These are not YOUR airplanes - Was: High Cost of Sportplanes

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 01:12:41 -0700, Ron Wanttaja
wrote:

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 03:47:38 -0400, Roger
wrote:

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 23:37:30 -0400, "Gordon Arnaut"
wrote:

Evan,

I don't want to drag this out, I think some good points ahve been made --
however, I don't see why fiberglass airframe construction is going to be
less labor-intensive.

Once you have the moulds constructed, fiberglass lends itself well to
making large compound structures as one piece.

There is almost zero opportunity for automation in fiberglass construction,

That depends on your thinking. Fiberglass composite also lends
itself well to putting pieces together.

I dunno, Roger. I've been both to the Glastar factory and the Vans factory. At
Vans, a guy feeds a big piece of aluminum into a big CNC machine and

Agreed, we'd have to change the way we approach the parts making
process particularly with fiberglass, but I think when it comes to
mass production much could be automated. OTOH when it comes to mass
production, the old automotive approach where one press stamps out a
whole bunch of parts ain't a bad way to go. Maybe that was a poor
choice of words as I worked in a metal stamping plant many years ago
in another life. People left a lot of parts in some of those presses.

whango-whango-whango out comes a big pile of RV parts. But then I go see the
Glastar's fiberglass fuselage made, and its spray the release agent onto the
mold, then the gelcoat, then cut pieces of fiberglass and lay them into the
mold, then squeegee on some resin, then apply the foam, then apply another layer

Squeegee? They were using really big paint brushes to apply the vinyl
ester resin and moving a lot faster than I do. Slop it on, squeegee
it out, It's no wonder then have the water line 100 off by only a
1/4 inch on the pilot's side and missed the cut out for the horizontal
stab by about three inches on mine. :-))

Looking at the size of one of those fuselage shells, two layers of
fiberglass, half inch of foam, and two more layers of fiberglass.
Vinyl Ester Resin is not noted for taking a long time to gel and has a
notoriously short pot life, unless you work in a refrigerated room.

of fiberglass and more resin, etc. etc., lather, rinse, repeat, then let the
assembly tie up your every expensive mold while the resin cures.


Add heat. It really speeds things up:-))
But, yes, the way we do it now is very time consuming...and expensive.
Metal working is a much more mature field while glass/composite is
still relatively new.
I think "Vans" has done a great deal to speed the production and make
the parts go together faster.

Speaking of Glasair. I have over 1100 hours into those nice looking
parts and they are *almost*, *starting* to look like they *might* be
related to an airplane. There's a reason the "jump start" G-III is
expensive. sigh. Of course had I started in and kept at it, mine
would be flying now, or they'd have fitted me for one of those tight
fitting jackets with the long arms that wrap around.

The G-III has a lot of possibilities for streamlining the building
process and not just by having the factory put a bunch of parts
together for the builder. Of course the G-III is one of the most labor
intensive kits out there so it has a *lot* of room for streamlining.

One time consuming area is the firewall along with the engine mount
attach point reinforcements. There are 6 attach points. Between them
you are looking at 96 individual lay-ups.

Looked to me that manufacturing aircraft parts in fiberglass is a *lot* more
effort...though I allow that less-skilled workers can probably be used.

I think they were training a new one when they did the shells for
mine. As far as skill though, I think the only reason that is possible
is the tremendous excess strength built into the designs which make
them tolerant of far less than perfect construction technique. After
all, I'm building one... OTOH I may never get it finished.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Ron Wanttaja

P.S. Wanna hear something *really* scary? My spell checker passed
"whango-whango-whango" but hiccuped on "gelcoat."

I find mine often fails on relatively common terms. It thinks Gelcoat
should be gel-coat.:-))

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 18:43:10 GMT, Evan Carew
wrote:

Ron,

& yet, when that part comes out of the mold, it is essentially flyable.
With the aluminum CNC paradyme, you get predrilled holes in aluminum you
then have to bend, & thousands of rivet holes you have to debur. hours,
hours, & hours of deburring...

Yah, but I've never spent much time "block sanding" on Aluminum
airplanes.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 18:43:10 GMT, Evan Carew wrote:

Ron,

& yet, when that part comes out of the mold, it is essentially flyable.
With the aluminum CNC paradyme, you get predrilled holes in aluminum you
then have to bend, & thousands of rivet holes you have to debur. hours,
hours, & hours of deburring...

I think deburring isn't quite that much of a time hog. I've never heard an RV
or Murphy or Zenith builder complain about the time needed for deburring, while
I have heard a lot of whines about sanding from the composite crowd (but many of
those are building moldless composites, not molded). If deburring were that
much of an impact, outfits like Cessna, Piper, and Boeing would have come up
with an alternative 50 years ago.

Those rare times where I'm bashing something from aluminum, I just keep an old
battery-powered drill handy with a countersink chucked up. Drill the holes,
disassemble the part, go zzzz-zzzz-zzzz with the countersink, then start pulling
rivets.

I think your point is valid in a way, as a metal-airplane builder spends a lot
of time assembling the part with clecos, drilling it, disassembling it,
deburring it, priming it, RE-assembling it, then driving rivets. But, geeze,
4,000 RV completions. Obviously it isn't that much of a hassle.

Ron Wanttaja

We were talking about an enclosed aircraft with a fiberglass or aluminum
body, 4 stroke engine, and 2 seats with a cruse of ~100 knots.

We were? In that case, forget it. You can't sell that for under $60K
and make a profit in anything less than quanities of 10,000. Anyway,
what's the purpose of that speed? You can't go anywhere anyway. You
are limited to daytime flying only, and only in good weather. That's
not a practical traveling machine, that's a toy.

Er, I just bought mine & even my radio cost ~1k.

Portable aviation radios start at $200. And they're not required
anyway.

See, what we've got here is a mismatch in expectations. LSA's are not
supposed to be C-150 lookalikes/workalikes. There's a reason the C-150
and similar modern 2-seat trainers don't fit into the LSA category -
they're not supposed to. These are not supposed to be planes that
provide utility. They're supposed to be sport aircraft - stuff you fly
for the fun of flying.

We're not talking aerial Mercedes here - we're talking aerial Harley.
So where are they? Where are the UL's and UL trainers being sold as
LSA's? When we can make one that sells new for what a Harley costs,
we'll be getting somewhere.

Michael

Hello Bill. I hope you know that if you have been denied a medical, you
will probably not be able to get a sport pilot certificate. Anyway,
this is what I have been told. Good Luck to you. Ron

Also, aren't most of these birds made offshore, where labor and parts
are "so much lower than the US?"

David M.


ls wrote:

Gordon Arnaut wrote:

I agree.

There is probably a very big market of existing pilots who are not
airplane owners. I think there are over half a million pilots in the
US, but only about half of them own their own airplane.

I bet that almost every one of those airplane-less pilots would love
to become an owner if it wasn't such a poor value proposition. Notice
I'm not saying "if they could afford it." There are a lot of people
who could afford to own an airplane but refuse to because it is such
poor value that it offends their sensibilities. So they rent instead,
or don't even bother flying anymore.

I think sportplanes are just the thing for a lot of these people -- a
nice little Sunday flyer that is also capable of modest cross-country
travel. Cheap to buy and economical to own.

Well that was the dream anyway. But with people trying to sell you a
$50,000 sportplane for $100,000, you get that same old sinking feeling
again and say "why bother?"

Regards,

Gordon.


To my knowledge, when I got my current plane and took my BFR, I was the
only functional Sport Pilot in our area (central TX). There may be
others by now, but that was back in June, I believe and the rule had
been in force since the previous sept.

I agree that the bang/buck ratio is the primary difficulty with E/SLSA.
Indeed, those manufacturers have a pretty formidable task on their
plates - convincing all these pilots to pay 80 grand for $30-40K
airplanes and creating an entire industry off doing so. That's a "tough
room" for anyone.....

Now, going back to the local SP statistics again, I know of zero SLSA
that have been bought in the local area. I've not yet seen an ELSA
either, and in fact have not even seen a "gELSA" (an uncertificated
light plane that doesn't meet part 103 that has been granted an AC under
the 'grandfathering' provision good thru 2008). The lion's share are
either already certificated light a/c that fit within the SP LSA
limitations (champs, and so on) or Exp A/B airplanes that also fit in
thos limitations (like my airplane). Well, so far my actual statistic is
only one, me, but among the other prospective SP's that I know, the
intention is to go the same route. None has any intention of buying an
SLSA.

So what it really looks like to me is, as a manufacturer, SLSA makes
right at 0.00 sense at the current time. You can do a LOT better by
simply continuing to make your current kits intended for Exp A/B and
selling those to prospective Sport Pilots. Retooling cost == 0.00....

That is apparently exactly what most manufacturers are doing. Those that
don't have kits that meet the SP LSA limitations, such as Vans, seem to
be toying with the idea of kits only, with ELSA or SLSA far down on the
list of priorities.

The only cases I can think of where an SLSA would make any sense at all
would be rental and training. I think a catch-22 in such a thing has
already been noticed by someone in this thread and wrote about it....
And even there, the alternatives still seem to be better, so this isn't
going very well either.

So I think the task at this point to get something like SLSA to be
viable is an onerous one, particularly because only a little research is
needed to really discover how much airplane 80 grand can really buy you.

For sure, if someone put a gun to my head and made me spend 80 grand of
my estate on a flying machine, it dame sure isn't going to be no light
sport aircraft. Medical or no, it's going to be an RV 8 or better.... or
3,4 copies of my plane, or... you get the idea....

As I always say, Caveat Emptor.....

LS
N646F



"Jimbob" wrote in message
...

On Sat, 17 Sep 2005 23:19:54 GMT, "Lakeview Bill"
wrote:


Start with this: How many people do you know who own a $45,000 SUV?

Light Sport Aircraft are not intended for people who are already
pilots.

The whole purpose of the Light Sport Certificate is to draw new people,
along with new money, into the sport side of aviation.



Maybe, but the bright businessman would understand that existing
pilots are a far more readily available source of funds until the
sportpilots start rolling in. I live in charlotte, #25 in city size
and North Carolina was the birth of powered flight. I don't know of
ANYONE who is offering sportpilot. And the planes are selling now.
Ergo, who are they selling to?

In reality, I see SP as a bust until someone gets the price down. The
potential market isn't that blame rich. They are upper-middle class.
80K is a lot of scratch. 40-50K is an extra SUV.



Jim

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

"rons321" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello Bill. I hope you know that if you have been denied a medical, you
will probably not be able to get a sport pilot certificate. Anyway,
this is what I have been told. Good Luck to you.

Ron, if you were denied one time, and are able to get the medical back
again, that is all that counts. You can get it back, and not try to get it
again, then you can do the sport plane flying. No problem; just don't get
turned down, -then- try to fly under sport rules.

Clear?
--
Jim in NC

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 10:37:16 -0400, "Gordon Arnaut"
wrote:

Ron,

That's a good comparison. A Glasair or Lancair kit costs about double what a
Van's kit costs and it still takes about the same build time to complete. In
fact even the Van's quick-build costs less than a Glasair slow-build and you
get probably less than half the build time.

Ahhh... The Glasair takes a *lot* longer in build time. You are
looking at 4000 plus hours for a G-III or Super II.


And what if the Van's kit were designed to be built with pulled rivets? This
would cut build time dramatically and that slow-build kit could be built in
about the same time it takes to build one of the composite fast-build kits
that cost three times as much.

I think the Vans series are faster, more powerful, and more highly
stressed than the Zenith. It's kinda like apples and oranges.


Look at the Zenith 601, and compare its price to some of the sportplane
composite kits. The composte kits are usually twice as much money.

There are a few planes out there designed around the simplicity of
construction with build times on the order of 500 or so hours. OTOH I
understand the Jabaru has a relatively short build time and is a
combination of composite and metal.


The conclusion has to be that composites are more expensive because it costs
more to make them. No question about it, composite construction involves
lots of hands-on labor.

The way we do it now certainly takes a lot of labor. But the way the
parts are made, the individual lay-ups, there is a lot of room for
simplification (speeding up the construction). Even die cut foam for
the bulkheads and firewall would reduce the build time and increase
the accuracy.


Also composite materials are expensive compared to aluminum. So if there is
no advantage in labor costs and material costs are higher, how does
composite make sense for a cheap airplane? It doesn't.

Again, were we to use a couple layers of fiberglass over a steel tube
frame it would be much faster and easier and a lot cheaper than the
advanced composite. . When you get into the advanced composite using
layers of fiberglass, foam, more fiberglass and resin it can get
complicated and messy.

In addition, if you've ever worked with fiberglass cloth cut on the 45
degree bias the stuff is like working with a bucket full of worms. You
need an outline or form to which it needs to be fitted. Draw the
shape on the cloth, cut on the line and then when you wet it with
resin fit it to a shape where it goes. The stuff can easily change
length and width by as much as 30%. Of course when cut on the 90 or 0
bias the stuff has a tendency to come unraveled with loose threads all
over the place. On top of that the thickness varies. The leading
edge of the horizontal stab is made up of at least 6 layers of roughly
16 pieces. The are about 2 1/2 inches wide, various lengths, and the
ends are cut on a 45. Even with care a straight edge along the
leading edge shows many variations, so you fill and sand, fill and
sand, fill and sand...

Prepreg OTOH costs more, but the thickness is uniform, it uses a
minimum of resin, and holds its shape. It doesn't have that annoying
tendency to come unraveled either.

If you want expensive, the horizontal stab is constructed using foam
and carbon fiber. Look that stuff up by the cost per yard:-))


Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Regards,

Gordon.



"Ron Wanttaja" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 03:47:38 -0400, Roger

wrote:

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 23:37:30 -0400, "Gordon Arnaut"
wrote:

Evan,

I don't want to drag this out, I think some good points ahve been made --
however, I don't see why fiberglass airframe construction is going to be
less labor-intensive.

Once you have the moulds constructed, fiberglass lends itself well to
making large compound structures as one piece.

There is almost zero opportunity for automation in fiberglass
construction,

That depends on your thinking. Fiberglass composite also lends
itself well to putting pieces together.

I dunno, Roger. I've been both to the Glastar factory and the Vans
factory. At
Vans, a guy feeds a big piece of aluminum into a big CNC machine and
whango-whango-whango out comes a big pile of RV parts. But then I go see
the
Glastar's fiberglass fuselage made, and its spray the release agent onto
the
mold, then the gelcoat, then cut pieces of fiberglass and lay them into
the
mold, then squeegee on some resin, then apply the foam, then apply another
layer
of fiberglass and more resin, etc. etc., lather, rinse, repeat, then let
the
assembly tie up your every expensive mold while the resin cures.

Looked to me that manufacturing aircraft parts in fiberglass is a *lot*
more
effort...though I allow that less-skilled workers can probably be used.

Ron Wanttaja

P.S. Wanna hear something *really* scary? My spell checker passed
"whango-whango-whango" but hiccuped on "gelcoat."

Just the labor.

AINut wrote:
Also, aren't most of these birds made offshore, where labor and parts
are "so much lower than the US?"

David M.