Ernie Schweizer was heard to say that production costs
could be calculated from the empty weight.

At 14:54 24 October 2006, Bill Daniels wrote:

'Chris Rollings' wrote in message
...
Slightly off topic, but addresses your last point.

'Rollings Law of Price and Performance (for NEW gliders)'

Performance varies with the square root of wing-span;
price varies with the square of wing-span.


The first is aerodynamically correct. The second is
market observation.

The cost of materials varies by the weight of the bare
airframe. All else
like instruments are the same for all gliders. Labor
for a given production
technique probably related to surface area.

The biggest determinant of the final price is production
volume. Or, more
correctly, the volume anticipated at the start of production.
If a
manufacturer knew from the start that the final production
numbers would
exceed say, 3000 gliders, investments in labor saving
tooling would make
sense. This, in turn, would increase the production
run yet more since
lower prices would eintice still more buyers.

But of course, how do you know you are going to produce
a lot of gliders?

Bill Daniels