soaring into the future

I don't think the big manufacturers really care about the average joe
with a "medium class" wage. If you need to ask the price of these new
ships then you can't afford one. Not all of us are successful stock
market investors, bankers, real estate sharks, own companies,
etc................I would be willing to speculate that very few
people take out a loan for a $100k sailplane. I don't mean to offend
anyone here, so please don't take it that way.

I just feel, as a wage monkey, that there needs to be an advocate for
the little guy who want's to play, and not have to settle for someone
else's last-years-toy.

I bet a slick looking machine can be built for quite a bit under 40K,
especially if is built here in the US, and the workers enjoy what they
do. This will certainly spin off another discussion on
wages.................but didn't Tor use "cheap" labor to make the
Spirit?

Marc.............care to chime in what the design looks like?

Cheers,
Brad

On Dec 26, 12:05*pm, "Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:
"Shawn" wrote in message

. ..

Marc Ramsey wrote:
Bill Daniels wrote:
For example, how many buyers are there for a brand new LS-4 selling for
$25,000 - quite a few I expect.

Yes, you could sell one to me at that price, the trick is producing using
traditional fabrication techniques for less than $25,000 in materials and
labor. *I don't think it can be done anymore...

IMHO the trick is convincing the manufacturers to ditch the traditional
fabrication techniques, materials, labor, and business model.

Shawn

It won't take any convincing. *The glider manufacturers are a bunch of
really bright guys. *I can assure they know all about the problems of hand
lay up and the benefits of modern production methods.

The problem isn't technical, we have LOTS of great designs, it's economic.
Assure the manufacturer of a 1000+ production run and you'll get cheap (or
at least cheaper) gliders.

To repeat, it's the production run numbers and almost nothing else.
Everything follows from those numbers.

Bill Daniels

The major issues that made the World Class PW-5 a non-starter were;
1) an early FAI requirement that the glider be capable of being
homebuilt. 2) a "non-standard" design (at least in terms of modern
glider configurations). 3) Performance that doesn't get the average
pilot to the next thermal - 38:1 or 40:1 allows a pilot of average
skill to fly X-C on the average day. 4) The mistaken concept that a
small, lightweight glider can be produced at a lower cost than a
typical 15m ship.

Bill is right on the money about production requirements. The
materials in a glider are a much smaller portion of the cost than
labor. The materials cost difference between building a 13m glider and
a 15m ship in negligible. Assuming a viable design was available,
such as the LS-4, the key to building a reasonably economic version is
in production engineering and tooling. I did an extensive tooling
work-up for a client considering WorldClass production a number of
years ago and then a follow-up on another glider project at a later
date. The cost to produce serial production tooling is in the
$100-150K range; then about another $100K is required for production
support fixtures, etc. to create a workable current technology
manufacturing cell.

In the original World Class estimates the consultants predicted a
worldwide demand for I think it was something like 4,000 production
units. Obviously, numbers like that are not in the realm of reality. A
run of 400 gliders over say 10-15 years would be considered a great
success by typical glider production standards.

So the classic manufacturing dilemma is this: It might be possible to
build a glider with less than a $250K up- front investment in tooling,
but the per unit cost would be high because of the labor involved. The
labor can be reduced with a more sophisticated production set-up, but
then the capitol investment increases and the ROI becomes less
attractive. This doesn't even touch on the issues of actually
operating and managing a facility, then certification (ultimately
necessary for a serial production aircraft).

For the most part, the German (European) glider manufacturers operate
in a bubble that exists because they have evolved over a long period
of time. To duplicate that, and then improve it to modern production
capabilities, is a daunting task made more so by the real world
economics of the situation. With that said, we have the technology
and composites know-how to improve the manufacturing state-of-the-art...
what is required is funding that is developmental and long term. So
who has a pile of money they'd like to invest for the good of the
sport of soaring? By the way - Once it was in place, the
manufacturing techniques that could be used to "mass" produce a one-
class design could also be used to produce the most advanced current
design gliders.

Bob Lacovara