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

wrote:
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.

I agree, and that is why I say that some of us in the soaring community
need to rethink what we are doing (those of you with an Antares on
order, carry on 8^).

Marc

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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