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garnaut
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The Cost of Flying Is Down
from garnaut
wrote 2 years 46 weeks ago
You know how the only thing you see on Cuban streets is cars that are 50 years old ? All the finned wonders of the 1950s---Chevys, Buicks, a few Caddies, all of them held together by baling wire and bubble gum.
That's what the future of general aviation looks like. Those old planes, many of which are still serviceable and can be kept airworthy for years more given proper care, are now the only game in town for the non-business, private aviator.
So yeah, the activity will "survive" in this way, pilot population steadily declining, number of hours flown declining too...fading away slowly.
I just read Robert Goyer's blog entry on the cost of flying and he brings out some good hard numbers and astute observations about our state of extreme indebtedness, compared to earlier years---and then reaches the exact opposite conclusion, that it's all in our heads.
Well I think you folks at Flying are in denial. Fifty year-old airplanes and tying your airplane down outside are not the solution that is going to bring people back to "hobby" flying.
At the same time that hobby flying has been dying, all kinds of motorized recreational pursuits have exploded. Bass boats, watercraft, snowmobiles, etc. The same guy that spends $30,000 on a bass boat would probably spend $50,000 on a fun little flyer (or at least some percentage of that demographic would).
Not too long ago I read about a spiffy-looking little amphib that the manufacturer decided to sell at one of the upscale department stores. They got piles of orders from people who don't even fly. (And it cost $150,000)
People are attracted to shiny gadgets that go vroom vroom. If they have wings and can fly that makes them all the more special.
But if a few of these people go to a local field and take a lesson or two in a clapped out tin bucket that can't even fly straight, paying $150 an hour for the privilege, it does not take long to say "no thanks" and go with the bass boat.
The LSA's are so short on substance, yet so pricy, that they are not the answer that will attract this demographic. I would love to see a company like Bombardier Recreational Products get into the light aircraft game.
I mentioned on another thread that they have incredibly robust powerplant technology that could work just as well in a plane is it does in a boat or snowmobile. They could stamp out thousands of airframes a year using the same kind of manufacturing they use to make the watercraft.
The efficiencies of scale are there if you can offer a spiffy little plane at $40 to $50 thousand. I would bet that thousands of non-flyers would be drawn like bees to honey.
Is the FAA Ready to Pull the Plug on LSA Certification Standards?
from garnaut
wrote 2 years 46 weeks ago
I'm a flight test engineer and commercial pilot and have flown several LSA models. Every one, except notably the Tecnam series from Italy, have had improperly calibrated airspeed indicators.
I have also seen airspeed calibration problem mentioned by the NTSB in several LSA accident reports.
Some of these manufacturers list impossibly low stall speeds, like the Piper Sport (made by a Czech company), which claims to stall at 26 mph. If you do the simple math, this would require a lift coefficient of over 4, something that has never been achieved on any airplane with the most elaborate LE and TE high lift devices, never mind a simple wing with plain flaps.
The flying qualities on some of the LSA I have flown have been substandard. Poor control harmony, high breakout forces, difficulty trimming, etc.
Now I am all for a good simple airplane that is affordable to the average hobby flyer. Unfortunately the LSA is not that airplane. Fifty years ago you could buy a brand new 4-seat Cherokee for ten thousand dollars, which is about $70,000 in today's money.
Okay things have changed, but why should it be impossible to have a $70,000 2-seater that is a proper airplane? When you look at what you are getting for $100,000 for an LSA, it is a worse value proposition, by far, than a $200,000 Skyhawk.
When the LSA idea was born people were expecting a fly away airplane for $50,000 and huge sales. None of that has happened. The LSA sales are still a fraction of the much more expensive piston GA numbers.
I think many of the companies that have jumped into the fray have no business being in the airplane manufacturing business. Some of them are what one might call shade-tree operations...
Personally I think it is crazy to let manufacturers self-certify. There has to be some meaningful oversight. Why not take a page out of the European approach which is much more sensible?
The VLA rules allow bigger planes with a weight of 750 kg (1650 lb) and slightly higher stall speed, but still VFR day only. The certification process is loosened and streamlined but it is still a certification process.
This whole LSA idea needs an overhaul along the VLA lines.
And let's not forget that the FAA is not acting without cause. The reason is the high LSA accident rate and the aircraft problems that have been found post-accident.
Obama Duplicitous about Bizav
from garnaut
wrote 1 year 45 weeks ago
Robert, I absolutely care about those 20,000 folks who have lost their jobs in the industry. I also care about the hundreds of thousands of ordinary folks in other industries who continue to be downsized for one reason alone---billionaire investors who demand the utmost return, which forces manufacturers to outsource industry lock stock and barrel---to China, India, etc.
The bizjet industry is on solid footing. I'm an engineer in the Part 25 sector and this downturn is temporary. It will bounce right back in the next year or two. A lot of it is due to bad PR due to excesses by some. Nothing wrong with business aviation, but people are getting a bit peeved at a billionaire class that thumbs its nose at ordinary folks who are standing in bread lines...
Obama is kicking an easy target. That's what politicians do.
And how many thousands were employed in the piston industry 30 or 40 years ago, when the industry was pumping out 10,000 new pistons a year? I remember when my dad bought a brand new Skywagon on amphib floats---and ended up flying our family for 5000 hours in that plane. On a pharmacists's income.
I don't know any middle class professional today who can afford to spend half a million on a new plane. That is the problem. When my dad bought his plane you could buy an entry-level plane for about two or three times the cost of a new car. Today a Skyhawk costs TEN TIMES the average car.
That is the problem. As an engineer I KNOW that an affordable airplane can be designed and built. Industry can do amazing things. America built over a quarter of a million airplanes during the half decade of World War 2. It is bizarre that we are now dinking around with 700 pistons a year each costing half a million.
We need to be pumping out tens of thousands of "Volkswagens" of the air for $50,000 apiece so that ordinary folks can get back in the air---just like in decades past. Frankly I don't see Flying doing anything to promote this idea, or even awareness of it.
The first step is discussion. There is a crisis and there has been for a long time. New airplanes have been out of reach for about the last couple of decades. Yet nothing has ever been said about this, intelligent or otherwise. It's like the problem does not exist.
Is the FAA Ready to Pull the Plug on LSA Certification Standards?
from garnaut
wrote 2 years 46 weeks ago
Regarding the Piper Sport stall speed, I was going by what Flying reported in its review of the airplane, a claimed full-flaps stalling speed of 26 knots. The author noted that this seemed "almost unbelievable."
I agree that the 2-seat trainers from 50 years ago weren't that great either. But they cost peanuts in their day. An average working guy could go out and buy a new C-150 or similar and learn to fly in it.
That is not true for the $100,000 (plus) sportplane. The only people buying these are an older demographic with more disposable money, and who can no longer get a medical.
The young demographic is completely priced out of this ball game.
Is the FAA Ready to Pull the Plug on LSA Certification Standards?
from garnaut
wrote 2 years 46 weeks ago
That's a very useful exercise to look at numbers in black and white.
It is shocking. I've been wondering why this situation exists for a long time. It may have to do with the decline in real purchasing power.
Many economists are saying that the real standard of living has been declining for about 20 years or more. If you look at the prices for just about anything, houses, cars, etc. back in the '60s and the level of wages at that time, it took a lot fewer years of labor to buy these items, just like airplanes.
Probably airplanes have gone up at a higher rate than these other big-ticket items, but overall we can buy less with the money we are paid today than in times past.
That is the inescapable conclusion. One of my favorite economists, Paul Craig Roberts, who used to be Deputy Treasury Secretary in the Reagan administration, documents extensively how our outsourced economy, combined with growing share of economy taken by banks and finance sector, runaway military spending, etc, has impoverished the people. Bit by bit without noticing.
It is a completely different economy now and I think it would be very difficult to bring a C-150 to market for 50 thousand. It was possible when this country was an honest economy, but not any more.
Look at Cessna's C-162. Built in China at practically slave labor cost and still over 100 k. So it's not just labor cost.
Materials cost more today than in past, again relative to purchasing power. The powerplant is also much more costly today in relative terms.
I think there are some innovations that could be used to drive these costs down, powerplant and materials. Have you looked at a bass boat lately? Look at the 2-stroke direct-injected engines (Evinrude ETEC being the leader).
As clean and fuel efficient as the best EFI 4-stroke (actually slightly better). A 300 hp engine costs about $17,000 brand new. That includes the gearbox and everything else to mount on the back of the boat.
These marine engines are meant to go at full power continuously and have a pretty conservative power loading per displacement. If anything they are built to take more heat load than aircraft engines. They will run for 5 hours with no oil.
The systems on these engines are incredibly robust and full electronic. A 300 amp charging system. Electronic mags. Full engine management.
The powerhead (engine itself) weighs less than half of what a 300 horse aircraft engine weighs. Cost is a small fraction. How much does a new IO550 cost? Sixty thousand? Weight is 600 lbs?
A 100 to 130 hp V-4 version of this engine costs under 10 grand and would be lighter installed i an airplane than a rotax. Direct injection 2-strokes will also run on diesel.
Light aircraft manufacturers need to start innovating a little. They are using the exact same formula from 50 years ago, which no longer works in today's economy.
I do believe that a $75,000 VLA type airplane is possible. And that it could be a very good airplane, something that is not true of the LSAs that I have seen.
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