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#31
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soaring into the future
On Dec 26, 1:31 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
Bill Daniels wrote: "Marc Ramsey" wrote in message Affordable glider will only come if a significant portion of the community starts rethinking what they want out of the sport (I think Tony's adventures in his Cherokee may be the wave of the future 8^). I doubt the traditional glider manufacturers would ever consider addressing such a market... Marc I love Tony's Cherokee adventures. However, the sad truth is that if the Cherokee was to be put into commercial production today, it would cost even more than the LS-4. When you take the route of a deliberately designing a low performance glider, you set a trap for yourself by building a glider few will buy. PW-5 is example "A". You're misreading what I'm saying. It makes no sense to commercially produce a Cherokee using present day technology. But, I think the soaring community has worked itself into a corner where little compromise is possible. Perhaps the PW-5 failed because it's performance just wasn't high enough, but that suggests one either needs to find a way to drastically reduce (50 to 75%) the production cost of a typical standard class glider, or convince a sizable portion of the community that there is more to soaring than glider performance. Somehow, the latter seems more practical to me. Marc Perhaps the PW-5 failed because it's performance just wasn't high enough, but that suggests one either needs to find a way to drastically reduce (50 to 75%) the production cost of a typical standard class glider, or convince a sizable portion of the community that there is more to soaring than glider performance. Somehow, the latter seems more practical to me. Well, the PW-5 did not failed. It was designed to meet the requirements and concept promoted by the FAI. That concept called for glider with L/D in low 30-ties. So, it wasn't the glider as much as the pilots who failed by demanding more performance and not understanding the concept. The "One Design" class will fail again in the future regardless of what kind of glider is used for that specific purpose. And that is sad. Jacek Pasco, WA |
#32
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soaring into the future
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#33
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soaring into the future
Realistically speaking..................if the "subject" sailplane was
made of modern composites and made in China, and was available for under $35k......would people buy it? Brad |
#34
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soaring into the future
Brad wrote:
Realistically speaking..................if the "subject" sailplane was made of modern composites and made in China, and was available for under $35k......would people buy it? Yes, but I think the yuan is heading for readjustment, which will drive the price higher. You should consider Mexico or elsewhere in Central America, it will provide some viable work down there, and make the Republican glider pilots up here that much happier 8^) Marc |
#35
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soaring into the future
You should consider Mexico or elsewhere in Central
America, it will provide some viable work down there, and make the Republican glider pilots up here that much happier 8^) Marc well, to tell the truth..................to make the repubs happy, I could probably hire a bunch of illegal ones right here in Washington State and make it right in town! Brad (tongue only slightly in cheek) |
#36
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soaring into the future
On Dec 25, 9:11*pm, Brad wrote:
I was browsing thru one of the Yahoo glider N.G.'s today and read where the World Class design may get ressurected. That got me to thinking: What would the ideal recreational next generation sailplane sailplane look like? I reckon it would be a Discus bT. Easy to fly, easy to rig, great performance, doesn't need a crew. As, well, everyone has says it's all down to production costs. Modern gliders cost a lot because the skills to build one are expensive - the cost is the labour, not the material. You can lower the labour costs by sourcing production from where it's cheaper, just as DG and Schempp- Hirth have done with contracts at factories in Eastern Europe with labour costs are less than in Germany. However composite production skills can't just be pulled out of thin air; I've seen first hand how good Chinese and Taiwanese metal workers are (exquisite mountain bike frames), but I'm not sure you could just rock up there and find a factory that could build Discuses. Even the Eastern Europeans screwed it up at least once with the DG300, which goes to show the challenges involved. I don't think automated production is a possibility for two reasons. The first is the market - with the way the market for new gliders is, and the way gliding itself is, you couldn't guarantee the production run needed for the set-up costs. The second is it's really not that simple to set up automatic production of composites - I've been following the 787 production story closely since well before things started going wrong. Boeing went all around the world for partners ans their major contractors - KHI, MHI, and Alenia - were the only people in the world who could mass-produce large composite components, and even then those companies have built factories with systems and processes (giant autoclaves, laser cutters, automatic lay-up machines, robot trolleys etc.) which simply didn't exist beforehand. (Which is why Airbus are so far behind Boeing on composite technology - when Boeing was contracting the Japanese for production, Airbus was contracting universities for basic R&D on composite mass-production techniques they could use in-house, knowing that Boeing had basically used up the world's supply of possible composite contractors.) Some of the smaller contractors have indeed messed up, partly leading to the now well-known production problems Boeing is having. Which is in no way bad news for the German manufacturers. Skilled hand- built products command incredible profit margins; as long as the company is well-managed (I've always wondered how RS managed to go bust after the biggest glass production run in gliding history) and has at least a sniff of a potential customer base it's possible to do very well in such a market. At the end of the day I have no problem with the market for new gliders being almost entirely very expensive hand-built products. I'm happy buying 30-year-old aircraft which still fly pretty well and are perfectly affordable. Not sure the US ever saw the influx of glass gliders the UK and Europe did though and if your used market looks like ours. Dan |
#37
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soaring into the future
Why did the 1-26 do so well and is STILL doing well. For crying out
loud, they still have their own contest a billion years after it was introduced! I don't understand it but we ought to really take a hard look at it. I'm not saying that we want brand new 1-26s. I sure don't. Brand new Cherokee IIs either. Tony and I have more fun per dollar in our little wood ships than most out there but we wouldn't mind a little more performance, modern materials and safety features, easier rigging... But paying $25000 for it? Are you kidding?! The PW-5 is a fun glider but it costs a fortune to most people and looks wrong to most of the rest. I don't think performance is the reason it didn't "take off" The new people we need in soaring are only going to desire 40 or 50 to 1 if we teach them that's what they need to have fun, earn badges, have great flights, keep up with their friends. Why cant we design a higher performance homebuilt quick kit that has basic components built by existing manufacturing processes then quality checked and assembled by individuals,clubs, or commercial operations? A modular homebuilt (that satisfies the 51% rule) that handles well, gets better than 35/1, climbs like a woodstock, lands like a PW, and runs like a Discus and costs $10k as a kit and $15k finished. Look at all the creativity and innovation that led to the Cherokee, the BG-12, the Duster, Scanlon, Tern, Javalin, Bowlus, Carbon Dragon, Woodstock, Monerai, the HPs... Sure most of those had "issues" some were real dogs, some were great. But, they all showed a creativity that seems lacking today. Imagine combining the best aspects of these classic American homebuilts and applying modern materials, engineering, and manufacturing to the result. Somebody is going to do it. Some young genius glider kid in Aero E at university with no money thinking outside the box. This isn't rocket science. It's evolution. You can either be part of the new wave or a dinosaur. MM |
#38
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soaring into the future
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 |
#39
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soaring into the future
On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:27:04 -0700, "Bill Daniels"
bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote: [snip] Build it in the US and Europe could buy it for $20K. Build it in the third world and watch the glider community doubt its quality into oblivion ;-) Shawn Lotta truth in that. Even Airbus is talking about shifting production to the US. Say hello to the Cessna/Shenyang 162... http://www.cessna.com/news/article.c...Mmg7MllCu8ZuHg rj |
#40
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soaring into the future
Ralph Jones wrote:
On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:27:04 -0700, "Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote: [snip] Build it in the US and Europe could buy it for $20K. Build it in the third world and watch the glider community doubt its quality into oblivion ;-) Shawn Lotta truth in that. Even Airbus is talking about shifting production to the US. Say hello to the Cessna/Shenyang 162... http://www.cessna.com/news/article.c...Mmg7MllCu8ZuHg Cessna's gone commie, wonderful. Are they going to sell them in Walmart? Shawn |
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