Evan,

I think your analysis is realistic -- and forethought in process engineering
is critical.

In fact, I think a lot of the European manufacturers already have a lot of
these efficiencies in place. Europe and other parts of the world --
including Canada -- have already had special rules for light sport-type
aircraft for a number of years and many of these airplane makers have been
making these light planes for years. That's why they were srping-loaded to
crank out these planes for the US market.

However, there are a couple of factors here that work against a low price,
chief among them being the strong Euro relative to the US greenback. The
Rotax engine is expensive too and combine it with the fairly expensive and
labor-intensive composite manufacturing process you have prices that are not
as good as they could be. Also the European JAR certification is not as
simple as LSA certification -- it more like "real" certification, but not as
rigorous. So these outfits did have some real certification costs that are
built into the planes.

However, having said all that I still believe that there is an element of
opportunism in their pricing -- which is only shooting themselves in the
foot, by overpricing this market before it has even had a chance to flower.

Don't forget that there is also an additional layer here for the US
importer, so there is another middleman taking his cut. This is why you are
seeing the $80,000 sportplane (more like $100,000 with decent panel
options).

In reality these planes already could be $50,000 planes if they were made
here in North America -- Canada is a great manufacturing base, as Diamond
Aircraft, Symphony and others will confirm.

And if you had a good $10,000 engine you could make a nice profit with those
$50,000 sportplanes.

I really belive that aluminum is the way to go, however. Again, look at the
Van's kit. Suppose you wanted to set up a factory to produce sportplanes.
Your business plan would include a CNC facility for machining the metal
pieces and you could stamp out parts with very high efficiency. The cost of
aluminum is quite modest. I doubt there can more than about $1500 worth of
aircraft aluminum in a 1,300 pound gross weight sportplane.

With the right process in place and the tooling to crank out parts
pre-finished to a reasonably high degree, the assembly time can be brought
down to quite an efficient level.

I think people like Van's and Murphy Aircraft in Canada, both of whom have
facotries with lots of CNC and other sophisticated tooling already in place,
are going to be thinking seriously about putting together finished
all-aluminum sportplanes. (Their kitplanes are already aluminum-based.)

I think in Europe composites have taken hold because of the vibrant
sailplane industry that has existed there for decades and where composites
have replaced wood construction for quite some time. I think the better ones
are pretty efficieent at it by now.

And once they see a North American company selling $50,000 sportplanes like
hotcakes, you will see them suddenly jumping in with competitive pricing as
well.

And if none of that happens, the kit industry will keep on thriving. A kit
from Van's or Murphy is a good value proposition. (For the really
parsimonious, plans building is even more of a value propostion, as long as
you don't count the TV-couch time that you are sacrificing to your airplane
project).

I think someone mentioned that there are about 20,000 amateur-built
airplanes on the registry rolls now, but an even more impressive statistic I
have heard is that there are actually more homebuilts certified each year
than factory-built GA airplanes. If people vote with their wallets, which
happens to be a good truism, this is a good indicator of what people think
about the "value" of factory-built airplanes -- which is to say not much.

Regards,

Gordon.



"Evan Carew" wrote in message
...
Gordon,

This is exactly how the problem space needs to be framed. The economic
solution to this problem is to rely on donations of high value engineering
skills to jump start the production of aircraft parts with an eye to
minimizing input labor costs.

I own a company here in South-east Michigan that makes filter parts for
oddball filtration systems. Since these parts are all custom, we paid a
local CAD firm to do the designs, then passed those off to a machine shop
that does work for GM. Its amazing how cheaply you can make parts if you
do the up-front engineering on them first. IT also helps that we have
underutilized quality machine shop capacity here surronding the auto
companies.

Should someone in the EAA, familliar with engines, whish to design a new
engine (like the Jibaru) from scratch. This would be a good place to do
it. I say from scratch because the Lycoming/Contenental combo aren't what
I would call engineered for efficient manufacturing. Perhaps something
like a cross between the Rotax & the Jibaru would work.

As for the airframe parts, unless someone comes up with a process to
dramatically reduce the labor in making a fiberglass fuse, I don't think
we will be seing cheap airframe parts any time soon. On the other hand, if
you don't mind assembling yourself, the aluminum option could work with
CNCd parts.

No, until someone comes up with a way to pull a fully primed and painted
fiberglass part from a mold (no trimming/sanding required), we aren't
going to see cheap airframe parts, however, maybe that's not as critical
as it would seem. Looking at my numbers, a well engineered airframe for
20K still might not break the bank if you could get its assembly/surfas
prep/painting labor costs way down. You'd literally have to engineer the
entire process. So lets see...

Time Process descrip cost at $45/hr
20 Airframe assembly $900
5 powerplant install $225
10 airframe surface prep $450
10 airframe painting $450
5 instruments $225
5 interior $225
5 testing $225
----------------------------------------
60 $2700

Now that's getting the price of the airplane down! Combine that with an
engine for ~10K or even a little less & you have something:

Airframe + instruments + basic engine + labor = theoretical base
price
20000 + 4000 + 9000 + ( 60 * 45 ) = 35700