exemple of an efficient business, and this
was un understatement. Even RS who had an extremely successfull glider,
the LS4, went bust. There is no limit to the amount of money incompetent
and greedy managers can throw through the windows, just take a look at
Messier and Vivendi.

But of course, that's all the fault of German manufacturers...


German manufacturers have done wonderful job, i will not discuss that.
What they are completely unable is keeping the prices under control.
Each and every successfull business has to focus on keeping prices
under control, even Daimler-Benz and BMW have done great efforts in this
direction and are able to deliver cars at reasonable price considering
the quality and performance of their products. There is absolutely
nothing anti german in what i am saying, i am only criticizing the
german glider manufacturers for their unability in stabilizing prices.
My salary has not augmented the last ten years, basically, i don't see
a single reason why a glider price should augment in the same time
frame. But in fact they have more than doubled. I am quite sure that the
salaries of the workers doing the job are as stagnant as my own. Hence
the problem is the vast inefficiency in the leadership of these
businesses, exactly the same inefficiency you very rightly criticize at
Centrair. Sorry to say that but building gliders is not a place to make
money, if you want to become billionaire, you better sell toothbrushes.







--

Michel TALON