Single seat 95-10

[farri]

Hi How do people think a new 95-10 aircraft kit would go here in Australia. With rising costs of fuel ect are people looking at going back flying rag and tub aircraft? Kit would be around $15k 100hrs assembly time add engine and Instruments fly away.

Hi Thomo! I don`t think anyone here would realy know how it would go! As for going back to rag and tube???....Have you any figures on the average age of RAA members and pilots?... I don`t have any figures but I`d reckon it`s pretty high, probably around 60 years of age or more. Most pilots of that age want a bit more creature comforts in an aircraft than rag & tube can provide and they preffer to fly rather than build.

 

I don`t see too many young people coming into recreational flying, even if there were, the way I see it, because there are so many things these days for them to spend their money on, they`d barely have enough money to pay for flying lessons, let alone buy a kit, build it, then keep it flying.

 

Frank.

 

 

[David Isaac]

...Have you any figures on the average age of RAA members and pilots?... I don`t have any figures but I`d reckon it`s pretty high, probably around 60 years of age or more. Most pilots of that age want a bit more creature comforts in an aircraft than rag & tube can provide and they preffer to fly rather than build.Frank.

Now you listen here young fella, some of us old fellas just love them rag and tube thingy's they are a great way to keep ya balls cool ....ROFLMAO.

 

 

[farri]

Aaahhhh! David!! Yeeeesssss!!! Some of us young fellas do still love rag & tube and at soon to be 66, I`m one of them.

 

Frank.

 

 

[frank marriott]

I think Farri might be pretty close:

 

In my area anyway:

 

1. Aircraft - mainly LSA, some others, home built almost non-existent.

 

2. Age - about 60 - sounds about right locally as well.

 

 

[David Isaac]

60 in 6 days Franko ... LOL

 

 

[foxworker]

Market is just too small in Oz, regulations are prohibitive, would want to have a lot of cash to burn.

 

 

[David Isaac]

This thread is about single seat 95-10.

 

How in God's name is the market too small and the regulations prohibitive in this category. 95-10 has to be the least regulated category we could get, it is the ultimate experimental category.

 

 

[foxworker]

David,

 

Simple, it is very doubtful that there is enough demand out there to warrant the production of a single seat aircraft, there has not been in the past, nothing of any great significance anyway, and it will more than likely stay that way. I would absolutely love to produce the 95-10 frame and composite 'craft I partially designed in the late 90's, but the truth of the matter is, it's simply not a viable as a sustainable, profitable business. I agree, regulations in this category are no where as complex as in other categories, but you can bet your bottom dollar David, the powers that be would make it difficult for anyone trying to build and sell something that involves having wings and a propeller!

 

P.S. please feel free to finance and satisfy the regulators for me so I can bring a slick 95-10er to the large market out there. You'll only need about 100 grand! cheers.

 

 

[David Isaac]

So you don't think there would be a market for a 95-10 aircraft with retractable gear, fully enclosed cockpit, capable of 150knots with a 40 HP motor like Scott Winton's Facet Opel????

 

If you just want to make a rag and tube 95-10, forget it, there are already a few kits out there ... but something unique ... what do you reckon.

 

 

[foxworker]

Wow, nice. I agree with you that you can forget the rag and tube type, waste of time and money. There may well be an undiscovered market out there if the product being offered was-

 

1: Truly affordable., say around the 20 g mark complete, basic model not with options. This amount would make it relatively easy to gain finance if you're an average wage earner.therefore making it more appealing to younger people

 

2: Modern sleek appearance, with plenty of options allowing one to customize. Harley Davidson do this brilliantly.

 

3: Very easy to maintain with clip on, clip off panels for easy access., similar to jet skis and the like.

 

4: Detachable light weight flying surfaces, which is easy to incorporate in the design, therefore easy to take home on the "optional trailer". What young adult wouldn't like to be washing one of these in the front yard watched by his/her envious neighbours.

 

5: Clever marketing campaign. You tube etc. offering deals and packages., including pilot certificates.

 

Yes David I share your dream, and I actually have such a design partially completed, and have just the right people and equipment needed for such a business, but I have never had the funds to do such a thing, and until someone shares the dream with me and backs the whole thing it will never be realized. Money talks. cheers.

 

 

[winsor68]

I am surprised that no one seems to recognize this market...so many say it themselves...."Raa is over 65s who want a few creature comforts...etc etc" who have the disposable "income" for a $100 000 flying machine.

 

If no one recognizes that this is EXACTLY why someone needs to create a market with a bit of growth potential rather than rely on the last generation who lets face it ...are the last of their kind (sorry guys but it's true) ...

 

 

[ozbear]

T

 

How much more rag and tube do you want? $350 for a set of plans, $2000 for some Spruce & ply and off you go! If you wanted to you could get one of these flying with an EA81 for $10 000. No specialty tools needed and been flying for 80 0dd years. Why are folk trying to reinvent the wheel?....Scotty [ATTACH]23584[/ATTACH]

That's not rag and tube it's stick and cloth I think there would be a market for electric powered 95-10 on the lines of the spyder what we are doing now is reinventing GA aircraft and it appears all the same rules and regulations to go with it.many of our pilots have never known what it's like to fly a single seat rag and tube or even a 2 seat thruster type aircraft

 

 

[Bubbleboy]

TThat's not rag and tube it's stick and cloth I think there would be a market for electric powered 95-10 on the lines of the spyder what we are doing now is reinventing GA aircraft and it appears all the same rules and regulations to go with it.many of our pilots have never known what it's like to fly a single seat rag and tube or even a 2 seat thruster type aircraft

There is a single seat tube version if you look it up.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

I am surprised that no one seems to recognize this market...so many say it themselves...."Raa is over 65s who want a few creature comforts...etc etc" who have the disposable "income" for a $100 000 flying machine.If no one recognizes that this is EXACTLY why someone needs to create a market with a bit of growth potential rather than rely on the last generation who lets face it ...are the last of their kind (sorry guys but it's true) ...

winsor68 is one of the few who recognise that wannabe aircraft manufacturers have got to stop thinking about the existing market and start thinking like product producers. This involves the whole gamut of product development, manufacturing and marketing. If you want to sell planes you have to sell flying.

 

When I make the C2S (my avatar) available for sale I won't be chasing any of the existing market, I'm already developing a completely new one. That way I won't be having to compete with any other aircraft producers and my market becomes bottomless, it's as big as I make it. Until people in aviation start working with the fundamentals of business instead of the romance of being an aircraft distributor they won't turn a profit. Profit may well be a dirty word but without it you won't be around selling planes for long.

 

A perfect example showing that of course there are people out there who will buy the 'right' plane is the SD-1 Minisport. They didn't chase an existing market, instead they created their own and after what has been a very short time they can't keep up with production. They are not the only ones doing well in the FAR23 Pt103 market and the European ULA and VLA categories.

 

I would say that if you have the right product, promote it cleverly and understand production methods you will certainly succeed. Now is as good a time as any, certainly better than having started just prior to GFC ...

 

 

[farri]

I understand the question to this thread as being,"How do people think a new 95-10 aircraft kit would go here in Australia." Think being the question! that`s why I said in my original post that I didn`t think anyone here would realy know.

 

As I understand it, at present, 95-10 has to be registered with RAA, therefore, the target market needs to be RAA members and pilots. If the target market is to be worldwide, then that is a different situation and requires a completely different strategy.

 

To sell aircraft you certainly do have to sell flying and to sell flying you need people who want to fly. To sell the aircraft you need pilots to buy it. If the market is to be RAA pilots, then it will either be the existing pilots, student pilots or those looking to buy. To have a sucessful and long term buisness, requires much more than anyone can contribute here, on this thread.

 

I`ve always tried to live by this moto, " Nothing ventured, nothing gained " , however, the moto doesn`t tell you what to venture into, nor does it tell you what you will gain or if you will succeed.

 

someone needs to create a market with a bit of growth potential rather than rely on the last generation who lets face it ...are the last of their kind (sorry guys but it's true) ...

Don, No need to appologise to me, I agree completely!

 

Frank.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

I understand the question to this thread as being,"How do people think a new 95-10 aircraft kit would go here in Australia." Think being the question! that`s why I said in my original post that I didn`t think anyone here would realy know.As I understand it, at present, 95-10 has to be registered with RAA, therefore, the target market needs to be RAA members and pilots. If the target market is to be worldwide, then that is a different situation and requires a completely different strategy.

 

To sell aircraft you certainly do have to sell flying and to sell flying you need people who want to fly. To sell the aircraft you need pilots to buy it. If the market is to be RAA pilots, then it will either be the existing pilots, student pilots or those looking to buy. To have a sucessful and long term buisness, requires much more than anyone can contribute here, on this thread.

 

I`ve always tried to live by this moto, " Nothing ventured, nothing gained " , however, the moto doesn`t tell you what to venture into, nor does it tell you what you will gain or if you will succeed.

You're quite right in much of what you say here Frank, but there's more to it as well.

 

OK, so most people on the forum might not know the answer but their input is invaluable when considering whether to start a business. I'd have to agree with those who were contrary to the idea and who said that the (existing) market isn't really big enough here in Australia. I'm sure the (untapped) market here is more than enough but the real point is that if your new aircraft isn't good enough and cheap enough and versatile enough to compete on the world stage then it certainly won't succeed on the Australian one alone. The world has changed greatly since the 1980s and anyone contemplating a business must consider whether their product would be competitive internationally because, like it or not, markets are global these days and that's here to stay. So even if you only intend to sell your product in the domestic market it's still got to be better (by whatever 'better' is judged, it might be availability, quality or price or any or all of them) than the imported products because yours is sure to be compared with them.

 

As mentioned before one of the surest ways of succeeding is to create your own market and have little to do with the existing one. If your product is good and your customers are enjoying it you will always gain extra benefit when some do convert from the existing market and that is without your having to put any effort or expenditure in that direction. Apple is probably the world's best example of the use of that strategy, and whether you like them or not I'd like to have their bottom line on my Company balance sheets.

 

I have to disagree with your comment about "to sell flying you need people who want to fly". There are hundreds of thousands of people in each Australian city who have never been for a fly in a light plane, so without ever having experienced it how could all those people, that huge potential market, know that they want to fly? If you've never been on a cruising yacht how could you possibly have any idea of what the experience feels like? If people want to sell yachts the successful distributors don't spend their time talking to people in the yacht clubs, those people will already believe they know more about your product than you do, so why waste your time? The successful yacht salesman is out in the shopping centres or the golf clubs or the 4WD clubs and he is carefully hand picking those who are in a financial situation and have the time to spend on recreation, then he finds out whether they have been sailing before, if they haven't he invites them and a few like-minded others to go sailing together. You need a bunch of people all having the new and wondrous experience together, the togetherness magnifies the power of the experience exponentially. Those people then need to be nurtured, the wise salesman will make sure they all exchange contact details and later he will follow up the outing with group emails and encourage each to describe their view of the experience. It keeps them re-living the experience. And he keeps the correspondence going for a minimum of ten exchanges. If he's good he'll sell a yacht to between 25% and 30% of them. So if you spent a month with your new aircraft on display and chatting with people and getting contact details you could probably come up with 50 likely contenders. Invite them to flying weekend that's flexible allowing for guaranteed good conditions. Make it a two day affair and put on the lunch BBQ and take every person for a free fly, the only conditions being that they must agree to write about their experience and you be allowed share it with others - and they must complete a 10 minute survey.

 

People do not buy a product after seeing or experiencing it once. In the tourism industry it is well-known that to sell your product people must have 7 terms of reference so you aim for them to see your brochures at least four times, you must have posters and you need TV or radio advertisements, word of mouth is exceptionally powerful and a 'loop' video in High St shop windows in very powerful too. Then you need somewhere/somehow where the sale can be 'closed' i.e. where the client has to make a decision to buy or not to buy, operators often use limited seat availability or limited choice of prime seats/times as a form of pressure to make people decide to buy now, or miss out. If they've seen the product enough times and had enough 'armchair experience' of it through videos and w-o-m then they will buy, if not you've probably lost them forever.

 

Once you master the method that best suits your own character and personality you can be quite certain of whether or not your business will succeed and you certainly don't need to be limiting your belief in the size of the market, because your market is as big as you make it, so you don't have to be a vulture hanging around flying schools trying to get their latest student to buy your planes.

 

The reason I happily give away this very hard-earned and valuable information is quite simply that the market is bottomless and the more people that are out there introducing new people, people who have never flown in light aircraft before, to the very idea that they can fly, the more and the quicker that the whole community acceptance of flying as an everyday 'thing' will take place and the easier it will be to introduce more and more people to it, it's an exponential growth thing. And the fortunate part of getting lots of people out there introducing people to flying is that we would all do it differently and therefore be working with different people, not competing for the same ones, we all move in different ways and in different circles.

 

Yes "nothing ventured, nothing gained", and each must venture into what they know about, it'd be no good me suddenly deciding to sell golf memberships or equipment, and if you don't know what you will gain or whether you will succeed you haven't completed your business plan yet. Lack of a properly formulated and flexible business plan is the reason for the majority of businesses never getting past the first post. Lots of enthusiasm and a love for your product doesn't replace cold hard facts, anyone who thinks their 'great product' will sell itself - all they have to do is worry about making it and the customers will beat a path to their door - is dreaming. Lack of attention to margins is another killer. If you can't envisage selling your product at a firm retail price of between 4 and 5 times the ex-factory cost then you won't survive and you won't be able to offer enough to give a distribution network sufficient incentive to work with your product.

 

 

[foxworker]

I agree with 99.9 % of what Head in the clouds has written, pretty much spot on in my opinion., the only part I do not believe is correct, and I'm not sure which industry it applies to specifically is the very last sentence. I've never been with a manufacturing business that has used those type of figures and I've worked in some pretty profitable workshops. But, I think Head in the clouds is quite right when it comes to realizing and understanding that to survive and to be profitable when marketing and selling such a product. I remember when I was a flight instructor for the flight school that operated out of Skyfox Aviations facilities, we used to wheel a Skyfox T'dragger into the Maroochydore shopping centre main foyer, set up a great display with videos, and great posters etc., and sell TIF's. It worked so well because we got people excited and after sitting in the 'craft and putting on headsets and moving the controls, it was easy to sell them the first step, the TIF. Once we got them in we had them, and a lot of them went all the way through. We never advertised mainstream, it was a waste of money. Thanks Head in the clouds, obviously you understand that "marketing is a battle of perceptions".

 

 

[facthunter]

Marketing can have a lot to do with deception ( whether deliberate or not) too. Selling something that is less than it appears won't work for a closed system like us. Bad products get discovered. High expectations may not be realised. Flying doesn't have the Mystique it used to and has to compete with many other activities that give quicker gratification. I would suggest it is a more fulfilling experience though, than many would imagine when they consider it initially. Nev

 

 

[foxworker]

Facthunter,

 

"Selling something that is less than it appears won't work for a closed system like us", couldn't agree with you more. I have seen some businesses try it with terrible results. Suffice to say, they no longer exist. Cheers

 

 

[farri]

I agree with a lot of what is being said and that discussing the issue can bring out worthwhile ideas and information but I also think, without facts, any discussion on how to create a market and run a sucessful buisness is pure speculation.

 

Frank.

 

 

[David Isaac]

Its called 'venture risk' Franko,

 

You do your best homework, verify the data, calculate business opportunity and decide what the venture risks are and then either move on the venture or abandon it.

 

Your level of dependency on the outcome will determine how long you can run at either no profit or loss until you can create an income.

 

I would NOT do this as a sole means of enterprise, I would need an other successful enterprise to fund it it while I built it. That way I could continue for extended periods and make decisions for the long term and not be forced into short term decisions.

 

 

[farri]

Its called 'venture risk' Franko, You do your best homework, verify the data, calculate business opportunity and decide what the venture risks are and then either move on the venture or abandon it.

Just what it`s called matters naught, my point in what I`ve said, is, without those facts any discussion is simple speculation. Pie in the sky not a 95-10 kit built aircraft.

 

Frank.

 

 

[David Isaac]

Yep, without the facts it is pure speculation and risky indeed..