www.avweb.com
In fairness to them, stupid rules and fiefdoms always get in the way. When it's not fac-built GAMA syndicate of bad faith actors low-key sabotaging the market until it's nothing but kerosene burners, it's the self-importants over on homebrew land with that 51% purity testing potato. So these startups have nobody else to cater to but the odious bunch that considers price exclusion the feature, not the bug.
That’s because Vashon put the wrong engine on it. *cough needs-a-rotax cough*
I don't disagree rotax is a better engine, but I don't see the O-200-D selection itself being an inflection point. For me the fact it only has 100hp is the inflection point, but I stipulate they were working under the garbage LSA limits in the first place.
That is a sharp assessment and wonderful turn of phrase to describe the phenomenon.
Sadly, it did make a couple of splashes, one of which was fatal (though not the fault of the aircraft).
More than one
None of these will still fly 20 years after they roll off the line.
Why under the table? As the RV-12 is an ELSA, there is no requirement for it to be amateur built. No "51% rule". Buy the kit and pay someone to assemble it. There has been at least one place (other than the Van's contractor) building RV-12s for sale; I've flown one.I mean, put 160hp and make it acro for 150k, give me the inspect authority (LSRM or LSRI if paper convertible to ELSA), and I'll put my money where my mouth is and put an order in right now. The RV-12iS was optioned over 200K, garbage bang/buck. Otherwise, looks like me and 12 of my filipino friends working under the table after they're done uneffing Van's LCP parts in Oregon, is the only prescription to get from here to there as a non-builder in this blasted hobby.
www.iconaircraft.com
You can build 100 airframes (or kits) a year in a one-by-one fashion, with no optimization, or have a great build plan in place that maximizes the use of your machinery and churns out two a week at half the cost.
That's why I said "almost". I consider Zenith and Sonex to be more successful in the E-AB or E-LSA market.
That's the big thing. If a manufacturer/kit maker wants to succeed, they need to get the fly-away cost for a basic VFR airframe comfortably under 100k. And if they're a kit maker, optimize their kit for rapid building. Time is a lot more valuable these days, you can't realistically expect a sustainable number of people to invest five years bucking rivets and such. And better/cheaper engine options need to be available.
$100k is unrealistic. Is $200k the new $100k?
In 1960 a Cessna 150 would sell for $7000 (basic model) to 8500 (top of the line). That's $74k/90k in 2024 money.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but no general aircraft manufacturers use DFSS anywhere along the way.
And that needs to change. Work smarter, not harder. It might sound like a corporate cliché, but there needs to be a lot of thinking outside of the box to make this viable.
Why does it have to be a $22k Rotax? I think they need some good competition at a lower cost. Something like this (https://aeromomentum.com/am15-117hp-to-147hp/) for half the price. And most engine makers will give you a discount if you're an airframe or kit builder, especially if you have production numbers higher than one a month.
When the Vashon Ranger came out it was sub 100k. Now it's 160k.
I atill haven’t been able to figure what the point is of having all that glass, complexity and redundancy for a VFR-only, slow plane.
Good Lord! How many airplanes do you have to sell to break even on a 170 million dollar debt?!ChiComs might buy them for what they are owed:
Icon Aircraft files for bankruptcy, seeks buyer
After delivering more than 200 amphibious light sport A5 aircraft since the summer of 2016, Icon Aircraft petitioned for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 4.www.aopa.org
Back when LSA was still a new thing, it seemed it was mostly the (almost) retired airline pilots who wanted the cockpit of their LSA to resemble the 757 they were flying. I was involved with an LSA maker at the time and a good chunk of them were asking for Dynon 100-series screens in them (bleeding edge tech at the time).
You can buy a SeaRay Sundancer 320 for under $380K brand new. Yacht certified. Lots of boats 26' and above are "yacht certified".
The don't show prices on their website any more, but last I knew, a new M-Squared Breese (a two seat SLSA version of the classic Quicksilver ultralight) was priced around $45K. A used 2 seat Quicksilver (EAB or ELSA) is around a quarter of that.
The problem is that they made too many.
I’ll yield to your obvious yacht expertise.
