General Aviation Dead?

On 16/10/2011 2:05 PM, Steve Hix wrote:
In ,
Peter wrote:

On 16/10/2011 11:14 AM, Mr. V wrote:
And let's not forget how the costs of defending against and paying
large judgments for liability insurance have so increased costs that
manufacturers of affordable planes have been either forced out of
business or are no longer able to produce an affordable, entry level
aircraft for GA.

Goodbye, Piper Cub.


Nice rant. Here's a bit of reality for you:

Private aircraft are only part of general aviation which, to
over-simplify like wikki, is everything unscheduled. To manufacturers of
aircraft, GA is larger because aircraft used for both scheduled and
unscheduled (like the King air or Otter) get lumped in.

the Cessena 150 cost $7K stripped in 1958, when it came out, comparable
aircraft today are around 140K. Both are roughly half the price of a
single detached house.

The piper cub went out of production in 1947.

And it's back in production thanks to a couple different companies, such as
Cubcrafters, running about the price you mentioned above. In the case of
Cubcrafters, several versions, from basic Light Sport to pretty sporty Super Cub
types.

The Cubcrafters stuff is Super Cub derivative and much updated, a fine
plane but with no commonality with the original cub.

--
Peter