Well,
Considering most production aircraft workers make from 10 to 15 bucks an
hour I don't see how you come up with 45 an hour. That makes a difference to
doesn't it ? I loved working production but you just made alot more
contracting,...so that's what I ending up doing. I made a whopping 12 an
hour building Gulfstream's, and as a team leader for McDonnell-Douglas I
made 17.65 an hour...most of my workers at McDonnell-Douglas made 9.99 an
hour to start. But they ranged in pay from 9.99 to around 15.00, according
to their experience and years at the company. Yes at McDonnell-Douglas we
had some great benefits....but a company just starting out will not be able
to deliver these until it is making money. And well it pretty much ended up
sealing Douglas's fate .
No company can make it if it's labor force costs more than it's profit.
If you would like to pay production workers 45 an hour I am sure you will
have some very experienced workers knocking the door down to come work for
you..but you will fold very quickly.
One must also consider the amount of manpower. Where 20 people built a
rear spar on the C-17 in 10 days....20 people building a light sport plane
would be all in each others way. Being as a start up operation may be
building one or two planes, the amount of employees would not be great.
Building small planes such as these really makes less employees
better...production workers work very fast and very efficient when they do
not step all over each other.
Of course a big key is to weed out non-preformers and slackers. Having a
good Assembly Outline is very important to the contruction process, and one
could hire a professional aviation planner to do this...or one could rely on
a very experience leadman to do it as well. Myself I would let a leadman
take time in his duties to do this. Most planners don't know a thing about
tools and how long something really takes until they are told by someone.
Most leadmen can tell you from the start a very good estimate of time
required.
To sum up there are lots of ways to save money in a start up operation
and there are alot of ways to have yourself in bankruptcy before you even
start. As my Daddy used to say, "Only a Grave digger starts at the top!" M-D
built 3.5 Md-80's a week when I was on that line...imagine the speed a well
experienced crew could build one these designs....Ultracruiser Plus,
thatcher CX4, Sonex. Yep there were thousands of people on the MD-80 line,
and all those people would not be needed on a small aircraft line.
So you are correct in labor can be a big cost..but you are way off on
how much I got paid

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

"Evan Carew" wrote in message
...
Patrick,

If the average small plane manufacturer allocated 500 hours of labor to
finish an airplane's metal work at $45.00 / hr, then that works out to
22,000+ bucks / airframe. Over 10 aircraft, that amounts to $220,000.
Suddenly that piece of CNC tooling is starting to look like a bargain
isn't it?

Evan

W P Dixon wrote:
Dang,
Let me know the metalworking equipment you are paying 250,000 bucks for.
A decent brake is around 4000, a nice shear 4000-5000. Yes you could
spend some more, or if you were frugile alittle less. To build something
like a Cub or Champ you don't need 250,000 bucks of metal working
equipment. However if you want to spend that kind of money in your
metalshop I'd love to come work for you I guess if you really wanted to
splurge you could spend some bucks on things like water jet cutters or
what have you..but they could not pay for themselves unless you were
selling airplanes like hotcakes. So really something like that is
something you buy when you know you have the biz going strong, and not
really a start up cost.
Some places I worked had shrinkers /stretchers, and a English Wheel
was a luxury. Of course working on airliners they definitely had CNC and
such to cut parts from...but that is not a sport plane A metal sport
plane can be built very very well with basic sheet metal tools. The high
dollar stuff would be a waste of money unless you needed production speed
of an automobile assembly line.
I've never built a plastic injection mold, but I've built airplanes

Patrick
student SP
aircraft structural mech