A good parallel to light sport might be personal watercraft or motorcycles.

Does anyone know what level of automation is used in these instances?

"C Kingsbury" wrote in message
link.net...

"psyshrike" wrote in message
om...

I concur with Howards evaluation.

Though I think modern robotic manufacturing probably _could_ turn out
a 25K$ 172 class aircraft on an assembly line (with minimal avionics).

Clearly. A modern AWD car is considerably more complex than your
run-of-the-mill 172. The AHRS that is the heart of the G1000 is actually
derived from automotive units used in stability control systems.

BUT there is a big catch he a "modern robotic manufacturing" facility
costs astounding amounts of money that can be recouped only by massive
production volume. Increasingly you see manufacturers like Audi/VW and GM
working off a "platform" strategy so that more of the production can be
standardized across different models as well to further amortize these
costs.

There are what, 30,000 Cessna 172s out there? That's the number of cars
that
might come off the line *per year* for a small-run model on an advanced
production line. It's not clear to me that the market is there to sustain
this kind of production year after year.

In any case, it would seem that the best target for this type of
production
would be light-sport, which promises to become a much larger market at
least
initially. I suspect many sport pilots would eventually transition to
Private certificates.

If a company successfully did it, they would devistate the market.
Emagine the guy with 100k$ to go on his Cessna financing. If you
consider the AN-2 an example of how the FAA would react to such a
rapid change in the market, it is unlikely that such an aircraft would
ever get certified (for any practical use) domestically.

I'd be leery of reading too much into the AN-2 case. There have been a
number of Russian planes certified more recently (c.f. Beriev amphibs for
example) that are very cost-competitive with the C/P/B offerings so I
don't
think it's an absolute at all.

Second, my guess is that your best protection from this would in fact be
to
produce the airplane as US-certified right here in the US. Then at the
very
least you have two senators and a congressman on your side from wherever
you
locate the plant. If you're really smart you put it somewhere like Ohio
and
then you'll get the President behind you as well.

-cwk.