Fix the high cost [Was:] High Cost of Sportplanes

TaxSrv wrote:
"Bret Ludwig" wrote:

The LSA will be cost-effective when 10,000 units in two or three
years
is a realistic goal.


FAA's projection is actually for about 10,000 LSA planes in the
total fleet, but flat at that level thereafter, after a few years.

This includes all types of LSAs, including previous "fat
ultralights" now to be in compliance. If there's a dozen or two
major players to produce the planes we'd prefer -- the top end of
LSA limits-- that's not much annual production for each of the
players, so costs are a real factor. With FAA projection of a
future flat market, what decision does an investor make to design
and produce the best performing LSAs?

Easy, don't get involved.

On the other hand, IBM predicted the world market for computers at a
two-digit figure. There are a lot of things to figure in, and I'd be
crazy to say I understood any of them really well.

Are the population dynamics of the nation conducive to LSA growth?
Will the initial spate of fatalities in LSAs result in a onerous
crackdown, the FAA washing its hands of the whole thing like the FCC
did with CBs, or what? Will LSAs displace existing two seat standard
category aircraft? What will happen to fuel and aluminum prices? Will
other countries adopt rules conducive to these types of aircraft and
create a light-lightplane industry making them far cheaper than we
could?

Since day one I thought LSA was a complicated solution to a simple
problem and that any aircraft built with present technology meeting its
requirements to be something I wouldn't particularly want. Since my
idea of a good all around two seater is a T-6 (the real one, although I
wouldn't turn the ersatz one down if they let me fly it with bang seats
unloaded), I anm not the target market!

But the fact is no one really knows. My guess is it will sell SOME
number of aircraft, but that the US government will manage to throttle
it back if it were unexpectedly successful. Just a SWAG.