If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
Earlier, john smith wrote:
.... Frank though that he could certify the aircraft quickly for x-something dollars because of its similarity to the Super Cub. The FAA, however, took a totally different approach, and made him certify the Husky as as a new aircraft design. This added significantly to the certification costs which were then added to the original projected costs to come up with the final selling price... That's not the way Alfred Scott tells it: http://www.seqair.com/Other/LiteEng/LiteEng.html Quote: : ...Even as he wrote the original proposal, Christensen was adamant : that certification costs had almost nothing to do with the : cost of airplanes. The entire concept, he insists, is based on : a false premise. The Husky, for example, was designed by 4 men : over 16 months, and cost about $180,000. Much of that work was : simply engineering work they would have to do in any case, : certificated or not. So if you take the entire cost of design, : testing and certification of the Christen Husky and amortise : it over 500 airplanes, it comes to about $400... |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
In article , W P Dixon says...
Maybe one of the things the FAA needs to take a look at is the cost they add into "making" a new airplane. If the idea was to make sport pilot a more affordable way to fly, and the certification process keeps it out of reach ..then it isn't doing anything. The common man still will have a hard time affording it. SNIP One thing not mentioned in this discussion is the cost for the increased liability placed on a company selling ready to fly airplanes. I wonder what the percentage of the cost of these planes is insurance? Experimental airplanes have a layer of protection in that the customer did the building and is the manufacturer of the airplane. The fact you have a compliance certificate doesn't offer much protection.Actually look at certified planes does being certified keep you as a manufacturer safe from being sued? We all know the answer to that one. Insurance just may be another element in the cost of these planes. Just my .02 worth. See ya Chuck S |
#13
|
|||
|
|||
Gordon, There was similar response from Norm Goyer in Private Pilot
magazine, he defended the high cost of sport planes. What he doesn't seem to realize, is that the local FBO won't buy the sport planes either if they are so expensive. Then where are people going to get sport pilot training? not everyone is coming over from the private pilot level. the 60-80 grand I saw the average sport plane going for at Oshkosh would buy a really decent 172, with more capabilities. So the way I see it, its a catch-22. the FBO won't invest in a sport plane if there is no intrest, and the public won't learn LSA if there are no sport planes. Yeah, there are some certified planes out there that meet LSA, but realisticaly, trikes are rare (and getting expensive), and taildraggers aren't very insurable for student solo. John |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
On Sat, 17 Sep 2005 12:07:29 -0400, "W P Dixon"
wrote: Maybe one of the things the FAA needs to take a look at is the cost they add into "making" a new airplane. If the idea was to make sport pilot a more affordable way to fly, and the certification process keeps it out of reach ..then it isn't doing anything. The common man still will have a hard time affording it. Thay have and LSA is the result of that. LSA is an experiment in deregulation of the aircraft industry. I think someone said the certifications costs are about 1/100 of old standard category aircraft. I will never agree to how much some of these planes cost. I think it has more to do with greed. I'm not saying the red tape of it all does not add up,...but I don't know exactly the cost of all the red tape. I do know the costs of materials and the cost of labor. Union shops definitely have costs problems ( this seems to hold true in auto and aviation). Unions have a hard time understanding that when their product cost so much people do not buy it then they do not have a job. Labor is a significant factor. A company usually gets alot better deal buying materials than just you or I would, because a company is buying in bulk. So I see reasons things would cost alittle more, and I see things that make it cost less. As for the FAA red tape..what really is the cost? What does that money go for? I see alot more planes selling for 20,000 than for 100,000 in the sport category. All that can afford to buy the high priced (and over priced) LS planes will be retired docs and lawyers who can't get a medical anymore. How much of a percent is that of pilots? How much of a percent is it of the general population that may would be interested in sport pilot? Very small I would think, and I don't see how they will make money on such slow and sporadic sales. Seems to me there are alot of factors , but we most definitely can't rule out the biggest one....GREED. Greed isn't an economic factor. People charge what the market will bear. That's capitalism. If somone could build them cheaper using their current techniques, they would have an economic incentive to do so and the prices would drop. The problem is that the current manufacturers haven't figured out how to make them cheaper. It's not materials, It's time and labor. A 'vette is far more complex than your typical LSA and is cheaper. They have production down to a science and can capitalize cost over a larger market. Current composite manufacturing is a slow and expensive process. Boeing is the only company I know of that has automated the process in any way and they can only build cylinders. When someone can create a composite "stamper" that can crank airframe components out and be affordable, this market will change radically. IMHO, a supply of cheap planes is what GA needs to break out of it's rut. It would make them afforadable to a larger cross section of people. The would increase exposure and make them more mainstream which would resolve a lot of our political hassles. The ADIZ doesn't apply to cars. Why? Because everyone has one and doesn't think they are dangerous. Jim http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
Jim,
That's a good point about the tiny cost of LSA certification. It adds almost nothing to the cost of the plane. In fact LSA "certification" bears no resemblance to the conventional certification we are all familiar with. As I understand it, it simply involves building a prototype and then filling out a bunch of paperwork stating that your plane and manufacturing setup complies with the standards. There is no flight testing, structural testing, or testing of any kind, that I'm aware. Even the responsibility for devising and administering the certification standards themselves has been outsourced to a private-sector entity, the ASTM. It's like the FAA isn't even involved at all. Someone mentioned liability insurance and that's probably an expense that is incurred by the manufacturers, although I doubt that this adds up to a whole lot either. Others have mentioned the high cost of labor and this too is valid. However, Cessna has all of these costs -- and more --and is still able to price a brand new Skyhawk at $155,000. This is a tremendous value when compared to one of these new LSAs that cost close to $100,000. Let's look at the CT2K for example. This composite plane carries a list price of $85,000 and with even a few panel options that most of us would consider essential, you are close to $100,000. this plane has an empty weight of under 600 pounds and a gross weight of just over 1200lbs., which is less than half of the Skyhawk. The Skyhawk seats four in a well-appointed cabin with 20g seats, full gyro panel, a decent radio stack and a robust Lycoming powerplant. It has had the benefit of a rigorous FAR 23 certification process that is comparable to the standards that business jets have to meet. It is a very substantial, real traveling airplane -- the CT2K comes off rather toylike by comparison. Yet somehow Cessna manages to give you all this for a cost of only about 50 percent more than the CT2K. Either Cessna is some kind of manufacturing genius or the LSA is way overpriced. You are literally getting more than twice the airplane for only half again as much cost. Regards, Gordon. "Jimbob" wrote in message ... On Sat, 17 Sep 2005 12:07:29 -0400, "W P Dixon" wrote: Maybe one of the things the FAA needs to take a look at is the cost they add into "making" a new airplane. If the idea was to make sport pilot a more affordable way to fly, and the certification process keeps it out of reach ..then it isn't doing anything. The common man still will have a hard time affording it. Thay have and LSA is the result of that. LSA is an experiment in deregulation of the aircraft industry. I think someone said the certifications costs are about 1/100 of old standard category aircraft. I will never agree to how much some of these planes cost. I think it has more to do with greed. I'm not saying the red tape of it all does not add up,...but I don't know exactly the cost of all the red tape. I do know the costs of materials and the cost of labor. Union shops definitely have costs problems ( this seems to hold true in auto and aviation). Unions have a hard time understanding that when their product cost so much people do not buy it then they do not have a job. Labor is a significant factor. A company usually gets alot better deal buying materials than just you or I would, because a company is buying in bulk. So I see reasons things would cost alittle more, and I see things that make it cost less. As for the FAA red tape..what really is the cost? What does that money go for? I see alot more planes selling for 20,000 than for 100,000 in the sport category. All that can afford to buy the high priced (and over priced) LS planes will be retired docs and lawyers who can't get a medical anymore. How much of a percent is that of pilots? How much of a percent is it of the general population that may would be interested in sport pilot? Very small I would think, and I don't see how they will make money on such slow and sporadic sales. Seems to me there are alot of factors , but we most definitely can't rule out the biggest one....GREED. Greed isn't an economic factor. People charge what the market will bear. That's capitalism. If somone could build them cheaper using their current techniques, they would have an economic incentive to do so and the prices would drop. The problem is that the current manufacturers haven't figured out how to make them cheaper. It's not materials, It's time and labor. A 'vette is far more complex than your typical LSA and is cheaper. They have production down to a science and can capitalize cost over a larger market. Current composite manufacturing is a slow and expensive process. Boeing is the only company I know of that has automated the process in any way and they can only build cylinders. When someone can create a composite "stamper" that can crank airframe components out and be affordable, this market will change radically. IMHO, a supply of cheap planes is what GA needs to break out of it's rut. It would make them afforadable to a larger cross section of people. The would increase exposure and make them more mainstream which would resolve a lot of our political hassles. The ADIZ doesn't apply to cars. Why? Because everyone has one and doesn't think they are dangerous. Jim http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org |
#16
|
|||
|
|||
Jimbob wrote:
On Sat, 17 Sep 2005 11:43:30 GMT, "Dan" wrote: [snip] I agree. The thing I am hoping for is economies of scale kick in. We've increased the number of potential buyers from Europe to USA + Europe. I don't think relative demand per unit has increased because of the prices. I am wondering if someone might be able to turn the corner and start some form of automation or parts sharing. The trick here would be some form of modularization or partial automation. It could drop costs dramatically. [snip] Jim, Interesting economic proposal there. I wonder if its time for the experimental community to consider something along the lines of a few, open, i.e. GPLd designs, which manufacturers can build standardized parts and tooling for. I can imagine a few such designs, if taken to their extremes, could be either built out as certified or experimental. In this way, the hurdles for developing PMAd parts for these few designs could be shared over the community, and not borne by a single manufacturer. Evan |
#17
|
|||
|
|||
Jimbob wrote:
I agree. The thing I am hoping for is economies of scale kick in. We've increased the number of potential buyers from Europe to USA + Europe. I don't think relative demand per unit has increased because snip plane. # seats, stall and max speed are all fixed. Powerplant size can only vary so much otherwise you're shooting youself in the foot. I think the economy of scale kicked in a few years ago for powerplants. The Rotax 912 nearly dominates this segment. Here is an engine whose weight and power are ideal for a 2 seat LSA. It is also modern, light weight, efficient, and about 3/4 the cost of an O-200. The next closest competitors seem to be a mix of O-200, O-235, Continental C-xx, Subaru (if you count non cert). A lot of people think Rotax 2 strokes "saved" the ultralight movement, and the 912 series is the next logical step in that line of engines. Hopefully something similar could evolve with airframes, but other than a few parts like wheels, hardware, paint, instruments, avionics... which are already mass produced, I doubt it. Airframes and engines are like apples and oranges. |
#18
|
|||
|
|||
I'm going to hang my nuts out here for you guys to stomp on, because I
don't have any first hand knowledge of the cost of airplane manufacturing. But I do have 30 years experience in manufacturing, and I've seen the inefficiencies with which many organizations operate. You buy a brand new building in an upscale town and fill it with 20 engineers, 10 office personnel, 6 salesman, two janitors, a couple of maintenance people, four or five managers, three purchasing agents, four warehouse workers, five quality control technicians, a roomful of PR people, and six people actually building the airplanes, then you're going to have an expensive product. Put me in charge, and you'd have one pencil pusher for every five assembly workers, absolute max. Go look at a new car lot, and then go look at some new airplanes, and give me ONE reason why an airplane costs ten times as much as a car. If Henry Ford were alive today, he'd be saying, "man, you're some kind of sinner." He once fired the entire third floor, the accounting department. Damn pencil pushers were getting in the way of building cars. China, hell. Give the Cessna plant to Toyota, and we'll be buying 172s for $40k. |
#19
|
|||
|
|||
Gordon Arnaut wrote:
Jim, That's a good point about the tiny cost of LSA certification. It adds almost nothing to the cost of the plane. In fact LSA "certification" bears no resemblance to the conventional certification we are all familiar with. As I understand it, it simply involves building a prototype and then filling out a bunch of paperwork stating that your plane and manufacturing setup complies with the standards. There is no flight testing, structural testing, or testing of any kind, that I'm aware. Even the responsibility for devising and administering the certification standards themselves has been outsourced to a private-sector entity, the ASTM. It's like the FAA isn't even involved at all. Someone mentioned liability insurance and that's probably an expense that is incurred by the manufacturers, although I doubt that this adds up to a whole lot either. Others have mentioned the high cost of labor and this too is valid. However, Cessna has all of these costs -- and more --and is still able to price a brand new Skyhawk at $155,000. This is a tremendous value when compared to one of these new LSAs that cost close to $100,000. Let's look at the CT2K for example. This composite plane carries a list price of $85,000 and with even a few panel options that most of us would consider essential, you are close to $100,000. this plane has an empty weight of under 600 pounds and a gross weight of just over 1200lbs., which is less than half of the Skyhawk. The Skyhawk seats four in a well-appointed cabin with 20g seats, full gyro panel, a decent radio stack and a robust Lycoming powerplant. It has had the benefit of a rigorous FAR 23 certification process that is comparable to the standards that business jets have to meet. It is a very substantial, real traveling airplane -- the CT2K comes off rather toylike by comparison. Yet somehow Cessna manages to give you all this for a cost of only about 50 percent more than the CT2K. Either Cessna is some kind of manufacturing genius or the LSA is way overpriced. You are literally getting more than twice the airplane for only half again as much cost. Regards, Gordon. [snip] Gordon, Some time ago, a friend of mine graphed the cost of increasingly large hard drives for computers. As luck would have it, the graph was a straight line. My friend then went on to explaine that if you extended the low end of the line until it crossed the x axis, this was the base cost of producing & delivering any hard drive. I wonder if such an analysis makes any sense in the light plane market? Given the nature of todays technologies for assembling composite/legacy structures, labor, realestate, profit, etc. Is there a cost associated with this class of ariplane (LSA or not) below which a commercial plane can't be delivered without structural changes to how we assemble airplanes? Evan |
#20
|
|||
|
|||
John T wrote:
What he doesn't seem to realize, is that the local FBO won't buy the sport planes either if they are so expensive. Then where are people going to get sport pilot training? not everyone is coming over from the private pilot level. I had worked towards PP certification about 20 years ago and had lost interest. This summer, I'd flown in a light plane for the first time since then, and found I still enjoyed it. Hitting the internet, I quickly found a reference to the sport pilot certification, read the limitations, and found, for me, they were not limitations but a description of exactly the sort of flying I would want to do. Unfortunately, this is the exact problem I ran into. It would require a leap of faith for a small FBO in this area to purchase a new LSA when they are barely making it giving PP instruction in elderly, paid off aircraft that do not qualify as LSA. ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups ----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---- |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Washington DC airspace closing for good? | tony roberts | Piloting | 153 | August 11th 05 12:56 AM |
Enjoy High Quality incredible low cost PC-to-phone and broadband phone services | John | Home Built | 0 | May 19th 05 02:58 PM |
Boeing Boondoggle | Larry Dighera | Military Aviation | 77 | September 15th 04 02:39 AM |
Fwd: [BD4] Source of HIGH CHTs on O-320 and O-360 FOUND! | Bruce A. Frank | Home Built | 1 | July 4th 04 07:28 PM |
Could it happen he The High Cost of Operating in Europe | Larry Dighera | Piloting | 5 | July 14th 03 02:34 AM |