Upcoming Piper Announcement @ SnF

Kenny Phillips said:
It's rather labor intensive to drill, debur, dimple, and drive ten thousand rivets. Perhaps the drilling is easier, with today's CNC stuff, but even a C-150 would take quite a few human-hours to build. No "vast improvement" until you get robots involved, which means mass production, not a few dozen a year.
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Got to read what I wrote there Kenny... some, not all...
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Excuse my yawn, please.
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Yawn? Are you kidding me?

When I walked in their tent and saw it, I cracked up. I even asked the young kid who was posing as a rep if this was Vero Beach’s idea of an April Fools joke. He didn’t get my humor. Best laugh I had all week.

Hardly a yawn. :D
 
Let's see, Piper announces a new low price trainer and then turns around and announces the L3 is purchasing 240 of them and Seminoles, oh wait, it’s actually 240 Archers and Seminoles. :rolleyes:
 
SoonerAviator said:
2. Vans seems to be doing just fine making a profit on RV10 kits at $50K/pop. I can't imagine there's a ton more cost to build an M20J/C172/PA28 in terms of materials (especially with volume discounts). So call it $50K in materials, $50K for engine, $10K panel. $110K is about what you can build an RV-10 for..
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No.

Try $150K, and that's VFR with a basic interior, basic paint scheme, and with 3,000 hours of your labor. In a factory you might get away with 1000 hours of labor at $100/hr (to cover the wages, benefits, supervision, tools, and floorspace), meaning you're in at $250k before liability insurance, after service support, sales expenses, and profit. Now you're looking at the price of a new Piper...

(Says the guy who's just about finished with an RV-10 that's gonna be VFR with a basic interior and paint scheme.)
 
kyleb said:
No.

Try $150K, and that's VFR with a basic interior, basic paint scheme, and with 3,000 hours of your labor. In a factory you might get away with 1000 hours of labor at $100/hr (to cover the wages, benefits, supervision, tools, and floorspace), meaning you're in at $250k before liability insurance, after service support, sales expenses, and profit. Now you're looking at the price of a new Piper...

(Says the guy who's just about finished with an RV-10 that's gonna be VFR with a basic interior and paint scheme.)
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OEMs probably have better pricing from suppliers and no/fewer middlemen in the supply chain, so that argument doesn’t work.

They also aren’t subbing out work the home builder is.

A QB RV-10 kit is ~$65K and that includes partial parts, material, labor, shipping, overhead and profit.

OEMs also don’t charge all production, sales, and staff overhead to one product and call it a day. I doubt Piper is hiring a fleet of sales dudes, much less one to handle the plethora of ‘limited quantity’ orders made for delivery.

The only business case I see making sense in this is that Brand P is probably hedging their bets with a rebranded/warmed over version of left over parts bin assembly from the 700 trainers on back order right now.

I haven’t seen details of the L3 order for 240 planes, but it’d be interesting to see if theIr Archer TX ships with the IO-370 derated to 180hp.
 
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As a kid I didn't think that aircraft pricing was that out of line. Now that I'm a senior citizen the price of a Skyhawk, Cherokee or Mooney seems completely out of line, regardless of the reasons given. Yes, I agree that the manufacturers are catering to the flight schools because they are the only ones that can afford to buy a new aircraft. The pricing problem isn't going to heal itself and I feel that anyone over 60 years of age has lived through the "golden age" of aviation as far as affordability is concerned.
 
TCABM said:
OEMs probably have better pricing from suppliers and no/fewer middlemen in the supply chain, so that argument doesn’t work.

They also aren’t subbing out work the home builder is.

A QB RV-10 kit is ~$65K and that includes partial parts, material, labor, shipping, overhead and profit.

OEMs also don’t charge all production, sales, and staff overhead to one product and call it a day. I doubt Piper is hiring a fleet of sales dudes, much less one to handle the plethora of ‘limited quantity’ orders made for delivery.
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Van's is getting better pricing on engines and related stuff than anyone in the business. They sell more of 'em. They also sell the uncertified versions, which cost less due to the shorter paper trail.

That $65k Quickbuild is missing a bunch of stuff. You do want seatbelts, nav lights, landing lights, ventilation, and a host of other things, right? In the certified world you'd also have to pay for the paper trail. Don't forget the FWF kit (exhaust, hoses, oil cooler, baffles, plus a bunch more), a prop @$8k, and the spendy engine. You're at $65k firewall forward on a -10.

As for Piper's cost of sales, I assume sales are on commission. Sell an airplane, pay a commission. Overhead costs? In the certified world, you have to document and track ever part, every change to the design, etc. That's a buncha overhead that you've gotta pass to customers.

From a direct cost standpoint, the main differences between the reworked Piper and the RV-10 are the engine (the RV-10's engine costs $20k more), a constant speed prop and governor (figure a $7k premium) and the fact that the Piper is probably less labor intensive. It was designed to be a cheap airplane to produce when Fred Wieck (sp?) designed it 50+ years ago.
 
EppyGA said:
Let's see, Piper announces a new low price trainer and then turns around and announces the L3 is purchasing 240 of them and Seminoles, oh wait, it’s actually 240 Archers and Seminoles. :rolleyes:
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If you actually watch the announcement, Piper specifically said that this is going to be aimed at the *small* flight school segment, and that production will only be about 25 units a year. So, I wasn't at all surprised that their *largest* order ever didn't have any of these.
 
The Chinese must have offered them a killer deal to be the launch OEM for that engine . I wonder what the TBO and the cost for an overhaul runs.
 
SoonerAviator said:
1. I wasn't aware that Mooney was still selling the M20J . . . must have missed that in their product lineup which mainly focuses on trying to sell $700K+ Ovations/Ultras. If you had tooling and processes down to a science after having made 10,000 M20Js for a few decades, you think there's any R&D/tooling/depreciation that is still having to be absorbed? God I'd hope not. So you're left with the cost of the raw materials and the labor to assemble. I really hope we're not saying that a M20J has labor/materials over worth over $150K (assuming non-glass panel).

2. Vans seems to be doing just fine making a profit on RV10 kits at $50K/pop. I can't imagine there's a ton more cost to build an M20J/C172/PA28 in terms of materials (especially with volume discounts). So call it $50K in materials, $50K for engine, $10K panel. $110K is about what you can build an RV-10 for, from what I've gathered, if you don't go crazy on panels/upgrades. So, Cessna has to add the value of labor into the mix. Call it $30K if you want. So we're around $150K in cost to build. You're telling me that Cessna has to turn around and sell that for 50%+ margins to make the numbers work? If you allocate the cost of all of Cessna's overhead expenses to a product line like the C172/C182, it's going to drive the price through the roof.

I'm not talking about expanding the market, per say. I made no implication that if Cessna/Piper just dropped their prices, thousands of people would come running to the table with money in hand. I'm saying that the pricing of current aircraft like the long-established C172/PA28 series ensures that no one but revenue-generating businesses (flight schools) are going to be purchasing new. Hell, lump the straight-legged C182 into the mix, since aside from the engine, there really shouldn't be an appreciable difference in price . . . you think there wouldn't be some people/flying clubs lining up to buy a sub $250K NEW 182?! I bet there would. Cessna would have to accept making 30% margins instead of 50%+, which isn't likely going to happen. As has been mentioned, Cessna/Piper has no interest in investing anything into the legacy SE aircraft, there's just no justification for them when they can earn more profit from the sale of a few Jet-A burners than total annual sales of the C172.

All in all, unless you can see Mooney/Piper/Cessna's internal books, you and I are just speculating anyway. We're just operating under different assumptions, and I assume that it shouldn't cost a major manufacturer a ton of labor to make a product they've been making for the better part of a century.
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Do you realize what would happen to your c182 Q if Cessna suddenly start selling 182 T at 250k?
 
I wonder if the wing spar AD will automatically wrap this thing in its tentacles when it finally drops. That would be insult to injury LOL. :D
 
The non-glass ones are better buy anyway, the factory glass ones are typically stuck with the equipment delivered in them.
 
It was funny at Oshkosh to watch your average Joe look at the Piper Archer on display...looks nice, nothing too special, same basic design for decades. Then they would ask about pricing and find out it was $350K+

I saw that look on their face many times, I think people expect it to cost a little more than a nice car
 
The problem with the aircraft market seems to be the lack of a new aircraft in the pricing "sweet spot."

The Piper 100 vs 100i is a prime example of this... Few people are going to want the 100. It saves you 10% but you get a less equipped model that is going to have less secondary market and for what? Psychologically, it becomes easier to justify paying more the higher the price goes. The logic being "if I'm already spending X, what's another Y dollars" As long as the first digit of the number doesn't move and the second digit changes a relative amount, you'll get people every time with this. That's why so many stored price things for $9.99 or $999.99. It's a penny but psychologically we have an easier time with 9.99 or 999.99 than we do with 10 or 1,000.

Again you can easily see this with the pricing of the 100 vs 100i. At $259,000 they're trying to get you in the "it's not $260,000" mindset but at $285,000 they're trying to offer a contrast that is not significantly higher and since most people would round up to 260 in comparing the 2 numbers so you have 260 vs 285.

So the new market is designed and setup to drive people into the more expensive higher end models which obviously makes business sense in that that's where your typical margin is.

On the other side of the equation we have the used market which has been artificially inflated by the lack of competing new aircraft, dwindling supply of used planes and an overall increase in the price of new planes. Still you have planes ranging from $20-30k and well into the 100's of thousands. Again psychology plays a part in here... People become leery of low prices thinking that there must be something wrong. In addition the difference in equipment runs a wide gamut from brand new panels to planes that haven't had the avionics updated since they were built with many having the shotgun panel predating the standard 6-pack and the mid-plane radio stack that has become so common.

Given a choice between 2 aircrafts with similar histories, most people will go with or price anchor on the better equipped plane even if it costs more than it would to equip the another plane the same way. This again drives people towards the mid and high-end markets.

Price anchoring also drives people away from the new market and into the used market.

I'm not saying that a well equipped 100k plane would have droves of new buyers, after all we are a rather limited market place, but it would put pressure on either side of the equation. Its a mature market though without a lot of innovation overall unlike smartphones for example so their is little competition for "market share" among the manufacturers and naturally neither the manufacturers or private sellers want the "sweet spot" plane because it would drive down their total sales revenues. We can see the effects of a disrupter albeit in small form with Cirrus; when they first came out they were a huge step up from what was generally available for a similar price at the time but they were still out of reach of a significant portion of the General Aviation community which is why they were able to steal those sales early on but have generally leveled out with their competitors. We can also see it with the competition between Garmin and some of the other GPS providers (avidyne) out there since most of the innovation in the last 20+ years has been in avionics; prices are dropping as the manufacturers compete and add features.
 
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Patrojv said:
Do you realize what would happen to your c182 Q if Cessna suddenly start selling 182 T at 250k?
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I don't own a C182Q, but if we're speaking in generalities I'm sure there could be some downward pressure on used aircraft pricing. However, the volumes of new aircraft being purchased wouldn't be so high that it would swing the likely swing the needle too much in the short term. If I'm an aircraft manufacturer, I really don't give a darn what the used aircraft market does when I lower my price to drive higher sales.
 
Pilawt said:
Did they delete the baggage door on this new model, like they did on the Cadet in the late 1980s?
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Related question: did they delete the left wing tank, like Tecnam did in their stripped down P92?
 
apr911 said:
On the other side of the equation we have the used market which has been artificially inflated by the lack of competing new aircraft, dwindling supply of used planes and an overall increase in the price of new planes.
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Well put
 
kyleb said:
Van's is getting better pricing on engines and related stuff than anyone in the business. They sell more of 'em. They also sell the uncertified versions, which cost less due to the shorter paper trail.

That $65k Quickbuild is missing a bunch of stuff. You do want seatbelts, nav lights, landing lights, ventilation, and a host of other things, right? In the certified world you'd also have to pay for the paper trail. Don't forget the FWF kit (exhaust, hoses, oil cooler, baffles, plus a bunch more), a prop @$8k, and the spendy engine. You're at $65k firewall forward on a -10.

As for Piper's cost of sales, I assume sales are on commission. Sell an airplane, pay a commission. Overhead costs? In the certified world, you have to document and track ever part, every change to the design, etc. That's a buncha overhead that you've gotta pass to customers.

From a direct cost standpoint, the main differences between the reworked Piper and the RV-10 are the engine (the RV-10's engine costs $20k more), a constant speed prop and governor (figure a $7k premium) and the fact that the Piper is probably less labor intensive. It was designed to be a cheap airplane to produce when Fred Wieck (sp?) designed it 50+ years ago.
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It's kind of hard to draw any meaningful conclusions on who has "better pricing" since it's apples-oranges on non-certified engine sales through vans, and we don't even know the quantity of engines they sell per year. I would assume Cessna buys around 100-150 per year since that's about how many 172s they sell per GAMA, Piper about half that. In any case, it kind of illustrates my point, doesn't it? That point being when you've got your price so sky-high, your volume drops; then the bean counters say we need to increase price to make the margin back up . . . then sales volumes go down . . . rinse/repeat.

If I were just guessing, I'd think Cessna could get an IO-360 for roughly $50K. List price is a bit higher, but Lycoming will probably shave some profit margin for a guaranteed bulk order. Fixed pitch prop is around $6,500 list, maybe Cessna can get it for $5K. Add another $5K if you want to for ancillary crap. So Cessna/Piper has to drop $60K to power a 172. $10K for a basic 6-pack IFR panel with nav/com. The rest is sheet metal, interior fabric, plexiglass, and paint with the labor to manufacture/assemble it. I still don't see why it's going to cost more than $150K for Cessna/Piper to build unless they didn't update their manufacturing processes and tooling since 1960. The only explanation is some absurd amount of legal/insurance allocation to each airframe built that they work into the cost/pricing decision.
 
SoonerAviator said:
I still don't see why it's going to cost more than $150K for Cessna/Piper to build unless they didn't update their manufacturing processes and tooling since 1960.
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Because there's $100k in labor, supervision, QC, inspectors, tooling, and other factory overhead. Running a factory isn't cheap.
 
Piper Aircraft is owned by the Brunei Ministry of Finance and Brunei just passed legislation approving stoning adulterers and homosexuals to death in violation of international human rights laws. IMHO barbaric legislation like that shouldn't be tolerated anywhere in the world in the 21st century.

I wouldn't have a new Piper if one were given to me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/world/asia/brunei-stoning-gay-sex.html
 
Stan Cooper said:
Piper Aircraft is owned by the Brunei Ministry of Finance and Brunei just passed legislation approving stoning adulterers and homosexuals to death in violation of international human rights laws. IMHO barbaric legislation like that shouldn't be tolerated anywhere in the world in the 21st century.
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Maybe so, but the people who actually work at Piper live in South Florida. They are the ones who would suffer if nobody bought airplanes...
 
kyleb said:
Maybe so, but the people who actually work at Piper live in South Florida. They are the ones who would suffer if nobody bought airplanes...
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That's true, but if I worked for Piper I'd find another job hopefully with another aircraft manufacturer.
 
Stan Cooper said:
Piper Aircraft is owned by the Brunei Ministry of Finance and Brunei just passed legislation approving stoning adulterers and homosexuals to death in violation of international human rights laws. IMHO barbaric legislation like that shouldn't be tolerated anywhere in the world in the 21st century.

I wouldn't have a new Piper if one were given to me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/world/asia/brunei-stoning-gay-sex.html
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I agree. It’s funny though that Isabel Goyer (nee Robert) seems to be supportive of them or at minimum is ignoring this aspect in her writing.
 
Stan Cooper said:
Piper Aircraft is owned by the Brunei Ministry of Finance and Brunei just passed legislation approving stoning adulterers and homosexuals to death in violation of international human rights laws. IMHO barbaric legislation like that shouldn't be tolerated anywhere in the world in the 21st century.

I wouldn't have a new Piper if one were given to me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/world/asia/brunei-stoning-gay-sex.html
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I did not know this. I was looking at buying an arrow or other piper product, and even if it’s used, supporting them is now off the table. I really want a Bellanca Super Viking anyway.


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Only on POA can we segway from crappy Piper re-branding to human rights violation to ethics of consumer choices in a captive audience market....in. one. thread. I effing love this board! :D
 
jallen0 said:
I calculated a passenger / baggage load of 558 lbs after a full tank of fuel is loaded. Not sure why you need a third seat, doesn't seem like you can carry anyone with it.
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Full fuel payload is probably the most useless number in all of aviation.

The plane that I currently fly has full fuel payload of approx. 10000lbs, and it has 76 seats. Are you saying we don't need half of those seats?
 
I have a Warrior II, that has a good duration (>5 hours at 8.5 GPH), modest cruise (110-115 KIAS) and good avionics (Garmin 340, 430W, #2 NavCom, and KT74 transponder (ADS-B) out since 2015 (No rebates then). It's a solid plane, relatively easy to own and operate, and a good instrument platform. Best of all it didn't require the installation of a parachute in order to be certified. If Piper wants to bring back GA, resurrect the Cherokee with a Garmin 175, a NavCom, and a ADS-B In/Out transponder at a price less that a new home, Piper would own GA. If you can't fit in a light plane, stick to buying tickets in sky-buses.
 
Tommar98 said:
I did not know this. I was looking at buying an arrow or other piper product, and even if it’s used, supporting them is now off the table. I really want a Bellanca Super Viking anyway.


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I think you're OK with used. The amount of brand new Piper parts you will buy while owning a used Piper is near zero. The Sultans will get pretty much nothing from you. In the nearly 10 years I've owned my Mooney, I have only purchased 2 parts that were sourced from Mooney and one of those I easily could have bought used, but since insurance was paying... why not go new? I suspect an old Piper is no different.
 
a 45 inch wide injected dakota restart for under 200k would be nice. injected 250hp lyco, aerodynamically improved composite pressure recovery pants, lopresti style cowl, all factory standard gap seals and joint fillets, and flush riveting, would be the cats meow.
 
Tommar98 said:
I did not know this. I was looking at buying an arrow or other piper product, and even if it’s used, supporting them is now off the table. I really want a Bellanca Super Viking anyway.


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How does buying a used Piper support them? (Genuinely curious.) Virtually all parts are either aftermarket or salvage. Or come from other manufacturers (Lycoming, Garmin, etc.)
 
Tommar98 said:
I was looking at buying an arrow or other piper product, and even if it’s used, supporting them is now off the table.
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When most of the legacy fleet was built, Piper Aircraft was closely-held company, run by a family who arguably did more to build and support general aviation and community airports than anyone else. The Chris-Craft company and Bangor Punta acquired controlling interest in 1969; B-P buying out Chris-Craft in 1977. Lear Siegler took over in 1984. After Stuart Millar bought the company in 1987, it slowly spiraled in to bankruptcy.

What emerged thereafter ... is different.
 
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SkyDog58 said:
I agree. It’s funny though that Isabel Goyer (nee Robert) seems to be supportive of them or at minimum is ignoring this aspect in her writing.
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It's quite a leap to say she supports the Sultan just because it isn't addressed in her writing. Besides that, I can do without social commentary in aviation and other subjects. Enough already.

Is the Brunei policy horrible? Absolutely.
 
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