Doc Holliday
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Yea, but a person wouldn't look as cool doing an overhead break in a E/AB Bonanza, or getting out of a Bonanza in a military flight suit.
What attributes do you think new MOSAIC compliant LSA aircraft should have to return General Aviation to 10,000 aircraft sales per year?
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Yea, but a person wouldn't look as cool doing an overhead break in a E/AB Bonanza, or getting out of a Bonanza in a military flight suit.
donjohnston
Pattern Altitude
To be fair, just about every completed (AKA used) E/AB aircraft sells for less than it costs to build.
Ed Haywood
En-Route
That is an oversimplification. Both sides are using everything they can get their hands on, from cheapo hobby drones to cutting edge military hardware. FPV racing drones are getting publicity, but platforms like Lancet, Orlan, Shahed, Bayraktar and Corvo are doing the heavy lifting. Hobby drones don't have the range or jamming resistance to reach more than a few KM deep. Both sides intend to procure literally hundreds of thousands of drones over the next year. There will be a huge wave of innovation associated with that in areas such as autonomy, navigation, communication, EW resilience, AI targeting, swarming, etc. Nothing motivates the mind like survival.
All airplanes fly, and that is something cars don't provide. Beyond that, it depends on the mission. The reason there are thousands of different aircraft is because there are so many different missions and reasons people get into aviation. If we want airplanes to be less expensive, we need to make them simple, easy to operate, and fun to fly. (also high volume production, which sadly, doesn't look like it's gonna happen)
Everyone starts with a simple airplane like that (even if only as a student), and it would significantly reduce the cost of learning to fly. Even though many pilots move on to bigger missions involving more complex & expensive aircraft, they can't do that if the high initial costs hold them back and they never become pilots in the first place.
I agree regulation & certification is a big part of this. The reason people buy new cars is that they are incrementally improving year after year. Better reliability, better efficiency, better safety, more power, lower operating costs, etc. Compare a 1980 Honda Civic to a 2022 Honda Civic - the new one is so much better in every way, it's not even comparable. Yet now compare, a 1980 Cessna 172 Superhawk to a 2022 model. Over 42 years and the new one isn't any more reliable, nor more efficient, nor more powerful. It's essentially the same airplane, just much more expensive.
SoonerAviator
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Right, but it would be new. You wouldn't be dealing with 50+ years of corrosion, mediocre repairs, and a panel full of obsolete equipment. I'd bet if you could build a "Van's A36" for $200K, or a used A36 for $170K, people would come up with the extra $30K.
Tantalum
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(1) It would have to be $50,000
(2) it would have to be easily financed or leased
(3) there would have to be some kind of guarantee of ease of maintenance
(4) must be easy to fly
(5) has to have the Tesla or iPhone wow factor
(6) you need a group of people with the intellectual capability, the desire, and the general mindset
(7) a clear training path. Part 61 schools are generally too inconsistent and hodgepodge to appeal to most people. While the bigger ATP style ones require too much of a commitment and are way too expensive. The manufacturer would have to have some type of education pathway.. part 61 but with a clear structure
(8) has to scream "I am safe"
Cirrus hits on a few of the items above (5, 8, 7 sort of, 4 sort of) and is why they are the only GA manufacturer that is selling anything of volume. Piston Beech/Cessna and Piper are a joke that only survive from the flight schools and other streams of revenue
(2) it would have to be easily financed or leased
(3) there would have to be some kind of guarantee of ease of maintenance
(4) must be easy to fly
(5) has to have the Tesla or iPhone wow factor
(6) you need a group of people with the intellectual capability, the desire, and the general mindset
(7) a clear training path. Part 61 schools are generally too inconsistent and hodgepodge to appeal to most people. While the bigger ATP style ones require too much of a commitment and are way too expensive. The manufacturer would have to have some type of education pathway.. part 61 but with a clear structure
(8) has to scream "I am safe"
Cirrus hits on a few of the items above (5, 8, 7 sort of, 4 sort of) and is why they are the only GA manufacturer that is selling anything of volume. Piston Beech/Cessna and Piper are a joke that only survive from the flight schools and other streams of revenue
Exactly. So if the regulatory route costs more to buy and the non-regulatory Van's route costs more to buy, how does only the regulation get blamed? Cessna, Beechcraft, and the other OEMs have all proven they will spend the millions to certify new aircraft provided there is a viable market to serve. However, most private GA owners do not provide that market or do not want one. Simple economics, no regulations required. This same scenario happened 20+ years ago and the private GA owners didn't bite then either.
What I’d like to know, with all the supposed cheap cutting edge production technologies out there that everybody whines about should be used to make cheaper aircraft… why hasn’t someone taken a worn out Bonanza, Mooney, Piper or Cessna, disassembled it, scanned it, 3D printed a full-size replica, glued it together, slapped a Rotax or two on it, and revolutionize the private GA industry? Not a single regulation is required to do this until time to fly it. So what's the excuse? Should be able to that for what… $100 or so plus the cost of a Rotax or two?
OneCharlieTango
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What you need isn't an airplane, it's a Kardashian. People aren't interested in GA because cool kids aren't doing GA. There are plenty of Millennials and Get Z's flying on YouTube and Instagram, but they aren't known by anyone outside of GA.
Get some honest-to-goodness influencers to take lessons, fly, buy an airplane, etc., and maybe you'll see an uptick. Otherwise, you couldn't give 10,000 airplanes away.
Get some honest-to-goodness influencers to take lessons, fly, buy an airplane, etc., and maybe you'll see an uptick. Otherwise, you couldn't give 10,000 airplanes away.
SkyChaser
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If you're giving airplanes away to Millennials and Gen Z, @2-Bit Speed and I'll take a couple thousand.
Ed Haywood
En-Route
Gen X is the target market. Early 40's to late 50's, well established careers, plenty of equity in house, been investing for decades, money to spend, not yet terrified of retirement. People that buy $75K SUVs would buy a $150K plane.
Peak GA production in the 70's happened when the average WWII vet was in his 50's. Not coincidence.
If Vans could sell a factory built RV-14A with a flat panel and a 5 year warranty for $150K, who here would buy one?
Peak GA production in the 70's happened when the average WWII vet was in his 50's. Not coincidence.
If Vans could sell a factory built RV-14A with a flat panel and a 5 year warranty for $150K, who here would buy one?
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Half Fast
Touchdown! Greaser!
Checkout_my_Six
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I'll let you in on a little clue....parts costs. The parts cost alone, EAB parts and kit costs, are higher than anyone want's to pay....let alone the finished price. It's a non-starter....cause you can't get there from here.
Tantalum
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Icon, in a sense, tried to do this. They missed the mark in a few key areas, costs rose, and we all know about how their publicity went. BUT, their initial outset had the right idea. A fun, affordable, safe plane. They hit the objective components on what is needed, yet it'd be hard to say they've been successful
I truly believe that in 50 years you'll have only EAB and 172 style trainers. Probably electric. The GA fleet will have aged out outside of a few antiques and the people actually buying certificated will be buying turbine.
I truly believe that in 50 years you'll have only EAB and 172 style trainers. Probably electric. The GA fleet will have aged out outside of a few antiques and the people actually buying certificated will be buying turbine.
hindsight2020
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I'd say 20, but your point otherwise stands and I concur.
Half Fast
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Yeah, but we will have all aged out, too, so it won't really matter.
Checkout_my_Six
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But who would believe that my +50 year old plane is selling for almost $200k? Crazy ain’t it?
An RV-10 quickbuild kit is around $85K, another $65K for the engine, that's $150K right there, Then avionics and miscellaneous, you could easily go well above $200K. If Van's was selling ready to fly new aircraft, labor costs would probably add another $200K to that.
Glancing at Barnstormers, used Bonanzas start around $70K and you could be flying one tomorrow, not after a 5 year build time.
Obviously enough people want one that Van's has averaged about 50 RV-10 kits per year in the 20 years since it first flew... but that's far from the 10K/year the OP postulated. Today there are just two used RV-10s on Barnstormers, one for $450K and one for $339K.
It's not that simple. You're not gonna build a flyable airframe out of 3D printed ABS or PLA, and the more advanced 3D printing technologies aren't cheap. Modern automated production works when you're making hundreds of thousands per year, not hundreds.
I was. But the point is a number of people believe the current regulations are preventing them from being able to buy a reasonable new aircraft for $100,000. Its not. And the OEMs prove that is incorrect on a regular basis by using those same regulations to certify new aircraft/engines like the Beech Denali. And that market is probably 60% smaller than the current private GA market. The 2nd half of that discussion brought up by those same individuals is that new technologies exist that should be used vs "hand made" aircraft which is also preventing them from a new aircraft for $100K. And as noted above those new production technologies won't give them their $100K new aircraft either at the numbers being addressed for private GA. Just like its not the regulations fault for no new cheap aircraft. The bottom-line is the private GA owners left the building in the 80's and after their lack of interest during the AGATE programs, Cessna, Beech, Toyota, Piper, and others took their "cheap" new aircraft, engines, components, and ideas and found other avenues to pursue outside of the private GA market. It is what it is.
Half Fast
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Perhaps.
I’ll note, though, that the Vashon Ranger LSA may be bought new for $140k for the base model. https://vashonaircraft.com/ranger-pricing.php Can a simple 2-seat plane with a conventional certificate be sold for anywhere near that?
WDD
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Vintage Snazzy (so my adult children say)
I can't get the mental image of a Kardashian flying a plane and interacting with ATC.
SoonerAviator
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I didn't think you were proposing that Van's build a certified aircraft. I thought you were proposing that they could sell a replica of a Bonanza via quick build kit just as they do their own designs. $200K for an A36 is going to beat just about every used A36 on the market right now. $70K might buy you some clapped out V35s, but it's not even half of an A36.
bflynn
Final Approach
The question isn't necessity, it's how you sell 10k aircraft/year. I'm talking market analysis.
The number of people who believe it's possible for them to fly is limited, so pilots are 0.2% of the population. 10k sales per year represents about 2% of pilots buying an airplane every year, but the product lasts over 50 years if it isn't crashed for stupid reasons. Have you figured out the problem with that market yet?
On top of that, it would mean 100% private ownership of aircraft and there's no way you're going to get every pilot to take on an extra mortgage if airplanes cost more than some houses. The only way to get pilots buying airplanes is to make it affordable to all the pilots, not just the richest.
10k isn't a realistic number, the GA industry delivered just under 1200 airplanes total in 2021. But if you wanted to do that, you have figure out how to sell them cheaply and amortize the cost of certification over many airplanes rather than just a few. The person who can do that will actually make a large fortune in aviation.
bflynn
Final Approach
Speaking of which, what IS Gulfstream Girl up to these day....?
Ed Haywood
En-Route
Here's an interesting list. Amazing that 2 of the 3 highest selling models are 50+ year old designs. Note the scarcity of LSA on that list.
SoonerAviator
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The limitations of most LSA aircraft are probably a big part of that. Being heavily restricted on speed and passenger/weight capacity eliminates them from consideration for most buyers.
MauleSkinner
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I don’t think speed is a major player for anyone buying a 172 or Archer, though. It’s probably more herd mentality than anything else, although “this is what I learned to fly in,” plays a significant role.
Path of least resistance.
Half Fast
Touchdown! Greaser!
MOSAIC might change that. Several LSAs are good for higher weights (Jabiru, Vashon Ranger) and are paper-limited to comply with LSA regs.
MIFlyer
Pattern Altitude
Interestingly, if Elon gets gigacasting down, it will save money and components in manufacturing the same way the assembly line did.
It's still a big upfront cost to get a casting for a plane, bit if someone is willing to put the likely $10M into it, they could make their cost per plane really cheap. If they got an engine package that wasn't asinine in volume that would go a long ways too.
I say all this, but I'll end up with an airplane my age when I finally get in position to buy, unless something really changes.
SoonerAviator
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Yeah, but the "people" buying new 172s and Archers generally aren't "people", they're flight schools. I don't know that "this is what I learned to fly in" has much to do with it.
MauleSkinner
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Back when Beech had quality, Piper had production, and Cessna had marketing, that WAS the marketing plan. I don’t think the average consumer-sheep has changed much.
Not to mention the fact that most instructor certificates seem to be model-specific.
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SoonerAviator
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I'm not implying otherwise from a marketing perspective. I'm stating that the 172s Cessna is selling are being purchased almost exclusively by flight schools, not people who just want a new C172 because that's what they trained in. If Cirrus was pricing the SR20 at the same price as a new C172, you'd probably never see another new 172 sold. Even the flight schools would probably switch over because of the sleek/modern appeal. If Vans had a certified RV-10 available for sale at the same price (or less) than a new C172, there wouldn't likely be many people buying the C172. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if a manufacturer were able to come into the market and produce a certified "C172" competitor for $250K to take over the flight school demand, that Cessna would just drop the 172 product line altogether. Textron doesn't likely make enough margin on them to care, they'd rather sell an extra Caravan or two and make more profit than a dozen C172s.
The Cessna marketing was to get them to buy a C177/C182/C210 because they were similar to what they learned to fly in, but still considered an "upgrade".
Tantalum
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The apples : oranges here are the 172 and PA-28. These aren't bought by private owners, it's schools. Individuals are not buying new 50 year old designs, they buy SR-22 as the graph shows, Otherwise the Bonanza would be on here, but it didn't even make the cut with how few were sold.
wanttaja
En-Route
And I'll point out that the design of the third of those three highest selling models is 20+ years old....
Here's some artwork for an upcoming article showing the number of registered Special Light Sport Aircraft airplanes over the past twenty years...
It does appear that demand is flattening out somewhat, though that'll probably change with MOSAIC.
Ron Wanttaja
I think that's a function of the market (i.e. schools) not believing that new build designs can take the abuse that a lifetime of student pilots can put them through, or are economically fixable when they inevitably break (comparing aluminum with spring steel fixed gear to fiberglass monocoque).
Checkout_my_Six
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Cessna 152's won't carry us fat people like they did back in the 80's.....
SoonerAviator
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I'm sure that's a significant part of it. Not to mention having to get mechanics familiar with a new model and it's idiosyncrasies. However, if they could get a discount of $50K per aircraft over the cost of a C172, using less money (capital) can be pretty persuasive.
Ed Haywood
En-Route
Have heard that said, but have not seen actual data to support. Do you have some?
If you want to reduce maintenance hassles and expenses, it makes sense to own the airplane with highest production numbers ever made, having been produced since the 1950s, and that is still in production today.
List of most-produced aircraft - Wikipedia
SoonerAviator
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Not sure I've seen anything specifically in print, but I see headlines that say "ERAU to receive 48 new Skyhawks this year to update/replace fleet", then see the same thing for Kansas State or similar schools. Probably one of those inferences.