What can be done???

[fly_tornado]

I know golf is in decline as a sport, a quick trip to any course will prove that out, most golf clubs now rely on non members to keep the clubhouses viable. Don't know much about fishing industry. Not a lot of skill or expense to stop people entering those sports though.

 

 

[Teckair]

Since no one posts their age on this site, there's no answer to that question.

Frank is 66 I am 59, I do know one young RAAus pilot but he is the exception rather than the norm.

 

 

[Teckair]

It would be good to see the C2S take to the sky, how is that going HITC?

 

 

[PA.]

I knoe golf is in decline as a sport, a quick trip to any course will prove that out, most golf clubs now rely on non members to keep the clubhouses viable. Don't know much about fishing industry. Not a lot of skill or expense to stop people entering those sports though.

Cycling is the new Golf.

 

 

[farri]

Frank is 66 I am 59, I do know one young RAAus pilot but he is the exception rather than the norm.

Hey Richard! What age are you calling young?.. My son is 46 and I still find myself calling him " The young bloke " when I`m talking about him to others. These days, I think of young people as being around 40.

 

Frank.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

It would be good to see the C2S take to the sky, how is that going HITC?

Actually quite well Teck, although the goalposts have moved a lot recently.

 

I completed the entire biplane project in CAD down to every matched hole, rivet, and bolt, so that I could have an accurate parts count for a critical components pack for a kit, and run a costing for the CNC work, estimate the labour and jig costs to cut all the compound mitres on the members, and get the weights. Then I re-modeled some of it in Solidworks to experiment with its FEA and CFD features.

 

The results gained from that, contrary to an opinion earlier in this thread, indicate to me that the construction method is very valid structurally. High cluster joint strength and improved corrosion resistance can be achieved by using a flexible bonding compound between the square tubing and the gussets and that bonding would also prevent the rivets working which should significantly increase the longevity.

 

The justification for use of commercial grade materials came up surprisingly well in the end, with a weight penalty of only about 10% over aircraft grade materials since it wouldn't have been possible to use minimum sizes of the aircraft grades because their calculated failures tended to be in buckling so a larger size was required and the commercial grade/size could often have sufficient buckling resistance. The cost of the commercial grade material was around 35% of the cost of the aircraft grade but would actually work out even less than that because aircraft grade virtually always has to be freighted from distant suppliers whereas the commercial grade is usually just a car drive away from most plans/kit-builders.

 

However there's a lot more to reducing the cost of an entry level aircraft than just using cheaper airframe materials. If we bear in mind that the basic aluminium materials for the C2S biplane example, in aircraft grade would cost about $4000 and in commercial grade they would be about $1500 so you may save $2500 but the CNC work costs the same for both and so would the critical components in heat treated 4130 perhaps. There are already cheap aircraft out there. In an earlier post I wrote up the costs of a very basic aircraft like the Drifter and showed that $45,000 is a price that is hard to beat. The X-Air and Skyranger come out about the same or a bit less. So that is the benchmark price for a simple 2 seater and I don't think there's any possible way to make it cheaper if it's factory built. Factory built aircraft have to have a cost built in to cover liability issues and that is probably quite a significant amount. And note that regardless of comments about how simple and low in parts count the Jabiru is, it's still over $70,000 to buy a base model. With the potential for a high variation between the quality of a composite airframe when built by amateurs of varying skills and in varying environments I don't think composite is generally well suited to the plans and kit market.

 

So I think if we really do want to get a lot more people into flying we need to take good note of extensive market research that has been conducted on the subject of recreation and recreational vehicles in the USA. In summary the upper end of the prices of a purely recreational vehicle that will create a high volume of sales is US$17,000, that was 2 years ago but probably it's not much changed now. And as a result it's no accident that although most people would like to have the top of the range Seadoo, Snowmobile, Dune buggy, sports boat etc, it's the intermediate models of them priced at $17,000 that make the most sales by a very large margin.

 

That means that if we want to sell a lot of planes then instead of trying to build them as cheap as possible, aiming at some unknown figure, we have to decide that the price is US$17,000 (say AUD$20,000) and work out what can be built for that price. I think we can forget single seaters, sure there's a market but it's a small market and if I was aiming for that market I would aim at a $100,000 single seater with awesome performance, selling three a year would be more profitable than selling 50 at $20,000.

 

From my exercise with the C2S biplane it's very clear that it would be possible to offer kits that could be completed, to flying stage, for $20,000 including everything, but it wouldn't be a factory built plane. If young people want an entry level factory built plane they need to get instant gratification by raiding Dad's bank account.

 

Way back then in the 1980s when we had cheap flying we did it with single seaters and we kept them in trailers. We all met up at various airfields at the weekends and helped each other to put the wings on. Very few planes could be assembled by one person, so we had to meet up and that made it something like a club. And we had the benefit of the trailers to camp overnight. Flying around as a group we didn't need two seaters so much, it was just that training was a bit more hazardous learning in a single seater. Most people did a gliding solo course. Those single seaters we flew all cost about the same and many of them were actually factory built, they cost between $6000 and $8000, the folks who built from plans often got away with a total cost of about $2000 less. That $6-8000 is about equivalent to today's $20,000 so the recreational vehicle price applied back then too. The only difference is we now want a two seater for the equivalent price of a single seater. Factory-built also has vastly higher public liability issues so the only way we're going to get this plane within the 'acceptable standard cost' for a recreational vehicle is if the owner builds it from plans, a critical components kit and perhaps members with compound mitres supplied pre-cut.

 

First off we have to get the engine price way down, the Rotax 582 is the cheapest option for the minimum horsepower we need but it's still way too expensive, correct me if I'm wrong but I think the base engine is about $7000 with our weaker dollar but then there's the exhaust, carbs, gearbox, radiators, oil pump (gearbox?). I think the complete powerplant is over $10,000 now. And with the price of petrol now perhaps the two strokes are also too expensive to run.

 

The components are available off the shelf for converting several different and suitable weight car and bike engines in the 75-95hp range, all of which, with a bit of searching around, can be ready to fly for less than $5000 and weigh around 80kg. So by using any of them you can save a very large slice of the cost of a plane. There are many examples of the G10, G13 and G15 PSRU equipped engines being used for intensive crop spraying in Ukraine and Russia so they are well proven and cost around $1500-2000 for a 20,000km engine from a crashed vehicle and the gearbox is available in Oz for about $2000. The BMW R1200 engine is another great example of engine for about the same price a nd the earlier complication of the ECU and loom has now been solved by an aftermarket system being available off the shelf from TakeOff and others.

 

 

For now I have moved away from the C2S biplane since no-one showed any great interest in building one and it doesn't fit what I particularly want for myself. However I did have an approach from someone who wants exactly what I'm very interested in, a STOL bushplane with slats, slotted flaps and a reasonable range, so I'm modelling that up now. Gladly many of the concepts that I had worked out for making the biplane cheaper to produce are also very suited to this one.

 

The fabric covering is one example - for a Drifter a set of skins would be around $3-4000 (my guess - anyone know more accurate costs?) because there is a lot of work in sewing them accurately, even though the Dacron fabric is quite affordable. Stits covering for this STOL concept would cost about $3500, or about $2500 for Ceconite or one of the non-certified versions, but then there's the adhesive, tapes, dope and paint to account for and also the breathing apparatus, spray equipment, so you're up to at least $5000 for finished covering. A nice new fabric that doesn't require painting or doping is Oratex but that's more expensive again. To get around these high costs for the biplane I devised and tested a completely new means of using cheap Dacron sailcloth and tensioning it without heat or battens. It also uses a fair bit less fabric than other methods because you don't cover the D nose of the wing and there aren't any overlaps, so there's another approx $3000 saving in the kit price from that as well.

 

There are a few other savings I've come up with too, mainly in the manufacturing process but this post is getting boringly long so I'll leave that for another time.

 

I don't think Farri meant for this thread to be solely about the actual cost of the planes, but also the cost of getting into aviation in general and one of the significant costs these days is the training. Perhaps that's where regional clubs or support groups might come in? And build syndicates. As a concept - provided a kitplane was considered 'good' and was a suitable training plane, which an entry-level plane should be of course, then instructors shouldn't have any objection to teaching in them provided that they were still earning the same hourly rate and they weren't having business taken away from their own aircraft. Better still if they were getting extra business that they weren't going to get otherwise? So this low cost kit's manufacturer and its regional distributors might do well to locally promote syndicate building and ownership having made arrangements with local FTFs who could then teach the owners of the finished kit in their own aircraft.

 

For example, a smart distributor might display an assembled demo aircraft in local shopping centres and arranging to take interested people for free demo flights (therefore it's not a TIF and not commercial) and actively helping people who might be interested to form syndicates to build their own. A $20,000 kit might be divided into six shares at $5000 each which would include the 1/6 share of the plane and their instruction to certificate standard (excl XC) as well as a full builder-assist program to get the thing built in a month.

 

For example - say the kit costs $20,000, that's $3300 each, the instruction for each person's say 20hrs (?) at $60/hr = $1200 plus 1/6 share of renting a local workshop at $1500/month = $250. There's $250 (x6) left for incidentals/ground school. Since the syndicate members would have been drawn from a small area where they all shop at the shopping centre, logically they would all live close to each other and be able to get to a common workshop. In fact a workshop at that price could accommodate quite a few projects at the same time, perhaps with different syndicates using different jigs/project benches at different times.

 

Just thoughts. There's always a way it just depends on having a distributor who wants to get properly involved in the marketing and after sales. This is not an original concept, it's the way that many sailing boats, particularly racing multihulls are/used to be built.

 

 

 

[Downunder]

Yeah, I think training Vs aircraft cost is a factor. How many people want to spend 6 grand in training for a 12 or 15 thousand dollar aircraft?

 

Perhaps those that can afford to persue and complete their certificate can also afford a 100 thousand dollar aircraft.

 

I wonder how many start training and drop out?

 

 

[Teckair]

Hey Richard! What age are you calling young?.. My son is 46 and I still find myself calling him " The young bloke " when I`m talking about him to others. These days, I think of young people as being around 40.Frank.

I reckon 15 to 40 but young age is getting older.

Richard.

 

 

[M61A1]

Yeah, I think training Vs aircraft cost is a factor. How many people want to spend 6 grand in training for a 12 or 15 thousand dollar aircraft?Perhaps those that can afford to persue and complete their certificate can also afford a 100 thousand dollar aircraft.

I wonder how many start training and drop out?

When I started around 1996, I was struggling financially, courtesy of the scum at CSA and at $80/hr it took me 4 years to do my pilot cert. Then, for the next 10 years pretty much all my flying was doing my BFR every 2 years. Once things improved, I purchased an inexpensive aircraft, now I fly more in a month than I did in 10 years. I wouldn't be able to fly near as much if I was still hiring an aircraft at current rates.

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

It is already happening the membership has dropped by a significant amount, young people cannot afford what is now on offer from RAAus. Look around and you will see most of us are getting close to 60 years old and beyond. What we are doing is nothing more than re-inventing the GA wheel without medicals and the result will be the same. Yes the rules do not prevent anyone from flying affordable grass roots style air craft, but we already knew that and yes people do not choose to fly these planes but once again we already knew that as well. What is happening is self inflicted and if it continues the result will be inevitable.

GFC / recession got anything to do with it?

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

Freedom of speach and all that but does anyone truely believe that is an intelligent statement that does anyone any good?Frank

CAO 95:25 is expired. Unless you are proposing re-introducing 95:25 (supposing CASA would come to the party, and secondly, supposing you could find a 21M signatory willing to accept the liability), Thrusters and Drifters are historical relics. Note Well: I am committed to keeping all Thrusters operational for as long as possible; but I do not delude myself that regulations have not changed.

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

It's irrelevant to this discussion anyway.

Wrong - 95:25 is expired. Thrusters and Drifters are as much shaped by 95:25 (CAP 482 as well), as by any other influence.

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

Here’s a rough summary of where we are after 188 posts.CATEGORY

 

Grass Roots, local flying - Typically Drifter, Thruster, under 75 hp, very simple construction and equipment level.

 

This category is below all Jabiru models, below Skyfox, and probably below Lightwing.

 

Single seaters allow lower cost, faster cruise, longer range with the same engine.

 

(There is plenty to discuss about lowering the costs in the bigger, more expensive category, but in another thread related to those more expensive aircraft. In fact there is plenty of benefit in diving the market into RA Grass Roots, RA Cross Country and LSA with appropriate administrative cost levels applied to each – this would take a cost burden off Grass Roots.)

 

IMPEDIMENTS TO CONDUCTING GRASS ROOTS FLYING

 

Nil reported

 

MAKES AVAILABLE to date

 

(These are believed to be available and legal by the posters, but more research is required)

 

• Drifter ($10,000 < $12,000)
   
   
  
• Thruster (UK version?)
   
   
  
• Quicksilver (still in production)
   
   
  
• Chinook
   
   
  
• Pioneer Flightstar
   
   
  
• XAir (Cost $28,000, sell $17,000 <20,000)
   
   
  
• Belites
   
   
  
• Skycraft Scout
   
   
  

 

 

 

DESIGN

 

Needs competent engineered design

 

Opportunity for people to sell engineered and tested plans

 

Opportunity for people to sell kits

 

Opportunity for people to sell individual Bill of Materials unassembled parts

 

ENGINE COSTS

 

GR582 $6000.00 every 300 hours

 

912 $20,000 every 2000 hours

 

While that comparison would give the smaller engine a higher cost of life:

 

(a) Someone pointed out that wouldn’t apply if the engines were rebuilt instead of replaced new

 

(b) Grass Roots flying is not cross country flying – 300 hours is a long time, annual hours will be lower.

 

TRAINING

 

Need to allow #19 AC to be used for training

 

As above but with a stricter design/maintenance programme

 

One school charging the same for Foxbat and Drifter

 

Continued availability of Certified training aircraft an issue

 

MARKETING

 

Database of grass roots training facilities – some names already on the thread

 

Database of aircraft and parts suppliers

 

Encourage “Build and Fly”

 

Cost Sharing

 

Form a Club – this could also be a section or Chapter of RAA, to collect focused people together.

 

IRRELEVANT

 

64 posts

 

These were mostly people wanting to talk about Jabiru class aircraft, which belong in a higher cost category, or offering opinions on the state of RA flying in general or the so-called demise of Grass Roots flying, which looks alive and well.

How do you make a Drifter for $10k ~ $12k?

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

Actually quite well Teck, although the goalposts have moved a lot recently.I completed the entire biplane project in CAD down to every matched hole, rivet, and bolt, so that I could have an accurate parts count for a critical components pack for a kit, and run a costing for the CNC work, estimate the labour and jig costs to cut all the compound mitres on the members, and get the weights. Then I re-modeled some of it in Solidworks to experiment with its FEA and CFD features.

 

The results gained from that, contrary to an opinion earlier in this thread, indicate to me that the construction method is very valid structurally. High cluster joint strength and improved corrosion resistance can be achieved by using a flexible bonding compound between the square tubing and the gussets and that bonding would also prevent the rivets working which should significantly increase the longevity.

 

The justification for use of commercial grade materials came up surprisingly well in the end, with a weight penalty of only about 10% over aircraft grade materials since it wouldn't have been possible to use minimum sizes of the aircraft grades because their calculated failures tended to be in buckling so a larger size was required and the commercial grade/size could often have sufficient buckling resistance. The cost of the commercial grade material was around 35% of the cost of the aircraft grade but would actually work out even less than that because aircraft grade virtually always has to be freighted from distant suppliers whereas the commercial grade is usually just a car drive away from most plans/kit-builders.

 

However there's a lot more to reducing the cost of an entry level aircraft than just using cheaper airframe materials. If we bear in mind that the basic aluminium materials for the C2S biplane example, in aircraft grade would cost about $4000 and in commercial grade they would be about $1500 so you may save $2500 but the CNC work costs the same for both and so would the critical components in heat treated 4130 perhaps. There are already cheap aircraft out there. In an earlier post I wrote up the costs of a very basic aircraft like the Drifter and showed that $45,000 is a price that is hard to beat. The X-Air and Skyranger come out about the same or a bit less. So that is the benchmark price for a simple 2 seater and I don't think there's any possible way to make it cheaper if it's factory built. Factory built aircraft have to have a cost built in to cover liability issues and that is probably quite a significant amount. And note that regardless of comments about how simple and low in parts count the Jabiru is, it's still over $70,000 to buy a base model. With the potential for a high variation between the quality of a composite airframe when built by amateurs of varying skills and in varying environments I don't think composite is generally well suited to the plans and kit market.

 

So I think if we really do want to get a lot more people into flying we need to take good note of extensive market research that has been conducted on the subject of recreation and recreational vehicles in the USA. In summary the upper end of the prices of a purely recreational vehicle that will create a high volume of sales is US$17,000, that was 2 years ago but probably it's not much changed now. And as a result it's no accident that although most people would like to have the top of the range Seadoo, Snowmobile, Dune buggy, sports boat etc, it's the intermediate models of them priced at $17,000 that make the most sales by a very large margin.

 

That means that if we want to sell a lot of planes then instead of trying to build them as cheap as possible, aiming at some unknown figure, we have to decide that the price is US$17,000 (say AUD$20,000) and work out what can be built for that price. I think we can forget single seaters, sure there's a market but it's a small market and if I was aiming for that market I would aim at a $100,000 single seater with awesome performance, selling three a year would be more profitable than selling 50 at $20,000.

 

From my exercise with the C2S biplane it's very clear that it would be possible to offer kits that could be completed, to flying stage, for $20,000 including everything, but it wouldn't be a factory built plane. If young people want an entry level factory built plane they need to get instant gratification by raiding Dad's bank account.

 

Way back then in the 1980s when we had cheap flying we did it with single seaters and we kept them in trailers. We all met up at various airfields at the weekends and helped each other to put the wings on. Very few planes could be assembled by one person, so we had to meet up and that made it something like a club. And we had the benefit of the trailers to camp overnight. Flying around as a group we didn't need two seaters so much, it was just that training was a bit more hazardous learning in a single seater. Most people did a gliding solo course. Those single seaters we flew all cost about the same and many of them were actually factory built, they cost between $6000 and $8000, the folks who built from plans often got away with a total cost of about $2000 less. That $6-8000 is about equivalent to today's $20,000 so the recreational vehicle price applied back then too. The only difference is we now want a two seater for the equivalent price of a single seater. Factory-built also has vastly higher public liability issues so the only way we're going to get this plane within the 'acceptable standard cost' for a recreational vehicle is if the owner builds it from plans, a critical components kit and perhaps members with compound mitres supplied pre-cut.

 

First off we have to get the engine price way down, the Rotax 582 is the cheapest option for the minimum horsepower we need but it's still way too expensive, correct me if I'm wrong but I think the base engine is about $7000 with our weaker dollar but then there's the exhaust, carbs, gearbox, radiators, oil pump (gearbox?). I think the complete powerplant is over $10,000 now. And with the price of petrol now perhaps the two strokes are also too expensive to run.

 

The components are available off the shelf for converting several different and suitable weight car and bike engines in the 75-95hp range, all of which, with a bit of searching around, can be ready to fly for less than $5000 and weigh around 80kg. So by using any of them you can save a very large slice of the cost of a plane. There are many examples of the G10, G13 and G15 PSRU equipped engines being used for intensive crop spraying in Ukraine and Russia so they are well proven and cost around $1500-2000 for a 20,000km engine from a crashed vehicle and the gearbox is available in Oz for about $2000. The BMW R1200 engine is another great example of engine for about the same price a nd the earlier complication of the ECU and loom has now been solved by an aftermarket system being available off the shelf from TakeOff and others.

 

[ATTACH]27170[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]27171[/ATTACH]

 

For now I have moved away from the C2S biplane since no-one showed any great interest in building one and it doesn't fit what I particularly want for myself. However I did have an approach from someone who wants exactly what I'm very interested in, a STOL bushplane with slats, slotted flaps and a reasonable range, so I'm modelling that up now. Gladly many of the concepts that I had worked out for making the biplane cheaper to produce are also very suited to this one.

 

The fabric covering is one example - for a Drifter a set of skins would be around $3-4000 (my guess - anyone know more accurate costs?) because there is a lot of work in sewing them accurately, even though the Dacron fabric is quite affordable. Stits covering for this STOL concept would cost about $3500, or about $2500 for Ceconite or one of the non-certified versions, but then there's the adhesive, tapes, dope and paint to account for and also the breathing apparatus, spray equipment, so you're up to at least $5000 for finished covering. A nice new fabric that doesn't require painting or doping is Oratex but that's more expensive again. To get around these high costs for the biplane I devised and tested a completely new means of using cheap Dacron sailcloth and tensioning it without heat or battens. It also uses a fair bit less fabric than other methods because you don't cover the D nose of the wing and there aren't any overlaps, so there's another approx $3000 saving in the kit price from that as well.

 

There are a few other savings I've come up with too, mainly in the manufacturing process but this post is getting boringly long so I'll leave that for another time.

 

I don't think Farri meant for this thread to be solely about the actual cost of the planes, but also the cost of getting into aviation in general and one of the significant costs these days is the training. Perhaps that's where regional clubs or support groups might come in? And build syndicates. As a concept - provided a kitplane was considered 'good' and was a suitable training plane, which an entry-level plane should be of course, then instructors shouldn't have any objection to teaching in them provided that they were still earning the same hourly rate and they weren't having business taken away from their own aircraft. Better still if they were getting extra business that they weren't going to get otherwise? So this low cost kit's manufacturer and its regional distributors might do well to locally promote syndicate building and ownership having made arrangements with local FTFs who could then teach the owners of the finished kit in their own aircraft.

 

For example, a smart distributor might display an assembled demo aircraft in local shopping centres and arranging to take interested people for free demo flights (therefore it's not a TIF and not commercial) and actively helping people who might be interested to form syndicates to build their own. A $20,000 kit might be divided into six shares at $5000 each which would include the 1/6 share of the plane and their instruction to certificate standard (excl XC) as well as a full builder-assist program to get the thing built in a month.

 

For example - say the kit costs $20,000, that's $3300 each, the instruction for each person's say 20hrs (?) at $60/hr = $1200 plus 1/6 share of renting a local workshop at $1500/month = $250. There's $250 (x6) left for incidentals/ground school. Since the syndicate members would have been drawn from a small area where they all shop at the shopping centre, logically they would all live close to each other and be able to get to a common workshop. In fact a workshop at that price could accommodate quite a few projects at the same time, perhaps with different syndicates using different jigs/project benches at different times.

 

Just thoughts. There's always a way it just depends on having a distributor who wants to get properly involved in the marketing and after sales. This is not an original concept, it's the way that many sailing boats, particularly racing multihulls are/used to be built.

I agree with your philosophy, but query the commercial material penalty: Are you using "A"-basis (2.7 sigma) material properties, or just "S" basis? What about fatigue? For the bomding, how do you render the aluminium oxide film impervious? What happens to your bond when cycled beyond 1.7mStrain?

These are what I have found to be the stoppers to using commercial material, esp bonded aluminium, in any airframe that has to meet a design standard. If you've got them solved, the whole picture changes...

 

 

[farri]

CAO 95:25 is expired. Thrusters and Drifters are historical relics.

Bob! It realy does help to check your facts before posting nonsense statements. I`m sure everyone here would appreciate it.

 

Here`s part of of an email I sent to the RA-Aus, dated, 10/01/2014, requesting information. An area of concern to me is that the 95-25 category does not appear in the current ops manual.

 

Here`s part of the reply from RA-Aus, dated, 13/01/2014. Dear Franco,Your aircraft falls under cao95.55 in the ops manual.

 

If you think it`s incorrect,check the RA-Aus opps manual then argue it out with the RA-Aus.

 

Frank.

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

Bob! It realy does help to check your facts before posting nonsense statements. I`m sure everyone here would appreciate it.Here`s part of of an email I sent to the RA-Aus, dated, 10/01/2014, requesting information. An area of concern to me is that the 95-25 category does not appear in the current ops manual.

 

Here`s part of the reply from RA-Aus, dated, 13/01/2014. Dear Franco,Your aircraft falls under cao95.55 in the ops manual.

 

If you think it`s incorrect,check the RA-Aus opps manual then argue it out with the RA-Aus.

 

Frank.

I agree, check your facts. RAAus does not Certify aeroplanes against design standards, CASA does. I quote ANO 95:25, issue One, 1.2: "This Section of the Air Navigation Orders shall be cancelled when Air Navigation Orders Section 95:55, 100:55 and 101:55, issue 1, become effective."

 

I had a discussion with Eugene Holzapfel on this head, whilst preparing some paperwork for Rob Thompson to get Drifter production back into gear. Eugene did not quibble over the "grandfathering" of 95:25, although CASA exercised its discretionary authority to give Rob the maximum support - once he cleared the hurdles - to get going.

 

RAAus is still required to support airworthy 95:25 aeroplanes - called "old" 95;25 aeroplanes in 95:55 - but have stuff all to do with certification; they will not claim otherwise.

 

As the regs are online and not long, please read them.

 

 

[farri]

I agree, check your facts.

Bob,I apologies if I misinterpreted your intent in your post #211. I may have jumped to conclusion to quickly. On reading that post again and your post #216, I understand what you are saying. I wasn`t aware that you were talking about certification in post #211.

 

Cheers,

 

Frank.

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

Bob,I apologies if I misinterpreted your intent in your post #211. I may have jumped to conclusion to quickly. On reading that post again and your post #216, I understand what you are saying. I wasn`t aware that you were talking about certification in post #211.Cheers,

 

Frank.

Ok, no worries - from the aspect of "What can be done", it's all about Certification, because that's the big - sometimes HUGE cost - of getting even a simple aircraft onto the market. The talk about re-creating the Thruster / Drifter, when 95:25 has officially self-destructed, makes no economic sense - those aeroplanes were designed / evolved purely for minimum manufacture cost on small production runs (i.e. minimal tooling, moderate labour). Dafydd was involved in the certification of the Drifter SB* (and has a few of my Thrusters in his hangar), and is all too aware of how the certification cost of such designs blows out once certification grows beyond a CAR 35 engineer declaring the design "airworthy" (which is what 95:25 is all about).

LSA seems to be the beacon of hope for affordable aviation; the trouble is, it costs just as much to demonstrate compliance for a single-seat, minimum-profit entry-level aeroplane as it does a minature Mooney; and the profits on the Mooney are bigger.

 

*And the Calair Skyfox, the Jabiru LSA (with 1600 donk), the J-160...

 

 

[turboplanner]

How do you make a Drifter for $10k ~ $12k?

No one is saying you have to make one - see the original posters comments.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

I agree with your philosophy, but query the commercial material penalty ...

I'm inconsolable

 

.... These are what I have found to be the stoppers to using commercial material, esp bonded aluminium, in any airframe that has to meet a design standard. If you've got them solved, the whole picture changes...

One of the Macros that I designed and built 30 years ago, and which is a fully bonded aluminium monocoque structure (spar caps and all) is still flying. I believe it's in Zimbabwe now, having lived in three countries and with a range of temperatures and humidities at both ends of the spectrum. I don't know the total airframe hours but it went through several engine changes and I've not heard of any fatigue issues and the bonding certainly didn't fail. Following the manufacturer's recommendations for preparation of the material prior to bonding seemed like a good idea at the time and curiously enough it seems to have worked. Mind you they did, and still do, supply adhesives for bonding Boeings so I guess they'd been in the game more than a week or two.

 

The space-frame fuselage structure I'm presently working on is unlikely to have fatigue problems and I'm planning to use a bonding medium that is simpler for the homebuilder and which is also very well proven. In any case the bonding in this instance is non-critical but does provide manufacturing/assembly advantages, so is being used other than just for additional strength and corrosion resistance. The wing spars are not bonded.

 

Design Standards, Type Certificates and ASTMS are not of any concern to me since I am not interested in factory building complete airframes because I don't believe a new factory built can possibly be sold at a 'recreational vehicle' price or anywhere within a cooeee of it. Existing manufacturers must already be cutting costs to the bone to compete with the other 130-odd LSA and or kit manufacturers and they still seem to need to charge at least 4 times the 'rec vehicle price'. So factory building is a very different ball game from kit offerings.

 

In any case, as far as longevity is concerned, and given that it's being built to a price rather than a standard it should be thought of in the same way as other recreational vehicles in the same price range. The mid-range Seadoos and Snowmobiles are unlikely to be up for sale and hoping to attract a good resale price ten years from now, they'll have been scrapped years before, such is the throwaway mentality of present society. Nonetheless I would expect even a budget airframe to be likely to fetch a reasonable price ten years hence even if it may need a bit of TLC to bring it back up to scratch. Personally I don't see anything wrong with a lifed product provided it doesn't come apart unexpectedly and all that is required to ensure against that is good inspectability. If we didn't have such an extensive second hand market of 50 year old Cessna's still banging around the skies with newer wings, new skins, re-riveted, re-painted and sheepskin seat covers there'd be a much better choice and availability of new planes.

 

 

[Teckair]

GFC / recession got anything to do with it?

Yes that is a lot to do with it and unlike what we are told by some I don't see an end to it any time soon. This is the whole reason the word affordable is becoming important.

 

 

[farri]

Personally I don't see anything wrong with a lifed product provided it doesn't come apart unexpectedly and all that is required to ensure against that is good inspectability.

I like it! Could be part of the solution, guys! A recreational aircraft designed and built to last a particular period of time with a purchase price and running cost to make it an attractive proposition....... Feasible???

 

Frank.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Yes, it is.

 

I think his research into affordable hobbies is compelling, and a good place to start looking at product to market a lot more effectively than it is now, both in used and new.

 

 

[howe]

MAKES AVAILABLE to date

 

(These are believed to be available and legal by the posters, but more research is required)

 

• Drifter ($10,000 < $12,000)
   
   
  
• Thruster (UK version?)
   
   
  
• Quicksilver (still in production)
   
   
  
• Chinook
   
   
  
• Pioneer Flightstar
   
   
  
• XAir (Cost $28,000, sell $17,000 <20,000)
   
   
  
• Belites
   
   
  
• Skycraft Scout
   
   
  

 

 

 

Bantam, dual 2 seat 582 also a great contender.

 

When ever we fly into Caloundra with our group of Kestrels… 95.10 single place ,we always get lots of questions form young and old flyers.

 

It all boils down to the individuals motivation to do it, there's heaps of info out there.

 

 

[turboplanner]

I agree, the problem is not a technical ne, but pulling a group together to get momentum going