High Cost of Sportplanes

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)."