Bert Willing wrote:
Well, the fuselage is a perfect copy, the wing planform is a perfect copy,
the structure is a suboptimal copy and the airfoil is a new (and
definitively better) development.


The Pegase fuselage looks like the ASW20 fuselage but not the point of
being a perfect copy, i don't think so. All fuselages of this period
look the same.

So with all these copies and the French government paying for the airfoil -

The same as universities paying for airfoil development everywhere in
the world.

no wonder why the selling price of a Pégase is fairly interesting if you
don't need amortization.

And even though development cost was low, pricing was interesting and
marketing was largely supported by FFVV subventions, Centrair went bust. Now
if you can't make money under these conditions, how to make money if you
have to pay for engineering ?!


As i said Centrair is not an exemple of an efficient business, and this
was un understatement. Even RS who had an extremely successfull glider,
the LS4, went bust. There is no limit to the amount of money incompetent
and greedy managers can throw through the windows, just take a look at
Messier and Vivendi.

But of course, that's all the fault of German manufacturers...


German manufacturers have done wonderful job, i will not discuss that.
What they are completely unable is keeping the prices under control.
Each and every successfull business has to focus on keeping prices
under control, even Daimler-Benz and BMW have done great efforts in this
direction and are able to deliver cars at reasonable price considering
the quality and performance of their products. There is absolutely
nothing anti german in what i am saying, i am only criticizing the
german glider manufacturers for their unability in stabilizing prices.
My salary has not augmented the last ten years, basically, i don't see
a single reason why a glider price should augment in the same time
frame. But in fact they have more than doubled. I am quite sure that the
salaries of the workers doing the job are as stagnant as my own. Hence
the problem is the vast inefficiency in the leadership of these
businesses, exactly the same inefficiency you very rightly criticize at
Centrair. Sorry to say that but building gliders is not a place to make
money, if you want to become billionaire, you better sell toothbrushes.







--

Michel TALON