High Cost of Sportplanes

Richard,

I think a lot of people would buy a new airplane for $50,000.

There are 600,000 pilots but only 200,000 aircraft owners. That's a market
of 400,000 right there waiting for the sensibly priced airplane.

The points about a new Cessna being more airplane than a 1960s Cessna is
true. The new certification requirements are tougher and the cost of
avioinics has skyrocketed.

But when we talk about sportplanes neither of those factors apply.

It is completely possible and feasible to produce a decent two-seat, $50,000
sportplane and make a profit. And I think that will happen in due time -- no
thanks the stupid magazines telling us a what a great deal these $100,000
plastic toys are.

Regards,

Gordon.


"Richard Riley" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:16:27 -0700, Smitty Two
wrote:

:The cost of a new 150 in 1966 was $7000. In 1977 it was $14,000. Both
:those numbers seem to me to be considerably less than an average skilled
:worker's annual salary at the time.
:
:So why can't we have a $35,000 airplane today? No damn reason in the
:world that I've yet seen explained. When production stopped in the
:1980's, the high cost of liability insurance was the given reason. Then
:we had the big reform, and Cessna fired up the stoves again. When the
rice of the new birds was announced, I felt completely betrayed. And
:disgusted.

Consumer price indexes -

Jan 1965 31.2
Jan 1975 52.1
Jan 1985 105.5
Jan 1995 150.3
Jan 2005 190.7

So just by general inflation, that $7000 1966 Cessna should be
$40-50,000 today. There are scale issues - Cessna is building a LOT
fewer airplanes today. They are better airplanes today - a new 172
with an O-360 and a standard panel is way more airplane than the VFR
O-200 150.

Another data point. The 1965 Corvette started at $4106. The 2005
Corvette starts at $43,445.

On the other hand, some things have increased a lot more - and a lot
less - than the CPI. CPI is an average. In constant dollars food,
clothing and electronics are much cheaper than they were. But my
folks bought their house for $25k in 1966, it's $500,000 now. A 20:1
increase would make that $7000 150 $140k, which is probably in the
ballpark for what Cessna would sell it for.

Sure, I'd like to see airplanes cost about half of what they do now.
But the beauty of the free market is that they cost as little as they
can. If you can build a 150ish airplane for $30k, you're free to do
so.

I don't think it can be done. And even if it could, I'm not sure many
people would buy them.

Earlier, Gordon Arnaut wrote:

It is completely possible and feasible to
produce a decent two-seat, $50,000 sportplane
and make a profit.

Great. Then you will have no trouble getting financing for such a
venture. Go to it.

Hello Bob!!! I can only agree with you on the cost of design and
manufacturing of todays aircraft of all types. It seams like this
aviation stuff is fast becoming a rich mans sport as with all other
types of transportation vehicles to. Also the cost of fuel , oil, and
parts today are a major problem to. Maybe someday everything will get
back to normal, what ever that is. Take Care. Ron

.
25 years ago, still giddy from my new private ticket, I offered to pay
for flight training for any or all of my twenty-something employees.
Not one accepted and only two ever wanted to go flying.



Can I work for you!?

I'm not buying one either until the price for a new one is about $30k or
less for these toys. I equate them with upgraded ultralights which are
now around $15-20k these days --- and still too high priced.

When I can build a Mustang II for less than $25k with adequate avionics,
and it seats 2 and cruises around 200 kts --- their is my basis for
comparison. No, labor is not included in that, but I bought a used one
for next to nothing.

David M.


Jimbob wrote:

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 05:44:24 GMT, Ernest Christley
wrote:


This is the tragi-comic state of "journalism" in the enthusiast magazine
sector. The bottom line is that the reader counts for zero, while the
advertiser is king. And issues like safety and price-gouging are swept under
the carpet by editorial apologists.


Bzzt! Wrong. The reader accounts for about $4.50 per magazine. That
just barely will cover the cost of printing...maybe. The major revenue,
the money that will keep the lights on, comes from....you guessed
it...the advertisers!!! And guess, what...I don't give money to people
who say bad things about me. And I don't ask that from others. You
could have kept Flying honest if you were willing to open your
checkbook. But of course, as is all to typical now days, you expect
others to sacrifice to coddle you.


This is bordering on troll territotory, but I will bite.

I think he expects what everyone else expects. An honest review.
Anything less than that is just marketing. I have a susbscrition to
Flying, but I'll be damned if I am going to buy the magazine if it's
just a schill for the aviation comanpies.

There are plenty of "Marketing" mags out there for many industries.
All they are is marketing slicks and maybe an occasional fluff
article. They beg you to get a free subscribtion so their demos are
better and advertising revenue goes up. That not what I expect from
Flying. If I pay, I expect information.

The thing you forget about in you money equaiton. Advertising pays
the bills, but without subscribers, their advertising doesn't bring in
squat.

I used to subscribe to a SCUBA magazine that was pretty good in the
past, but then it really started regurgitating the marketing slicks
that the regulator companies produced. So I stopped subscribing.
They didn't miss me perhaps but that rag is known in the industry as a
hack magazine and I think that the only people that subscribe are
newbies that don't know any better. Their revenue is currently
suffereing.



Want a magazine that tells the truth and isn't worried about advertisers
(cause they don't have any), the subscribe to "Consumer Reports".



Good magazine. Doesn't have a lot to do with aviation.


Maybe you can be that enterprising individual that is so much smarter
than all the guys-n-gals that are giving it their all, Gordon.
Personally, I've been building my Delta for over 3yrs now, in conditions
not far removed from the Allegro's that are being put together down in
Sanford. If I was expecting to feed and house my family from building
airplanes, I'd have to look at $100K as fairly minimal.


Hope your plane turns out well.

And I would expect that most of your equipment is idle while you are
working on one particular part. This is called inefficiency of
production. I'm betting Allegro is using an assembly line concept
that is a little more efficient with their resources.

If not, than that's the problem.



Furthermore, sportsplanes will be a marginal part of the aviation scene,
even if the planes were available for $25k. You don't make any money
with a light plane. They can't even be used as a serious mode of
transportation with most pilots, because the weather can rise up at any
time and destroy the best laid plans. Very few people could even use
one to get to work. They are toys, and they will always be toys until
someone finds a way to make money with them other than building and
selling them or giving flight training. That keeps the market volume
low, which drives the price up.


Agreed, but even toys have to reasonably priced.


So, get over the price-gouging bull, until your ready to introduce the
Arnaut CloudWunker costing less than an average family sedan. If you
don't like the prices of the products of offering to you, don't buy it.



He isn't buying. That's the point.

Jim

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

Replace that $15,000 for the engine with less than $5,000 for engine and
prop if you use auto engines and build the PSRU yourself.



Evan Carew wrote:

Along the lines of my previous posting regarding the theoretical base
price of any LSA plane produced commercially, I've provided the
following numbers for comparison. Note that the single biggest cost is
labor ( even at the ridiculously low rate I specified):

Airframe + avionics + engine + labor
kit basic O235
20000 + 4000 + 15000 + ( 500 * 45 ) = 61500

Note that labor costs 22500 and that the above number doesn't specify
any profit or liability insurance. Adding these two in easily puts the
base price over $80.00.

Of particular note, if the quantity of labor could be reduced by half on
both the production of the airframe parts and assembly, you might
conceivably squeeze out 20K from the base price. I'm not sure if your
average LSA/kit manufacturer is up to the task of tackling all the
required process/materials/FEA engineering necessary to realise those
savings, but I have a feeling a community effort might succeed if the
information were pooled.

I've seen other kit manufacturers attempt to recover these costs the
easy way over the last few years by moving operations to places such as
south america or south east asia. This however, seems to me to be a
short sighted way to recover assembly costs, particularly with the costs
of oil these days. If only these manufacturers would spend the money
they are going to spend on moving operations off shore on better
engineered products, then not only would we have better airplanes, but
they would be made at home.

Evan Carew

" That's exactly the point, we're talking about production speeds. The
equipment you're talking about will not churn out a finished plane every 2
minutes at an affordable price.

I'm talking about CNC machines in cells with robots, and stamping
machines,
and injection molds.

Somewhere, there was a bit aobut how a fiberglass airplane was too
expensive, because of the slow layup process. ( I couldn't find it, so I am
tacking this on here, sorry) I saw something today that made me question
that premise.

I was looking at a boat magazine, and there was a runabout that was selling
for just under 10 thousand. That was hull, engine, and everything. I know
that boats don't have to worry about weight so much, and there are other big
differences, but I was impressed. They can make money laying up fiberglass,
and assembling it for that price.

There must be a lesson in there somewhere, for those that want to build
plastic airplanes.
--
Jim in NC

Jimbob wrote:
On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 05:44:24 GMT, Ernest Christley
wrote:


This is the tragi-comic state of "journalism" in the enthusiast magazine
sector. The bottom line is that the reader counts for zero, while the
advertiser is king. And issues like safety and price-gouging are swept under
the carpet by editorial apologists.


Bzzt! Wrong. The reader accounts for about $4.50 per magazine. That
just barely will cover the cost of printing...maybe. The major revenue,
the money that will keep the lights on, comes from....you guessed
it...the advertisers!!! And guess, what...I don't give money to people
who say bad things about me. And I don't ask that from others. You
could have kept Flying honest if you were willing to open your
checkbook. But of course, as is all to typical now days, you expect
others to sacrifice to coddle you.


This is bordering on troll territotory, but I will bite.

I think he expects what everyone else expects. An honest review.
Anything less than that is just marketing. I have a susbscrition to
Flying, but I'll be damned if I am going to buy the magazine if it's
just a schill for the aviation comanpies.

It's not meant to be a troll, and if you are expecting anything but
marketing glitz is magazines with paid advertisements, then you are
either very young or very naive.

I finally grew up in that regard when Windows95 was released. One of
the Ziff-Davis magazines did a review of Win95 vs Mac vs OS/2. The Mac
and OS/2 won handily in every technical category they listed. Then they
gave their buy recommendation to Win95. ("Oh! So that's how it works," I
says to myself). Even our own "Sport Aviation" is not immune. (Though,
I think it has gotten better recently.)

If I pay, I expect information.

And you'll get some. In nice, glossy, full-color reviews, and lots and
lots of advertisements. All the specs and claims will be professionally
laid out. But if you want the other side of the information, you better
crank up the internet connection or talk to your friends. The magazines
are useful for nothing more that learning all the buzzwords of the industry.


The thing you forget about in you money equaiton. Advertising pays
the bills, but without subscribers, their advertising doesn't bring in
squat.

And there are plenty of people lined up behind you that will buy the
magazine (and the products with the raving reviews) after you have grown
wiser and moved on. But like I said, the subscriber does count for
something...about $4.50/magazine.


I used to subscribe to a SCUBA magazine that was pretty good in the
past, but then it really started regurgitating the marketing slicks
Their revenue is currently
suffereing.


They'll 'redesign' the magazine to add more glitz or shut it down and
restart the game under a different name. Just look at the number of
magazines that have the same publisher (different name, same schill).

But you totally bypassed my point. Mr. Arnaut stated that he REMAINED
SILENT when a magazine did what he considered "the right thing", but
then was upset when the magazine tried to do what business are meant to
do, make money. I won't work for free. I'm willing to bet that you
expect a paycheck from employment. Why are the magazine editors
supposed to work for silent kudos?

Maybe you can be that enterprising individual that is so much smarter
than all the guys-n-gals that are giving it their all, Gordon.
Personally, I've been building my Delta for over 3yrs now, in conditions
not far removed from the Allegro's that are being put together down in
Sanford. If I was expecting to feed and house my family from building
airplanes, I'd have to look at $100K as fairly minimal.


Hope your plane turns out well.

And I would expect that most of your equipment is idle while you are
working on one particular part. This is called inefficiency of
production. I'm betting Allegro is using an assembly line concept
that is a little more efficient with their resources.

If not, than that's the problem.


I see what I think is a flaw in your perception there. Your thinking
that these planes will be rolled out on assembly lines that look like
the Ford factories that you see in the black-n-white clips on the
History Channel. The reality is very, VERY different.

How much of an assembly line can you have with 3 people (two
Scandinavians and American representative for the company, if I'm
remembering correctly). When the production volume is a handful a year,
there won't ever be an assembly line. A few more jigs...and people
who've made the part more than once...but still hand assembly...one at a
time. And with dozens of designs and a very limited market, no one
design will ever sell more than a handful per year.



Furthermore, sportsplanes will be a marginal part of the aviation scene,
even if the planes were available for $25k. You don't make any money
with a light plane. They can't even be used as a serious mode of
transportation with most pilots, because the weather can rise up at any
time and destroy the best laid plans. Very few people could even use
one to get to work. They are toys, and they will always be toys until
someone finds a way to make money with them other than building and
selling them or giving flight training. That keeps the market volume
low, which drives the price up.


Agreed, but even toys have to reasonably priced.

First, who gets to define 'reasonably priced'?

Second, Why do they? Where is that law written? The only 'have to' I
know of, is that the buyer and seller have to agree on the price. If
the seller can't find enough buyers at the price he is asking, and he'd
be selling at cost for any less, then the seller needs to find another
line of business. If the buyer isn't willing to pay the seller's price,
he might want to consider a different product, crochet, or maybe chess.

Personally, I was shocked at the cost of certified ships. I found a
4-seater that I could build from plans. The cost of certified engines
snowed me under. I'm doing an auto conversion of a Mazda 13B. I didn't
'have to' buy anything. No one is, or should be, required to sell me a
toy at what I think is a resonable price.



So, get over the price-gouging bull, until your ready to introduce the
Arnaut CloudWunker costing less than an average family sedan. If you
don't like the prices of the products of offering to you, don't buy it.



He isn't buying. That's the point.

And he's not producing, either. That's my point.

--
This is by far the hardest lesson about freedom. It goes against
instinct, and morality, to just sit back and watch people make
mistakes. We want to help them, which means control them and their
decisions, but in doing so we actually hurt them (and ourselves)."

Morgans wrote:

They can make money laying up fiberglass,
and assembling it for that price.

Some use choppers, but I don't know if that technique would have a good
enough weight/strength for most aircraft panels.

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"bowman" wrote

Some use choppers, but I don't know if that technique would have a good
enough weight/strength for most aircraft panels.

Good point. I had not considered that,

Chopped would not suffice for nearly all airplane parts, unless you made it
really heavy.
--
Jim in NC