These are not YOUR airplanes - Was: High Cost of Sportplanes

Evan,

I don't want to drag this out, I think some good points ahve been made --
however, I don't see why fiberglass airframe construction is going to be
less labor-intensive.

There is almost zero opportunity for automation in fiberglass construction,
unless you go to specialized processes and tooling that are probably out of
reach for a small firm. Even Cirrus and Adam do a lot of their layups by
hand -- granted using pre-pregs.

Now look at a simple little plane like the Zenith 601. They used to build
one of these in a week at Oshkosh, using volunteers from the crowd. It uses
pull-type rivets rather than bucked, so the structure can be assembled quite
quickly. I think the total time to get to the flying plane was about 300 man
hours.

And I don't think the Zenith kit parts are as automated as they could be --
for instance I don't the they are fully precut and pre-punched etc. like the
Van's kits.

My point is that if you purpose-designed a small aluminum airplane for quick
construction and automated the sheet-metal stamping part of the process, you
could make that airplane very cost-effectively.

Perhaps a fiberglass approach could work just as well, but I think more
ingenuity would be required.

Regards,

Gordon.




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

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with you on your analysis of aluminum
use in commercially built LSA aircraft structures. While it is true that
the aluminum materials costs for an aircraft are lower, the labor costs
(which I have already shown to be the largest cost in building any plane)
are much higher, thus making it a poor choice if you are trying to build
such airplanes for a profit. On the other hand, if you are trying to sell
kit LSA airframes, then the builder assumes the labor costs, thus making a
comparable kit seem less expensive.