AviationBanter - View Single Post

**[email protected]** · June 22nd 08, 10:55 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting,rec.aviation.student

In rec.aviation.piloting wrote:
On Jun 22, 12:35 pm, wrote:
A lot of people would buy an airplane if they could buy a brand new
one for $15k to $30K no matter whether it had electronic trickery in
it or not, but there is no way to get the price that low unless the
number of pilots increases by over two orders of magnitude and even
then it would be difficult to achieve.

There is a way, but it involves two things: Simplicity and
personal responsibility. Simplicity of construction so that there
isn't a bunch of stuff that's not necessary to achieve safe flight,
and personal responsibility that accepts that there's personal risk in
flying and holds the manufacturer only to safe construction and
performance parameters, so he's not required to charge so much more
for an airplane than it's really worth just so that he can buy huge
amounts of insurance to protect himself from greedy lawyers and stupid
juries and incompetent pilots who blame everyone else for their own
mistakes.
There really isn't much to a basic airplane like a Citabria
or Cessna 150. Much of its value is tied up in the engine and
instruments, both necessary, and radios, some of which are not all
that necessary. The manufacturers of those things also have to charge
far more than the inherent value of these items because they get sued,
too . The mechanic has to buy lots of insurance, and so does the
airport operator and the fuel provider and so on. Costs get way beyond
reason. Until society gets fed up enough to do something concrete
about it, nothing will change, even with an "affordable PAV" which
itself would make things even worse just by allowing even more
incompetent people into the air. Just look at the deaths of people
using jet-skis or Quads and how their manufacturers have to insure
themselves.
If we can buy a brand-new automobile, a vehicle that is far
more complex than a Cessna 150, for around $15K, we should be able to
buy the much simpler airplane for the same price. But we can't because
airplanes kill the unwary much more readily and their owners or
passengers or the survivors of the owners are qick to capitalize on
the losses. Technology is not the answer to lowering costs; simplicity
and responsibility are.

Well, I mostly agree with all that.

The LSA is about as unregulated and as simple as airplanes are going
to get and most of them are over a $100k delivered.

The automobile equivelant to a LSA costs about $15k delivered.

There is little that can be done about a litigious society past maybe
adopting the system that the loser pays the winners costs and limiting
the percentage the lawyers get.

And since it is doubtfull you could build an airplane with automated
machinery that inputs sheet steel, stamps out parts, and spot welds
them together, airplanes will likely always be labor intensive to
build.

With sufficient volume, you could possibly be able to cover the cost
of mechinery to automate composite structures and get the assembly
costs down, but that would imply that that one particular airfame
model is selling in huge numbers, which isn't going to happen.

If you are going to compare airplane manufacturing costs to automobile
manufacturing costs, you need to compare a car built like airplanes
are built, such as the Morgan, which isn't much of a car and starts
at about $80k US, not a Honda Civic.

--
Jim Pennino

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