In article ,
Richard Riley wrote:



OK, go along on a thought experiment with me for a moment.

There are lots of machines out there that have a very natural upper
market limit. Let's say, steam rollers, combine harvesters and hook
and ladder fire trucks.

Suppose those vehicles were free. You have to pay for gas, insurance,
maintenance and storage, but if you want a hook and ladder, you just
go pick one up.

How many people would do so?

Well, every fire department would have a couple. And there would be
the occasional fire truck enthusiast - there's one that lives down the
street from me, who has a beautiful pumper truck from the early 50's.
It's his hobby. But most people wouldn't choose fire trucks for their
hobby.

How many people would sign up for a free Cessna 172?

I'm guessing a couple of hundred thousand. It's just a guess. But
think about this. How many times have you offered to take someone
flying, and have them turn you down? It's just not their thing.

There are an awful lot of people who don't care about driving. If
there was a nationwide mass transit system, or Star Trek teleporters,
or sliding walkways, they wouldn't have cars. They don't care about
how they move from place to place, they just want to get where they're
going.

For those people, light airplanes are a poor choice for transport.
Light jets, taking off on the hour every hour, are much more
convenient. They don't want to worry about the hangar, and the
annual, and the weather brief. They just want to get to grandma's
house.

I think that with a big enough price drop we could increase the size
of the market. But I'm not at all confidant that we could increase it
greatly. I'd be surprised if we could double it.

You know, your point seems well thought out and entirely valid. So in
many respects I'm going to have to concede that I agree with you. But,
two things still bug me. One, I really think that if flying were
actually affordable, the number of interested parties would suddenly
spike, more than one might expect.

And two, volume considerations aside, I can't help but wonder what's
really going on at Cessna. I wish I knew how many pencil pushers they
employ per actual worker, for example.

The cost of a new 150 in 1966 was $7000. In 1977 it was $14,000. Both
those numbers seem to me to be considerably less than an average skilled
worker's annual salary at the time.

So why can't we have a $35,000 airplane today? No damn reason in the
world that I've yet seen explained. When production stopped in the
1980's, the high cost of liability insurance was the given reason. Then
we had the big reform, and Cessna fired up the stoves again. When the
price of the new birds was announced, I felt completely betrayed. And
disgusted.