Fix the high cost [Was:] High Cost of Sportplanes

Evan Carew wrote:
Smitty,

Ideally, I would like to treat this as a community project where the
community contributes the expertise & labor and benefits from the data.

Evan

There is on such project already on the way in yahoo groups. You should
be able to find it if you look. Essentially they are collaborating on
the design and the poop is that if you collaborate you get a free set
of the completed plans.
Though that still isn't open source.

Thier contribution requirement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It
isn't going to keep one of their widows from sueing the rest of them
one one "contributing" member kills themselves doing something stupid.
Their actually making themselves more exposed to liability that way,
not less. They aught to just use code names and release the results
anonymously. In a litigiously insane society, anonymity becomes a
shelter for innovation.

There are in fact a few sets of "documentation" available on the net
gratis. One is a gyro the other is a glider. It has been the request of
one such designer not to use the word "plans" because he is explicitly
not recomending you build one and only use the docs as a point of
study.

I have done a decent amount of reading on the topic of your interest
and am pleased overall at your enthusiasm. There are technical,
financial and political problems that answer the question "why not?",
in regards to building a cheap aircraft. It would take a few pages to
document them all, and you haven't done enough research yourself to
warrant the effort.

Sufficed to say, the technical problems are the small ones. But I
encourage you to continue with your research. Hopefully one day there
will be enough folks to call "bull****" on the current situation and
some change will come of it.

Can I buy an "e"

-Matt