Model T of Aviation

brien23

brien23

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Brien
Is it possible that a low cost GA aircraft, not some light sport or some other light but big like a Cessna 172 or Piper PA-28 could be produced. It needs to be produced in large numbers to get the cost down to be affordable by most people. China has invested large amount of money in GA do they have a plan. Chinese companies have steadily increased investment in U.S. aviation by acquiring, merging, or establishing joint ventures with more than a dozen U.S. aviation companies. Including 12 mergers and acquisitions, three joint ventures, and nine other agreements.
 
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Possible? Sorta. It requires a huge investment in tooling - mass production of complex things like automobiles is incredibly capital intensive. It's hard to break through - just look at Delorean for example. To support that kind of investment, you need the mass demand so you end up with a chicken and egg situation. After WW-II there was supposed to be a big aviation boom, so companies tooled up (to some extent) but the demand just wasn't there and most of the industry went under.

Henry Ford got lucky.
 
The limiting factor is not technology or resources. I am fairly sure with enough startup capital such a plane could be mass produced and certified which would sell for the price of an SUV.

However, the limiting factor is market demand driven by pilot certification. We have had this discussion before. In today's, "I want now environment", where education largely sucks, where a large section of the population wants others to see to their wants and needs, few are capable and willing to spend the time, money, and effort for training.

Until cultural trends make a 180 degree turn, GA in the USA will continue to decline.
 
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brien23 said:
Is it possible that a low cost GA aircraft, not some light sport or some other light but big like a Cessna 172 or Piper PA-28 could be produced. It needs to be produced in large numbers to get the cost down to be affordable by most people.
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Depends. If you were to put a monetary cap on civil aviation tort cases you should get a reasonable price drop which could lead to a resurgence in demand for new Cessnas or Pipers. But that's provided the market still exists and would react to it, which for all intents it appears that a large private GA market no longer exists.

For reference, the GARA in the 90s restarted the current Cessna/Piper production line volume with its calendar cap (18+ years) on product liability claims but fell short on a monetary cap.
 
Domenick said:
The limiting factor is not technology or resources. I am fairly sure with enough capital startup such a plane could be mass produced and certified which would sell for the price of an SUV.

However, the limiting factor is market demand driven by pilot certification. We have had this discussion before. In today's, I want now environment, where education largely sucks, where a large section of the population wants others to see to their wants and needs, few are capable and willing to spend the time, money, and effort for training.

Until cultural trends make a 180 degree turn, GA in the USA will continue to decline.
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Oh please. Then why were flight schools filled to the brim pre-Covid?
 
brien23 said:
Is it possible that a low cost GA aircraft, not some light sport or some other light but big like a Cessna 172 or Piper PA-28 could be produced. It needs to be produced in large numbers to get the cost down to be affordable by most people. China has invested large amount of money in GA do they have a plan. Chinese companies have steadily increased investment in U.S. aviation by acquiring, merging, or establishing joint ventures with more than a dozen U.S. aviation companies. Including 12 mergers and acquisitions, three joint ventures, and nine other agreements.
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The answer is that if you picked a model (even a 172) and upped the volume to 10,000 units a year, the cost would come down substantially with suppliers and in labor and overhead since you could automate to reduce assembly costs. But if you cut the price of a new 172 from $375K or whatever one costs today to $125K, how many would you sell? I think the real challenge is on the demand side... You'd need flying clubs and partnerships to buy the airplanes because how many people are "up" for spending the $10K/yr it takes to own/maintain/insure/store/tax their personally owned 172?
 
FYI: For a private GA market benchmark, for both pilots and aircraft, you need to look at the 1970s which has always been considered the peak decade in most studies. If you could generate at least 2/3 of that market you might have a chance. Even the feds tried to jump start private GA with the GARA, LSA, NASA (Cirrus) programs, etc. however fell short not because of opportunities for market growth but mainly lack of interest from the general public. And if look at the FAA registry, drones out number aircraft by a factor of 8 and are only increasing which is rather telling of which way the private GA market is going.
 
luvflyin said:
Pilot shortage
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Correct. And it’s plainly erroneous to claim that an entire generation lacks the attention span required for aviation when so many are willing to invest the 1500 hours slog to an ATP rating.
 
Bell206 said:
FYI: For a private GA market benchmark, for both pilots and aircraft, you need to look at the 1970s which has always been considered the peak decade in most studies. If you could generate at least 2/3 of that market you might have a chance. Even the feds tried to jump start private GA with the GARA, LSA, NASA (Cirrus) programs, etc. however fell short not because of opportunities for market growth but mainly lack of interest from the general public. And if look at the FAA registry, drones out number aircraft by a factor of 8 and are only increasing which is rather telling of which way the private GA market is going.
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Yeah on lack of interest. The generation that was raised on a lot cool flying stuff is gone. Cool stuff like lotsa movies with hero pilots. Going to the airport and seeing cool stuff like going to the observation deck and watching planes land and take off. As often as not kids never see the outside of the airplane. Seeing a pilot walking in the airport in his cool leather jacket and cool shades with a hottie stew on each arm who gets paid more than some doctors and lawyers. etc. It just ain’t the same anymore
 
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AlleyCat67 said:
Oh please. Then why were flight schools filled to the brim pre-Covid?
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Not only pre-COVID... my school beat its best year 2 months ago. Their fleet also grew by 2 this year.

I think producing an affordable light aircraft is absolutely possible. I think they don’t do it because they are trading (fake but illustrative numbers) 20% ROI for 50% ROI. Basically, they can make more by specializing and charging a premium rather than being cost leaders. You need new players to enable this disruption (Cirrus and Vans aren’t enough).

I think the biggest barrier for growing/re-growing GA is more marketing and demand generation than anything. This is coming from someone who dreamed of becoming a pilot for 20 years but 1) feeling it was out of reach from a monetary and skill / access level; 2) not having mentors in or near aviation.
 
AlleyCat67 said:
Oh please. Then why were flight schools filled to the brim pre-Covid?
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Aside from the foreign-student factor, you have to consider the number of flight schools per capita. When I learned to fly 46 years ago there were three schools on the airport of a town of maybe 40,000 people. It's nearly 100K now and there is one on-again/off-again school. Insufficent market interest. There are a lot of other toys one can buy and operate almost instantly.
 
brien23 said:
Is it possible that a low cost GA aircraft, not some light sport or some other light but big like a Cessna 172 or Piper PA-28 could be produced. It needs to be produced in large numbers to get the cost down to be affordable by most people. China has invested large amount of money in GA do they have a plan. Chinese companies have steadily increased investment in U.S. aviation by acquiring, merging, or establishing joint ventures with more than a dozen U.S. aviation companies. Including 12 mergers and acquisitions, three joint ventures, and nine other agreements.
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As others have posted no problem building the plane, but there's no market. And there's no evidence to support the view one can be created.

The private GA market has been going steadily upscale for more than two decades now.
- Piper targets its personal aircraft sales to the M350, M500 and Seneca. The turboprop M500 consistently outsells the piston M350 2:1. The rest of its piston production survives on supplying the training market. Piper's M600, with its much higher useful load, is targeting the entry end of the business aircraft market.
- Daher abandoned the piston airplane market completely to focus on the successful TBM turboprops, and now the Kodiak.
- Last year Cirrus sold 384 airplanes; only 53 of them were the 4-cyl SR20 model. And the turbocharged SR22T consistently outsells the less expensive naturally aspirated version. Cirrus still doesn't sell anywhere near the number of planes it used to sell prior to the '08/'09 financial crisis.
- Cessna continues to rationalize and reduce the number of piston engine aircraft it produces, following a declining market for personal versions (example: the TTX & the turbo 182) while continuing to compete with Piper in the basic trainer space. Textron is focused on the business/commercial market and trying to fill an obvious gap between the Caravan and the jets with the Denali.
- Other than Diamond the rest seem cottage industry producers, with specialty products such as backcountry taildraggers (CubCrafters, Aviat Husky, American Champion Scout) and aerobatic planes (Extra, Decathalons).


Dan Thomas said:
Aside from the foreign-student factor, you have to consider the number of flight schools per capita. When I learned to fly 46 years ago there were three schools on the airport of a town of maybe 40,000 people. It's nearly 100K now and there is one on-again/off-again school. Insufficent market interest. There are a lot of other toys one can buy and operate almost instantly.
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We set all time record hours for our flight training unit in June, July and August. Despite a 10 week prior shutdown due to COVID we will close the year with all time high total annual hours as well. Was it pent up demand from the closure? Is it sustainable? Too early to tell.

But when we speak with other flight training operations throughout a large region far more are struggling than thriving. The total number of flight schools has been declining for more than a decade. The larger ones have shifted to training more commercial students than private recreational pilots. The smaller ones have had to work on specialized training (IFR students, teaching in owner's advanced airplanes, very personalized attention, that sort of thing).
 
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I would say I flew a lot more due to Covid. There’s nothing else to do, restaurants are closed, so what should you do, go flying! I’m part of a social club so it’s great, fly, thereafter dinner drinks chat fun!

With people working from home they have more time to skip out and go fly too.

But generally, there aren’t many young people involved in GA. Sure some youth are going to an aviation school and having a PPL will save costs on getting through school so parents are pushing their children to go through training and get their PPL. But is that a real GA pilot? Not really, they only want to get paid to fly and go the commercial airline route.

The main problem with GA is maintenance costs, they are high. It definitely has to make more sense for manufacturers to focus on high end aircraft, likely will have repeated visits for maintenance at their costs. Rich people want aircraft to compete with commercial airline speed and don’t really care about the cost.
 
They did it in 1946 - Cessna, Piper, Taylorcraft, Luscombe, Aeronca, ERCO, Stinson, Culver, Beech, the list goes on... Twenty one manufacturers turned out about 35,000 airplanes in that year alone but there weren't 35,000 buyers, there were a whole lot less and most of them went bust. Ironically, a great number of those airplanes are still flying today, nearly 75 years later. Who'da thought that back in '46?
 
brien23 said:
Is it possible that a low cost GA aircraft, not some light sport or some other light but big like a Cessna 172 or Piper PA-28 could be produced. It needs to be produced in large numbers to get the cost down to be affordable by most people. China has invested large amount of money in GA do they have a plan. Chinese companies have steadily increased investment in U.S. aviation by acquiring, merging, or establishing joint ventures with more than a dozen U.S. aviation companies. Including 12 mergers and acquisitions, three joint ventures, and nine other agreements.
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Sure. Just not in the US. Nor could it be imported here. There is no reason why a new 172 should cost any more than a new Toyota. Product liability laws and regulations make it cost 5 times what is should. If you take a low regulation environment like China, and produce it without regard to western concepts of liability, you could do it easily.
 
LesGawlik said:
Sure. Just not in the US. Nor could it be imported here. There is no reason why a new 172 should cost any more than a new Toyota. Product liability laws and regulations make it cost 5 times what is should. If you take a low regulation environment like China, and produce it without regard to western concepts of liability, you could do it easily.
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A new 180 hp C-172 sells for about $300K.

On the other hand, it costs you at least $125K for the kit, engine, and avionics for a comparably equipped RV-7 from Van's. But you're providing the labor for free on the RV-7. With overhead costs (a building, QC processes, labor, management, supervision, record keeping, etc.) I'd bet that amounts to a minimum of $75K in labor and overhead to assemble a C-172. So, you're at $200k for a 172 if we just add the RV-7 materials cost to the C-172's labor cost.

Add in the expenses of maintaining records, engineering, after-service support, etc (all of which go on forever), and then factoring liability insurance and profits into the price, it is a miracle that Cessna can put one out the door for $300K.

Bottom line, the basic cost of just building a C-172 is probably $200K in materials and labor. Liability insurance costs are relatively small compared to that...
 
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The issue of manufacturing with modern methods and material, isn't the reason you won't see cheap aircraft, it is the liability issues that are.
 
kyleb said:
A new 180 hp C-172 sells for about $300K.

On the other hand, it costs you at least $125K for the kit, engine, and avionics for a comparably equipped RV-7 from Van's. But you're providing the labor for free on the RV-7. With overhead costs (a building, QC processes, labor, management, supervision, record keeping, etc.) I'd bet that amounts to a minimum of $75K in labor and overhead to assemble a C-172. So, you're at $200k for a 172 if we just add the RV-7 materials cost to the C-172's labor cost.

Add in the expenses of maintaining records, engineering, after-service support, etc (all of which go on forever), and then factoring liability insurance and profits into the price, it is a miracle that Cessna can put one out the door for $300K.

Bottom line, the basic cost of just building a C-172 is probably $200K in materials and labor. Liability insurance costs are relatively small compared to that...
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Materials are probably only $4000 plus engine and avionics for a 172. Aluminum, cables, tubing, even upholstery are not expensive. Avionics built in volume could probably come down to $5000 max for a nice setup.
 
Matthew Rogers said:
Materials are probably only $4000 plus engine and avionics for a 172. Aluminum, cables, tubing, even upholstery are not expensive. Avionics built in volume could probably come down to $5000 max for a nice setup.
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Your understanding of the costs of these inputs is completely unrealistic. Even a reasonable volume kit manufacturer like Vans can't produce the materials for a smaller, simpler, lighter 2-person airframe at an input cost of $4000.

And while you are at it, check out the per yard cost of upholstery material that carries FAA burn certification for aviation use. And then ask yourself would you want your family to be flying around in an airplane built with combustible materials that didn't meet those standards?

Your $5000 for avionics will buy you a nice setup...a complete used King Silver Crown panel + gyros from a 1980s vintage airframe salvage. Or one 20-year old GNS-430W GPS navigator off eBay, with some change back. The 430/530 boxes went past 100,000 total units produced by Garmin. That's a huge volume in the world of light GA airplanes, so I think what it commands on the used market today is a good reference indicator for what it really costs to continue to create and supply these sorts of technologies, without which you probably couldn't sell a single light airplane to a new buyer today.

Silvaire said:
They did it in 1946 - Cessna, Piper, Taylorcraft, Luscombe, Aeronca, ERCO, Stinson, Culver, Beech, the list goes on... Twenty one manufacturers turned out about 35,000 airplanes in that year alone but there weren't 35,000 buyers, there were a whole lot less and most of them went bust. Ironically, a great number of those airplanes are still flying today, nearly 75 years later. Who'da thought that back in '46?
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Some parallels with the automobile business back then. Too many low volume manufacturers for the market to support, and over time companies disappear or get bought out. Hudson, Nash, Rambler, Studebaker, Packard, DeSoto, Kaiser, American Motors...

Same thing in small GA aircraft today. Everybody is fighting over a flat to shrinking market volume, with the average new aircraft purchaser moving steadily upscale and demanding more. In the past 15 years a look through the GAMA statistics lists show quite a few low volume names have disappeared completely, and some such as Beechcraft have been bought out.

DenverDave said:
Robinson has a pretty good recipe for building modern GA aircraft.

(1) have a trainer version
(2) dealer network (even better with inventory)
(3) mfg needs to self-insure
And so on
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It's not immune from the major market forces in play today.
In 2008 Robinson sold almost 900 helicopters of just 2 models it made (R22 and R44). Last year, pre-COVID, it sold less than 200 total helicopters of 4 different models it now produces, including the upscale R66 turbine.

Most industries or companies that saw their unit sales shrink by almost 80% over a decade would not be considered successful. But in the crazy general aviation business if you are still around at all is becoming the measure of "success".
 
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The 125k quote for a RV-7 is absurd.

First of all, a RV-7 is not comparable to a 172. One is a two seater going 170+ Kts with a glass panel on a 360/390 engine. The four seater with steam gauges plods along at 120 if you’re lucky.

second, what are you putting in that thing? The kit is 25k, there’s about 10k in FWF and finishing, and the engine is 25k. Are you suggesting 65k worth of avionics?

last - it is surely cheaper to buy raw materials and cut out parts yourself ~ Vans is a company making profit on doing exactly that. Assembly cannot be that expensive, the difference between a kit and quick build is a few thousand dollars. Vans is not giving that labor away.

the costs in building come in the engine and possibly avionics. You want all the whiz bang stuff that starts with G? Yes, you might pay 65k for the best. But you can do it for much, much less.
 
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bflynn said:
The 125k quote for a RV-7 is absurd.

First of all, a RV-7 is not comparable to a 172. One is a two seater going 170+ Kts with a glass panel on a 360/390 engine. The four seater with steam gauges plods along at 120 if you’re lucky.

second, what are you putting in that thing? The kit is 25k, there’s about 10k in FWF and finishing, and the engine is 25k. Are you suggesting 65k worth of avionics?

last - it is surely cheaper to buy raw materials and cut out parts yourself ~ Vans is a company making profit on doing exactly that. Assembly cannot be that expensive, the difference between a kit and quick build is a few thousand dollars. Vans is not giving that labor away.

the costs in building come in the engine and possibly avionics. You want all the whiz bang stuff that starts with G? Yes, you might pay 65k for the best. But you can do it for much, much less.
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You're correct. The RV-7/7A and the Cessna 172 aren't directly comparable. The RV-7 is smaller, lighter, carries less, flies faster and is a lovely handling sport plane...and probably isn't robust enough to last a year in the punishing ab initio pilot training environment.

The latest prices from the Van's website show the RV-7A airframe kit price at $27,500. The quickbuild is a cool $38,850.
Vans current price for a new Lycoming 200 hp IO-360 A1B6 (the middle of the range for the approved engines in the -7) costs $37,200. A fixed pitch Sensenich prop is $4100. That's almost $70,000 for the slow build kit major components before you start.
By the time one adds in the cost of tools, shipping, paint, interior, battery, avionics and few of those optional goodies from the Vans store (like passenger side rudder pedals and brakes) it's going to add up. ;)
Put in a reasonable allowance for assembly space and the value of your own labor.
Not as inexpensive as one might imagine.
 
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AlleyCat67 said:
Oh please. Then why were flight schools filled to the brim pre-Covid?
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Maybe because so many of them have gone out of business...

LesGawlik said:
Sure. Just not in the US. Nor could it be imported here. There is no reason why a new 172 should cost any more than a new Toyota. Product liability laws and regulations make it cost 5 times what is should. If you take a low regulation environment like China, and produce it without regard to western concepts of liability, you could do it easily.
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Cessna tried that with the 162... how'd that work out?

There was once a Model T of aviation... it was the Piper Cub, and you could get it any color you wanted as long as it was yellow. Both were from a different era. Labor was cheap and there was no OSHA, EPA, ADA, etc.

With volume production and automation, there is about 35 labor hours in a modern car. I don't know how many labor hours go into a C-172 but I'd guess it's at least 10-20 times that, comparable to an RV quickbuild. But that 35 hour number represents a huge investment in production machinery that get amortized over the many thousands of cars they make. None of that works when you're only making a hundred planes a year, if that. There are car companies making only a few hundred cars a year... and whaddya know, the cars they build cost as much as a new C-172.
 
1. You can’t build it because of America’s artificially inflated profit margin models and costing. Materials for an RV7 or a 172 will be far cheaper in China, India, name your place. Only in America can you demand $300-$400k for a medical school education, and GA isn’t cheap.

Moreover, Chinese ownership is all over American GA. While America would be a huge market where none have been incredibly successful recently, the Chinese Tiger continues to itch to wake up to its own economy- and many friends or former employers are actively involved in building GA in China- all repurposing American technology far cheaper than it own innovation could be.

2. The market here? Hm. Look at the current generation and the one immediately prior. Why learn to fly a real airplane and ruin your manicure when you could just play games on your PS5? Many young people live at mom and dad’s and believes they are entitled to better employment for far more money. When Twitter has been a 140 characters, a sport pilot or private ticket takes far more effort than that; besides, isn’t there going to be some sort of Uber or Lyft equivalent for aviation ? (Smirk) - GA requires far more attention span than IG and Facebook, its costly, most people don’t think it’s sexy to own your own plane (shouldn’t everyone make like a G6? Who wants to own one of those little cessnas that fall out of the skies?) and on and on and on. Besides, it isn’t cool to tel your friends you bought a USED 1970’s airplane that you cant even vinyl wrap often to make it look, you know, cool. Sure, you’ll find “plenty of millennials” in GA today. Statistically? Meh. What eVER.

Many sport pilot companies have tried this. Remember when Icon built their cute little trailerable A2? You and I were going to be able to take our zippy two seater and land it in the water, all for a cool $170k. Ny the time their cirrus production line work /nee Mexico/ now Vacaville assembly line began to try to pump them out, they wanted a cool $400k a copy for a vfr portable garmin GPS equipped plane for you and your domestic partner of choice, with many apologies foe the price increase after your deposit and an onerous purchase contract. Those icon salaries aren’t cheap...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
GRG55 said:
You're correct. The RV-7/7A and the Cessna 172 aren't directly comparable. The RV-7 is smaller, lighter, carries less, flies faster and is a lovely handling sport plane...and probably isn't robust enough to last a year in the punishing ab initio pilot training environment.

The latest prices from the Van's website show the RV-7A airframe kit price at $27,500. The quickbuild is a cool $38,850.
Vans current price for a new Lycoming 200 hp IO-360 A1B6 (the middle of the range for the approved engines in the -7) costs $37,200. A fixed pitch Sensenich prop is $4100. That's almost $70,000 for the slow build kit major components before you start.
By the time one adds in the cost of tools, shipping, paint, interior, battery, avionics and few of those optional goodies from the Vans store (like passenger side rudder pedals and brakes) it's going to add up. ;)
Put in a reasonable allowance for assembly space and the value of your own labor.
Not as inexpensive as one might imagine.
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Yes, but you said "materials". Materials for a major manufacturer are aluminum, cables, turnbuckles, screws, rivets, etc. Those are cheap. They are cheap for a scratch builder as well.

The labor is in the stamping presses, rivet guns, CNC drills, etc. to take the raw materials and make parts and then in assembly.

Most of the cost of the Van's kit is "labor" to make the aluminum into pre-made airplane pieces. Cessna is not going to spend money buying a "kit" of parts for their new hypothetical airplane from another company with the associated markup. They buy sheets of aluminum and crank out part after part on a stamping press.

If Van's wanted to be a wonderful philanthropist for GA, they would put the CNC design files for their airframes online and let anyone or any company use a CNC to match drill and cut out parts. But then they would not make as much money. Not great for business, but great for GA.

Look at some of the kits with steel tube frames. There are CNC companies that cut perfect fit tubing kits for several models like the BearHawk. Mass produced, those frames could be quickly cut on CNC, set into a jig, and welded with a Kuka robot in a matter of a few hours per frame instead of produced slowly in Mexico. I would bet that frame would only cost $2-4k to produce in volume, if that.
 
Why do you think the cost of the engine is $25,000? Is that really $25,000 worth of design and material?
 
Has anyone priced a 2,000 ton stamping press lately? How many airplanes would you have to sell to recover the cost of just one press?
 
LesGawlik said:
Why do you think the cost of the engine is $25,000? Is that really $25,000 worth of design and material?
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No. $10K for the materials and R&D. $15K for liability insurance to cover the lawsuits arising out of pilots doing stupid things with their airplanes.
 
kyleb said:
A new 180 hp C-172 sells for about $300K.
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From https://www.flyingmag.com/story/aircraft/cessna-172-still-relevant/ January 2020:

Newer models still aren’t cheap. You may ask, how much is a new Cessna 172 today? The Skyhawk goes out the door with pricing (from 2018) in the range from $369,000 to $438,000, depending on options—like the Garmin G1000 NXi.

From https://airshare.com/blog/cessna-172/#Price_of_a_Brand_New_172_Skyhawk

Price of a Brand New 172 Skyhawk
As mentioned above, Textron does not advertise a retail price for a brand new 2020 Cessna 172. Our research suggests that a standard Skyhawk with no additional extras retails at $400,000US.

I picked up a two-year-old, 270-hour 172SP in Florida in 2008. At that time, the retail of a brand-new 2008 model was $286,500. I can't imagine that in 12 years it's only risen $13,500.
 
Llk said:
1. You can’t build it because of America’s artificially inflated profit margin models and costing. Materials for an RV7 or a 172 will be far cheaper in China, India, name your place. Only in America can you demand $300-$400k for a medical school education, and GA isn’t cheap.
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Materials cost the same *everywhere*. That's the thing about a global market.

As far as an artificially inflated profit margin, that must explain how Mooney went under, Beechcraft got absorbed, Aeronca got turned into a component manufacturer, Stinson went away, Grumman's Tiger line disappeared, Funk, Globe, Ryan, and a dozen others have just disappeared over the years. With few exceptions, the problem in aviation is too little profit, not too much.

Back to the RV-7. The 180 hp engine is $31K. The prop (fixed pitch) is $4K, and the firewall forward kit (you do want an exhaust, oil cooler, baffles, hoses,etc, right?) is over $4K. So you're at $40K FWF. The kit itself is $28K but that doesn't include a few add-on bits like an airbox for your fuel injection or carb, seatbelts, interior, strobes, landing lights, battery, alternator, voltage regulator, and an ELT. Better add $10K for all that. Now you're at $78K and don't have paint or a panel or all that other miscellaneous stuff that drains your bank account. If you're like everyone else, you're gonna put a two screen Garmin setup in the airplane, with IFR navigator, two radios, ADSB, and an autopilot. You're pushing $40K for the panel. I assume your new airplane will have a coat of paint, right? $10K for prep and a coat of white paint, plus a few vinyl stripes. Now you've got a $125K airplane. Maybe Cessna can save a few bucks with vertical integration, but they are also buying 500 pounds more airplane stuff than you have to buy for an RV-7, just because the 172 is a substantially bigger airframe. More aluminum, more steel. A heavy, steerable nose gear, for instance. A second set of seats and a second set of seatbelts. I'd be surprised if Cessna can "kit" the pieces for a 172 for much less than $125K. For reference, a bare bones RV-10, which is the same size airplane as a C-172 will cost you $150K in pieces and parts. Back out a few bucks to substitute the 4 cylinder/fixed pitch setup for the -10's 6 cylinder/constant speed prop and you're right back in the $125K ballpark.

Regarding the cheap 172, if you want to offshore the thing to somewhere where the loaded labor rate is $20/hr (maybe Vietnam), not $100+/hr like in the US, you'll save money on labor, but you're as far away as possible from the source of everything you need like rivets, tires, wheels, instrumentation, bolts, etc. To run it efficiently, you'll need a mountain of inventory or you'll be FEDEX's best customer, constantly buying batches of various sizes of everything you see in the Aircraft Spruce catalog. Fedexing stuff around the world ain't cheap. And with customs, it ain't fast either. Being a world away from your suppliers isn't a fun way to run a business. Been there, done that. Wait. You're gonna save money and make your own AN hardware? Add another few hundred million in infrastructure and overhead to <essentially> duplicate an industrial supply chain. Oh yeah, once your Vietnamese 172 is complete, you have to ship it to the US for final assembly, certification, test flying, and distribution. Add a minimum of $10K per airframe plus all the inventory of unfinished and finished aircraft you'll have sitting around from time to time, given the ebbs and flows of the economy.

No doubt, it costs Cessna $200K to roll a C-172 out the door, without profit or liability coverage. That Vietnamese C-172 probably costs you almost as much, delivered to the US, and it requires you to invest a hundred million dollars or more into a factory and tooling in Vietnam. The Vietnam option doesn't sound so good. The thing Cessna currently has going for it is that all of the tooling and buildings they use for the 172 line are fully depreciated. There is little new investment required to keep on keeping on. Any new competitor is gonna have to invest in a lot of dedicated tooling and fixtures. Then recover the investment by selling airplanes.

Can all of this be helped by economies of scale? Yes. Should a G650 cost $8K? No way. If you guaranteed to buy 1000/year for the next 10 years, I bet you could get a deal. Engines and props too. But with all of that, we're still talking saving $10-20-30K. Not $100k.

If you want a $100K C-172 equivalent, I bet you could do it IF you sold 50,000 a year. Invest in automation and tooling like Detroit does, and you could get there. The question is... Who's gonna buy 'em, and will they buy at that volume for long enough to pay back your investment?

No.
 
Dan Thomas said:
From https://www.flyingmag.com/story/aircraft/cessna-172-still-relevant/ January 2020:

Newer models still aren’t cheap. You may ask, how much is a new Cessna 172 today? The Skyhawk goes out the door with pricing (from 2018) in the range from $369,000 to $438,000, depending on options—like the Garmin G1000 NXi.

From https://airshare.com/blog/cessna-172/#Price_of_a_Brand_New_172_Skyhawk

Price of a Brand New 172 Skyhawk
As mentioned above, Textron does not advertise a retail price for a brand new 2020 Cessna 172. Our research suggests that a standard Skyhawk with no additional extras retails at $400,000US.

I picked up a two-year-old, 270-hour 172SP in Florida in 2008. At that time, the retail of a brand-new 2008 model was $286,500. I can't imagine that in 12 years it's only risen $13,500.
Click to expand...

Dammit. I googled new C-172 prices last night and found a reference for just under $300K for the stripped model and $330K or something like that for the fancy version. But Cessna doesn't publish prices, which is something of a joke, IMO.
 
DenverDave said:
But the same problem persists that draws every mfg out of the low end; would you rather build 500 150k planes a year or 75 1m planes a year?
Click to expand...

The manufacturers know the high end buyers will buy again in a few years. These buyers don't cling to 50+ year old, or even 20 year old airframes.
 
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