Anyway, my A&P charges less per hour than the import car dealer mechanics
do, and in the same ballpark as the marina where my father keeps his boat.
My dad's sailboat cost twice as much (new) as my 172 (used) and costs more
per year in maintenance. Maintenance costs are not the primary issue.


Per hour rates are very fair. Its the amount of hours that gets you.
Unless you do much of your own work, this IS a dramatic amount of money. If
I can buy a 150/152 in nice condition for 20 to 30k and sell it for same
when you need to, its not a problem. However, the 2 to 3k it takes to keep
it nice and safe each year gets old fast. The price of parts and engines is
no small part of that either.

If the planes are simpler, and the owners can safely do more of the work,
then LSA could really be a boon.


Funny you bring up Porsche. They actually did try and build an airplane
engine with Mooney back in the late 80s and it was a disaster.
http://www.seqair.com/Other/PFM/PorschePFM.html for one opinion. I don't
disagree that we're dealing with some pretty bronze-age technologies in
our
engines, but the homebuilt set has been f---ing around with auto
conversions
for 30 years with no really great success stories. If it were so simple,
somebody would have figured it out by now.



I am no expert on this engines and its history, but I heard a plausible
argument that the real downfall of that engine was lack of AP knowledge to
maintain it properly. It was too complex.

Wouldn't you think that a lighter, fadec controlled engine that only
produced 180HP could be built for that?. How about a 120HP rotax
killer? You get that, and the cost of LSA power plants just halved.

A Rotax 912 is around $12k in a crate. Bringing it down $6k doesn't make
that much difference in the cost of a $70k plane, especially when you
consider that cost is likely to be amortized over 10 years or more (i.e. a
loan).

Your aircraft maintenance just reduced drastically. A rebuild would
never exceed the cost of an engine plus installation.

I'm not buying it. Why did maintenance get cheaper?


Reserves just halved, and a top is eliminated by a cheap replacement job.
However, the rotax is a lame example because of the low TBO.


I don't neccessarily want glass, but alot of people do. All I'm after
is cheap technological growth. I see FADEC, GPS w/ WAAS approaches
and Sirius WX as important technologies for fuel efficiency, safety
and convienence. Tech growth is cheaper without FAA certification.

Now you're mixing metaphors. I agree that a glass cockpit in an LSA adds
sex
appeal, but zero utility. However we are getting to the point where
non-certified pseudo-glass panels are starting to cost less than round
gauges. It will be a long time before the FAA allows easier certification
of
IFR instrumentation, and likely they never will. As the skies get more
crowded, they will become more exclusive. Look at RVSM for an example.


At some point the FAA will need to relent or they will be at odds with their
own purpose. Experimental planes are beyond much of their control and will
continue to get more and more popular. Seriously, can anyone make an
argument that a 172 or 182 is really all that safer than an RV10? The
experimental crowd is starting to produce more stable, quality planes, and
less dangerous ones too. Given the choice, an RV10 with a Blue Mountain
glass cockpit looks a lot nicer than an Archer with an Avidyne and is half
the price. Given these new build it yourself programs, people who can take
the time off will take this choice in ever increasing numbers.


Industries that stagnate, die. GA is currently perking up a bit due
the above technolgoes (my impression) and I hope consesus stanards
fuel this growth.

My opinion is that LSA is something of a parallel track. Basically, if all
you want to do is pull back on the stick and see the houses get smaller,
LSA
will offer a substantially lower-cost path to licensing and ownership. If
you want to use airplanes as real transportation, you will need to go the
traditional GA route with its higher costs. Nothing wrong with this. More
LSAs mean more customers for airports, mechanics, and AOPA/EAA members
keeping political heat on anti-GA forces. It doesn't matter what the
machine
looks like, the more people flying the better for all of us.


Yep.