Fix the high cost [Was:] High Cost of Sportplanes

Anyone in the fiberglass / aluminum sheet metal industry ( or other
successful enthusiasts ) interested in contributing to some
experimentation. If you are interested, and willing to have the results
released to the public, I think we could make a real contribution to
this debate & perhaps offer some solutions to the small plane industries
labor problem.

What I am thinking of is a bake off to design two reference structures.
One of fiberglass & one of aluminum. Each must be finished (primed &
painted), and each must have an exact tally of labor for construction. A
separate tally should include the cost (tho not labor) involved in the
tooling.

The goal of this bake off is to provide the industry with a method which
could produce an airframe with 500Hrs or less of labor, and a defined
amount of materials. Since there seems to be a kind of religious quality
to preferences for building materials, both general types will be used,
thus providing a gage by which others might choose their preferred
construction method.

To start the bake off, two reference structures, one for each building
method, would have to be designed in CAD. These reference structures
would each have the same structural goals and strength specs. Each
reference structure would not necessarily have to be to scale. Remember,
the goal here is NOT to prove that one construction technique is
superior to another, but rather to provide a choice of feasible methods
to the commercial LSA designer/builder. If designed in a public forum
such as this one, the structure & building techniques would be peer
reviewed & presumably employ the full collection of best construction
practices, and should yield procedures simple and cheap enough to be
used by companies of limited means.

If enough people with the experience and means to volunteer for this
first phase, then the remaining phases would be worth hashing out later.

In article ,
Evan Carew wrote:



The goal of this bake off is to provide the industry with a method which
could produce an airframe with 500Hrs or less of labor


500 hours for just the airframe? Can we work with both hands and use our
thumbs?

You can even use your two good typing fingers, so long as you count in
the time it took you to mold the fiberglass parts & or do the CNC work &
initial metal forming.

Smitty Two wrote:


500 hours for just the airframe? Can we work with both hands and use our
thumbs?

Evan,

Here's a back-of-the-envelope calculation to see if the $50,000 sportplane
is feasible.

If I was to offer $10,000 to someone on this list to assemble a Zenith 601,
would I have any takers? I think yes. There are probably guys here who have
built one of these -- or similar -- before and have all the tools and know
what's involved.

The kit from Zenith costs about 15k, let's say the Rotax is another 15k, the
10k mentioned for assembly, and add another 10k for various bits and pieces.
That is $50,000 total.

No there would not be a profit for me, but Zenith, Rotax and everyone else
is still making a profit, including any and all middlemen.

Now if I had my own design and could stamp out the metal myself, instead of
having to buy a kit from someone else, would I be able to make a profit?
Yes. I would make at least as much profit as Zenith makes on the sale of one
of their kits.

So there you have it, the $50,000 sportplane -- without any structural
changes to the industry.

The more I think about, the more this is a no-brainer. I think the people
who doubt the viability of the $50,000 sportplane are simply conditioned by
the marketing propaganda spread by the various commercial interestes and
their mouthpieces, the magazines.


Regards,

Gordon.




"Evan Carew" wrote in message
. ..
Anyone in the fiberglass / aluminum sheet metal industry ( or other
successful enthusiasts ) interested in contributing to some
experimentation. If you are interested, and willing to have the results
released to the public, I think we could make a real contribution to this
debate & perhaps offer some solutions to the small plane industries labor
problem.

What I am thinking of is a bake off to design two reference structures.
One of fiberglass & one of aluminum. Each must be finished (primed &
painted), and each must have an exact tally of labor for construction. A
separate tally should include the cost (tho not labor) involved in the
tooling.

The goal of this bake off is to provide the industry with a method which
could produce an airframe with 500Hrs or less of labor, and a defined
amount of materials. Since there seems to be a kind of religious quality
to preferences for building materials, both general types will be used,
thus providing a gage by which others might choose their preferred
construction method.

To start the bake off, two reference structures, one for each building
method, would have to be designed in CAD. These reference structures would
each have the same structural goals and strength specs. Each reference
structure would not necessarily have to be to scale. Remember, the goal
here is NOT to prove that one construction technique is superior to
another, but rather to provide a choice of feasible methods to the
commercial LSA designer/builder. If designed in a public forum such as
this one, the structure & building techniques would be peer reviewed &
presumably employ the full collection of best construction practices, and
should yield procedures simple and cheap enough to be used by companies of
limited means.

If enough people with the experience and means to volunteer for this first
phase, then the remaining phases would be worth hashing out later.

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 09:58:41 -0400, "Gordon Arnaut"
wrote:


If I was to offer $10,000 to someone on this list to assemble a Zenith 601,
would I have any takers? I think yes. There are probably guys here who have
built one of these -- or similar -- before and have all the tools and know
what's involved.


What is the required hours for assembly for the kits you mentioned?

Lets say they did it in a month. That would be a gross salary of
$120K. But I don't think that is even close. Other hours assuming
std 40 hour work week and national holidays observed..

Hours to Build Gross Salary
250 $80K (Nice entrepreneur salary)
500 $40K (OK salary, lower middle class)
750 $26,666 (Eh, some people might bite)
1000 $20K (Not a chance)
1000 Poverty Level


I will ignore business overhead until the hours are locked down. Then
I can give you specific #'s.


Jim

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

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

Here's a back-of-the-envelope calculation to see if the $50,000 sportplane
is feasible.

If I was to offer $10,000 to someone on this list to assemble a Zenith
601, would I have any takers? I think yes. There are probably guys here
who have built one of these -- or similar -- before and have all the tools
and know what's involved.

The kit from Zenith costs about 15k, let's say the Rotax is another 15k,
the 10k mentioned for assembly, and add another 10k for various bits and
pieces. That is $50,000 total.

No there would not be a profit for me, but Zenith, Rotax and everyone else
is still making a profit, including any and all middlemen.

Now if I had my own design and could stamp out the metal myself, instead
of having to buy a kit from someone else, would I be able to make a
profit? Yes. I would make at least as much profit as Zenith makes on the
sale of one of their kits.

So there you have it, the $50,000 sportplane -- without any structural
changes to the industry.

The more I think about, the more this is a no-brainer. I think the people
who doubt the viability of the $50,000 sportplane are simply conditioned
by the marketing propaganda spread by the various commercial interestes
and their mouthpieces, the magazines.


Regards,

Gordon.

I think you have one huge failure in you calculation. The labor cost.
$10,000 is way to low. If you take an employee or employees and only pay
them ONLY $10.00 per hour when you load all the costs of taxes, insurance
and other associated B.S. you are looking at $22.50/hour. That only gives
you 444.44 man hours to build the plane. Even Zenith quotes higher than that
for the airframe only.

I'm sure if you took your figures down to your local venture capitalist they
would embrace you with open arms and give you all the up front money you
needed to get your project going. After you became wildly successful you
could tell those nasty magazine editors how they knew nothing about the
industry.

Jim


The more I think about, the more this is a no-brainer. I think the people
who doubt the viability of the $50,000 sportplane are simply conditioned
by the marketing propaganda spread by the various commercial interestes
and their mouthpieces, the magazines.

In article , Richard Riley says...

:"Gordon Arnaut" wrote in message
.. .
: The more I think about, the more this is a no-brainer. I think the people
: who doubt the viability of the $50,000 sportplane are simply conditioned
: by the marketing propaganda spread by the various commercial interestes
: and their mouthpieces, the magazines.

Some of the doubters are people who've been in the business of making
light airplanes. Been there, done that. Left without the T-shirt.

I encourage you to go forward. Please let us know when the chapter 7
sale is, I could use some more aircraft tools at 3 cents on the
dollar.

Hey Richard I got an airplane company he can buy and put his skills to work and
show me how to get rich. Nows the time to put the money where the mouth is
LOL!!! I've had employees who wanted a raise tell me I'm making a fortune and
then say it only costs you $4,500 to build a kit that sells for $11,000. When I
said "tell ya what ,I'll put you in charge of the bills and buy every kit you
can produce for $5500 .You'll make $1000 per kit plus tour paycheck" .But if you
can't, any overruns come off your $1000. Guess what ...no takers:-)
Everybody is an expert especially those who never hung their neck out to run a
busines.

See ya

Chuck S

Chuck,

I'm not purporting to have some kind of "plan" to show you or anyone else
how to get rich. That's not what I am interested in.

I'm simply stating a fact: sportplane prices are way too high. It is my
opinion that they can and will come down substantially.

I think the silly magazines should have more integrity than simply
cheerleading this opportunism.

If you think that $100,000 is a realistic price for these sportplanes, why
don't you come out and so so?

You said you're selling kits for $11,000. That's about $90,000 less than
these sportplanes are selling for. That is a big difference and I don't see
the logical path from your $11,000 kit being realistically priced, therefore
the $100,000 sportplane must realistically priced.

Regards,

Gordon.



"ChuckSlusarczyk" wrote in message
...
In article , Richard Riley
says...

:"Gordon Arnaut" wrote in message
. ..
: The more I think about, the more this is a no-brainer. I think the
people
: who doubt the viability of the $50,000 sportplane are simply
conditioned
: by the marketing propaganda spread by the various commercial interestes
: and their mouthpieces, the magazines.

Some of the doubters are people who've been in the business of making
light airplanes. Been there, done that. Left without the T-shirt.

I encourage you to go forward. Please let us know when the chapter 7
sale is, I could use some more aircraft tools at 3 cents on the
dollar.

Hey Richard I got an airplane company he can buy and put his skills to
work and
show me how to get rich. Nows the time to put the money where the mouth is
LOL!!! I've had employees who wanted a raise tell me I'm making a fortune
and
then say it only costs you $4,500 to build a kit that sells for $11,000.
When I
said "tell ya what ,I'll put you in charge of the bills and buy every kit
you
can produce for $5500 .You'll make $1000 per kit plus tour paycheck" .But
if you
can't, any overruns come off your $1000. Guess what ...no takers:-)
Everybody is an expert especially those who never hung their neck out to
run a
busines.

See ya

Chuck S

"Gordon Arnaut" wrote in message
...
Chuck,

I'm not purporting to have some kind of "plan" to show you or anyone else
how to get rich. That's not what I am interested in.

I'm simply stating a fact: sportplane prices are way too high. It is my
opinion that they can and will come down substantially.

I think the silly magazines should have more integrity than simply
cheerleading this opportunism.

If you think that $100,000 is a realistic price for these sportplanes, why
don't you come out and so so?

You said you're selling kits for $11,000. That's about $90,000 less than
these sportplanes are selling for. That is a big difference and I don't
see the logical path from your $11,000 kit being realistically priced,
therefore the $100,000 sportplane must realistically priced.

Regards,

Gordon.



There's a BIG difference in a kit from, say Zenith and a completed 601XL. I
don't know what you do for living but labor and its associated costs ain't
cheap. If you are willing to invest your time and your own labor into
building a plane for yourself as I am go a ahead and go for it. Start
building. But to slander the makers of LSAs by calling them price gougers
because they have placed a price on their labor that others are willing to
pay when you can't come up with costs that are even close to what they have
in the aircraft makes you whiny.