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

Start with this: How many people do you know who own a $45,000 SUV?

Light Sport Aircraft are not intended for people who are already pilots.

The whole purpose of the Light Sport Certificate is to draw new people,
along with new money, into the sport side of aviation.

Consider someone who has never flown before. He's run through golf, and
tennis, and skiing. He has a nice house, with a home theater and possibly a
pool. He has reached the point where there are almost no "toys" left for him
to spend his money on.

Ask this guy if $80,000 dollars is too much to pay for an airplane, and he
will consider the $45,000 he paid for his SUV, and quite probably say that
it IS NOT too much money.

Just as a side note: I'm unable to get a medical, so Sport Pilot is the only
way for me to go. I don't have $80,000, so I'm planning to build an eLSA. So
I have been doing a lot of research on LSA's.

And one thing I have learned is that most of the people in the aviation
business are really lousy at marketing their products to anyone other than
other people in aviation.

When was the last time you saw a Tecnam or Cub Crafters or Legend Cub ad in
the Wall Street Journal, or Time magazine, or your local newspaper?

Just as is happening with this thread, far too many people with a stake in
LSA have simply been preaching to the choir. But the choir has been there,
done that, and isn't going to pay $80K for a "toy" airplane.

There's one other factor at work with "conventional" aircraft, that is also
in play to some extent with LSA's. Consider a non-flyer who gets out of his
car and climbs into a Warrior or a 172. In his car, he's got GPS, he's got
satellite radio, he's got digital everything. But when he climbs into a
light Piper or Cessna, he's got his grandfather's Buick. Why would he want
to fly around in something that clunky looking?

LSA has one big advantage: it can be very nimble. Most of the smarter LSA
manufacturers are offering goodies like the Dynon EFIS ($2,500 +/-) or a
panel-mounted Garmin GPS 296 ($3,000 +/-). No more row after row of
incomprehensible steam gauges, now they have a cockpit with a sports car
feel.

It is quite possible to go out and SELL 10,000 $80,000 airplanes to people
who have never set foot in anything smaller than a 737. But the operative
word is SELL.

Five years from now, you'll have may 1,000 - 1,500 of those people still
flying; all of the rest will have moved on to the next new and hot hobby.

Which means you'll have 8,500 - 9,000 $80,000 airplanes that can be bought
for less than $40,000. And they'll be far better equipped than the airplanes
now rolling out of the doors at Cessna or Piper.

So, the $80,000 airplane model can work, if the manufacturers learn how to
market them properly, to people who are not yet pilots.

And Sport Pilot can work to all of our benefit, because if enough new people
come into GA, it will thrive. But with no new pilots coming in...