On Jun 16, 12:33 pm, Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

This same phenomenon is present today. I have a bunch of aviataion
related newspapers and magazines that I read see parts and what they
cost. I look especially at electronics parts. The prices are
outrageous. Whatever the excuses - regulation, low-volume - these
prices are simply ridiculous. In many cases, the exact same product
is sold in a different consumer context for a 40% mark-up.

Regulation, and the risk of liability, makes all aircraft stuff
expensive. That's not the manufacturer's or designer's fault; that's
OUR fault, those of us who choose to rent or buy airplanes and proceed
to do stupid things with them and get ourselves killed or maimed,
whereupon the manufacturer is sued for many millions because his
product was "defective." Defective because it could not protect me
from my own stupidity. And juries swallow this.
Besides that, the low production numbers make these things more
expensive.
As far as a different lift process, man has been using what Nature
perfected a long time ago: the airfoils as used by birds, controlled
by tails as used by birds. Flapping-wing technology still hasn't been
figured out but someone will do it soon, although it guarantees a
rough ride.
If you want a different lift system, check out the bumblebee.
There's something related to spanwise vortex lift going on there, and
the guys who have had deep-stall crashes in canards (notably the
Velocity) have had some experience with it. Lots of lift generated at
well below stall speeds with an unexpectedly low sink rate. Sometimes
it's a survivable crash. There's potential there.

Dan