These are not YOUR airplanes - Was: High Cost of Sportplanes

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

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

Gordon,

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with you on your analysis of aluminum
use in commercially built LSA aircraft structures. While it is true that
the aluminum materials costs for an aircraft are lower, the labor costs
(which I have already shown to be the largest cost in building any
plane) are much higher, thus making it a poor choice if you are trying
to build such airplanes for a profit. On the other hand, if you are
trying to sell kit LSA airframes, then the builder assumes the labor
costs, thus making a comparable kit seem less expensive.

Evan,

I don't want to drag this out, I think some good points ahve been made --
however, I don't see why fiberglass airframe construction is going to be
less labor-intensive.

There is almost zero opportunity for automation in fiberglass construction,
unless you go to specialized processes and tooling that are probably out of
reach for a small firm. Even Cirrus and Adam do a lot of their layups by
hand -- granted using pre-pregs.

Now look at a simple little plane like the Zenith 601. They used to build
one of these in a week at Oshkosh, using volunteers from the crowd. It uses
pull-type rivets rather than bucked, so the structure can be assembled quite
quickly. I think the total time to get to the flying plane was about 300 man
hours.

And I don't think the Zenith kit parts are as automated as they could be --
for instance I don't the they are fully precut and pre-punched etc. like the
Van's kits.

My point is that if you purpose-designed a small aluminum airplane for quick
construction and automated the sheet-metal stamping part of the process, you
could make that airplane very cost-effectively.

Perhaps a fiberglass approach could work just as well, but I think more
ingenuity would be required.

Regards,

Gordon.




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

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with you on your analysis of aluminum
use in commercially built LSA aircraft structures. While it is true that
the aluminum materials costs for an aircraft are lower, the labor costs
(which I have already shown to be the largest cost in building any plane)
are much higher, thus making it a poor choice if you are trying to build
such airplanes for a profit. On the other hand, if you are trying to sell
kit LSA airframes, then the builder assumes the labor costs, thus making a
comparable kit seem less expensive.

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 23:37:30 -0400, "Gordon Arnaut"
wrote:

Evan,

I don't want to drag this out, I think some good points ahve been made --
however, I don't see why fiberglass airframe construction is going to be
less labor-intensive.

Once you have the moulds constructed, fiberglass lends itself well to
making large compound structures as one piece.

There is almost zero opportunity for automation in fiberglass construction,

That depends on your thinking. Fiberglass composite also lends
itself well to putting pieces together.

unless you go to specialized processes and tooling that are probably out of
reach for a small firm. Even Cirrus and Adam do a lot of their layups by
hand -- granted using pre-pregs.

Now look at a simple little plane like the Zenith 601. They used to build
one of these in a week at Oshkosh, using volunteers from the crowd. It uses
pull-type rivets rather than bucked, so the structure can be assembled quite
quickly. I think the total time to get to the flying plane was about 300 man
hours.

And I don't think the Zenith kit parts are as automated as they could be --
for instance I don't the they are fully precut and pre-punched etc. like the
Van's kits.

My point is that if you purpose-designed a small aluminum airplane for quick
construction and automated the sheet-metal stamping part of the process, you
could make that airplane very cost-effectively.

Perhaps a fiberglass approach could work just as well, but I think more
ingenuity would be required.

It would and it would.

However, in the case of the sport plane specifications, the plane
could be constructed of shells that could be fastened together.
They could be composite shells, with the joggle and two aluminum
strips where they would be pop riveted together with cherry max
rivets.

After all they do not under go any where near the stress of a Cirrus,
Lancair, or Glasair III. Staying within those specs makes both the
metal and composite structures much more simple. OTOH you still have
all the insurance costs.

If and I emphasize the IF the market were there to justify true mass
production then airframes, engines and basic avionics could be
produced at considerably less. If you could sell even 20,000 small
displacement engines like the Jabaru they'd become *relatively* less
expensive compared to now.

Let's face it, even at Cessna's best year, that was a specialized
market and peanuts compared to the automobile.

However, first you have to have the market. You aren't going to do a
lot of high profile advertising for a nitch market that may develop.
Once the potential market is there the advertising can increase, and
production will follow.

It's much like the chicken or the egg. The market has to develop
slowly. The faster it develops the more sensitive it is to upsets.

However, I seriously doubt that we will ever see more than about three
times the number of planes currently flying. Beyond that we'd need a
complete now traffic system even if most of it is local.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com



Regards,

Gordon.




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

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with you on your analysis of aluminum
use in commercially built LSA aircraft structures. While it is true that
the aluminum materials costs for an aircraft are lower, the labor costs
(which I have already shown to be the largest cost in building any plane)
are much higher, thus making it a poor choice if you are trying to build
such airplanes for a profit. On the other hand, if you are trying to sell
kit LSA airframes, then the builder assumes the labor costs, thus making a
comparable kit seem less expensive.

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 03:47:38 -0400, Roger
wrote:

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 23:37:30 -0400, "Gordon Arnaut"
wrote:

Evan,

I don't want to drag this out, I think some good points ahve been made --
however, I don't see why fiberglass airframe construction is going to be
less labor-intensive.

Once you have the moulds constructed, fiberglass lends itself well to
making large compound structures as one piece.

There is almost zero opportunity for automation in fiberglass construction,

That depends on your thinking. Fiberglass composite also lends
itself well to putting pieces together.

I dunno, Roger. I've been both to the Glastar factory and the Vans factory. At
Vans, a guy feeds a big piece of aluminum into a big CNC machine and
whango-whango-whango out comes a big pile of RV parts. But then I go see the
Glastar's fiberglass fuselage made, and its spray the release agent onto the
mold, then the gelcoat, then cut pieces of fiberglass and lay them into the
mold, then squeegee on some resin, then apply the foam, then apply another layer
of fiberglass and more resin, etc. etc., lather, rinse, repeat, then let the
assembly tie up your every expensive mold while the resin cures.

Looked to me that manufacturing aircraft parts in fiberglass is a *lot* more
effort...though I allow that less-skilled workers can probably be used.

Ron Wanttaja

P.S. Wanna hear something *really* scary? My spell checker passed
"whango-whango-whango" but hiccuped on "gelcoat."

Ron,

That's a good comparison. A Glasair or Lancair kit costs about double what a
Van's kit costs and it still takes about the same build time to complete. In
fact even the Van's quick-build costs less than a Glasair slow-build and you
get probably less than half the build time.

And what if the Van's kit were designed to be built with pulled rivets? This
would cut build time dramatically and that slow-build kit could be built in
about the same time it takes to build one of the composite fast-build kits
that cost three times as much.

Look at the Zenith 601, and compare its price to some of the sportplane
composite kits. The composte kits are usually twice as much money.

The conclusion has to be that composites are more expensive because it costs
more to make them. No question about it, composite construction involves
lots of hands-on labor.

Also composite materials are expensive compared to aluminum. So if there is
no advantage in labor costs and material costs are higher, how does
composite make sense for a cheap airplane? It doesn't.

Regards,

Gordon.



"Ron Wanttaja" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 03:47:38 -0400, Roger

wrote:

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 23:37:30 -0400, "Gordon Arnaut"
wrote:

Evan,

I don't want to drag this out, I think some good points ahve been made --
however, I don't see why fiberglass airframe construction is going to be
less labor-intensive.

Once you have the moulds constructed, fiberglass lends itself well to
making large compound structures as one piece.

There is almost zero opportunity for automation in fiberglass
construction,

That depends on your thinking. Fiberglass composite also lends
itself well to putting pieces together.

I dunno, Roger. I've been both to the Glastar factory and the Vans
factory. At
Vans, a guy feeds a big piece of aluminum into a big CNC machine and
whango-whango-whango out comes a big pile of RV parts. But then I go see
the
Glastar's fiberglass fuselage made, and its spray the release agent onto
the
mold, then the gelcoat, then cut pieces of fiberglass and lay them into
the
mold, then squeegee on some resin, then apply the foam, then apply another
layer
of fiberglass and more resin, etc. etc., lather, rinse, repeat, then let
the
assembly tie up your every expensive mold while the resin cures.

Looked to me that manufacturing aircraft parts in fiberglass is a *lot*
more
effort...though I allow that less-skilled workers can probably be used.

Ron Wanttaja

P.S. Wanna hear something *really* scary? My spell checker passed
"whango-whango-whango" but hiccuped on "gelcoat."

Ron,

& yet, when that part comes out of the mold, it is essentially flyable.
With the aluminum CNC paradyme, you get predrilled holes in aluminum you
then have to bend, & thousands of rivet holes you have to debur. hours,
hours, & hours of deburring...

Ron Wanttaja wrote:
P.S. Wanna hear something *really* scary? My spell checker passed
"whango-whango-whango" but hiccuped on "gelcoat."

Your spell checker has the Ted Nugent module?

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 01:12:41 -0700, Ron Wanttaja
wrote:

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 03:47:38 -0400, Roger
wrote:

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 23:37:30 -0400, "Gordon Arnaut"
wrote:

Evan,

I don't want to drag this out, I think some good points ahve been made --
however, I don't see why fiberglass airframe construction is going to be
less labor-intensive.

Once you have the moulds constructed, fiberglass lends itself well to
making large compound structures as one piece.

There is almost zero opportunity for automation in fiberglass construction,

That depends on your thinking. Fiberglass composite also lends
itself well to putting pieces together.

I dunno, Roger. I've been both to the Glastar factory and the Vans factory. At
Vans, a guy feeds a big piece of aluminum into a big CNC machine and

Agreed, we'd have to change the way we approach the parts making
process particularly with fiberglass, but I think when it comes to
mass production much could be automated. OTOH when it comes to mass
production, the old automotive approach where one press stamps out a
whole bunch of parts ain't a bad way to go. Maybe that was a poor
choice of words as I worked in a metal stamping plant many years ago
in another life. People left a lot of parts in some of those presses.

whango-whango-whango out comes a big pile of RV parts. But then I go see the
Glastar's fiberglass fuselage made, and its spray the release agent onto the
mold, then the gelcoat, then cut pieces of fiberglass and lay them into the
mold, then squeegee on some resin, then apply the foam, then apply another layer

Squeegee? They were using really big paint brushes to apply the vinyl
ester resin and moving a lot faster than I do. Slop it on, squeegee
it out, It's no wonder then have the water line 100 off by only a
1/4 inch on the pilot's side and missed the cut out for the horizontal
stab by about three inches on mine. :-))

Looking at the size of one of those fuselage shells, two layers of
fiberglass, half inch of foam, and two more layers of fiberglass.
Vinyl Ester Resin is not noted for taking a long time to gel and has a
notoriously short pot life, unless you work in a refrigerated room.

of fiberglass and more resin, etc. etc., lather, rinse, repeat, then let the
assembly tie up your every expensive mold while the resin cures.


Add heat. It really speeds things up:-))
But, yes, the way we do it now is very time consuming...and expensive.
Metal working is a much more mature field while glass/composite is
still relatively new.
I think "Vans" has done a great deal to speed the production and make
the parts go together faster.

Speaking of Glasair. I have over 1100 hours into those nice looking
parts and they are *almost*, *starting* to look like they *might* be
related to an airplane. There's a reason the "jump start" G-III is
expensive. sigh. Of course had I started in and kept at it, mine
would be flying now, or they'd have fitted me for one of those tight
fitting jackets with the long arms that wrap around.

The G-III has a lot of possibilities for streamlining the building
process and not just by having the factory put a bunch of parts
together for the builder. Of course the G-III is one of the most labor
intensive kits out there so it has a *lot* of room for streamlining.

One time consuming area is the firewall along with the engine mount
attach point reinforcements. There are 6 attach points. Between them
you are looking at 96 individual lay-ups.

Looked to me that manufacturing aircraft parts in fiberglass is a *lot* more
effort...though I allow that less-skilled workers can probably be used.

I think they were training a new one when they did the shells for
mine. As far as skill though, I think the only reason that is possible
is the tremendous excess strength built into the designs which make
them tolerant of far less than perfect construction technique. After
all, I'm building one... OTOH I may never get it finished.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Ron Wanttaja

P.S. Wanna hear something *really* scary? My spell checker passed
"whango-whango-whango" but hiccuped on "gelcoat."

I find mine often fails on relatively common terms. It thinks Gelcoat
should be gel-coat.:-))