Rotax 912 pricing

[FlyBoy1960]

This screenshot is from the Comm Bank just now to the USD.

 

There will be about 10% difference between the buy rate and the sell rate, this is how they make their money.

 

What you see on the television will never be accurate because this is called the mid market rate which is the difference between the buy and the sell rate.

 

[facthunter]

Some machinery doesn't have a great tolerence for reducing the build quality and getting away with it. I'd say the Rotax 912 is one such engine. Another was the speedway JAP I don't think it was ever copied successfully. It was pre eminent from about 1931 to the early 60's giving one HP for each Lb of total engine weight Innards were built as light as possible and any reduction of metal quality meant it failed. Nev

[IBob]

I do a lot of overseas transactions. I use a Forex company for anything above a few hundred dollars. Its the only way to do it otherwise you get screwed over on the exchange rate. The rate at the time of transfer to Euro was 0.6088 to the aussie dollar and I got it for 0.6038 thats far far better than you get anywhere. So to put it in context AU$100 at the published daily rate would be 60.88 euro I got that for 60.38 euro the same AU$100.00 . The only other charges are the $15.00 transfer fee. If you did it by Paypal or a banks be prepared to lose a lot more on your transfer most likely around 55 to 57 Euro

 

I guess the thing to know is that, with the advent of the online money transfer businesses we now have, very low cost transfers are now readily available to everyone.

Unlike Mark, I now make very few high value transfers: mostly it's just occasional purchase of tools or components, and family gifts of money. But I get the same easy rapid online transfer, at very low cost: I can sit down at my laptop and send money to my daughter in London, it arrives same day or day after and every step (I've made my payment at this end/it's been received at this end/they're paying out at that end/payment is complete at that end) is tracked and email notified to me.

There is an initial setup with whoever you choose: when you first sign up they have to verify you are who you say you are. This is a required part of the anti-money laundering thing. But once that's done, you're good to go, and in the case of repeat payments (like my daughter!) it gets even simpler, as the system remembers all the details.

Finally, you don't have to have signed up to use their online calculator to compare rates and costs etc. I'd recommend anyone to take a look.

 

And I realise this is now sounding like an advert. It's not, but I so like using this stuff: every time I do, I get the great feeling that I am cheating the banks...........)

[IBob]

This screenshot is from the Comm Bank just now to the USD.

 

There will be about 10% difference between the buy rate and the sell rate, this is how they make their money.

 

What you see on the television will never be accurate because this is called the mid market rate which is the difference between the buy and the sell rate.

 

[ATTACH type=full" width="980px" alt="1598749772437.png]55925[/ATTACH]

 

Right. And I just went to TransferWise, where they are offering what is the true rate of 0.736650.

I buttoned in $1000 from A$ to US$ and they quoted total fees of A$6.01 on that:

https://transferwise.com/nz

[IBob]

There was a thread here on all this a while back, with some really good input from several people. I don't know how to copy/paste the thread number, but it's here:

https://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/overseas-purchases-for-the-ordinary-man-er-person.33574/

[onetrack]

The problem with Chinese products is purely and simply one of adequate and traceable QC. The Chinese have three distinct traits when it come to manufacturing products.

One Chinese trait is rampant corruption and bribery in China, the second trait is lack of attention to detail by Chinese workers, and the third trait is using relatively-poorly-trained people with poor English skills in manufacturing, where good English skills are vital.

The English language is the language of Science, Physics, Chemistry, Technology, Construction and Manufacturing. Conversion of instructions and details between English and Chinese is fraught with potential errors.

 

Rampant bribery and corruption often means critical material specifications, and tight tolerances are not met - because the supplier has "engineered" a "mate" to get a deal. This usually involves a kickback and a lowering of specification standards.

 

The Japanese have got to their leading position in manufacturing thanks to their anal approach to manufacturing and assembly detail. They beat the Americans in that respect.

The Chondas are cheap, and have the reputation to match. Their failure rate is much higher than the genuine Honda - the piston rings in particular, are not up to scratch.

[kgwilson]

Are these Zongshen engines available in Australia? Looking at their website the warranty is 3 years or 500 hours so they must have enough confidence in them to make that offer. I'd want to know how many are in service, how are they performing, their reliability, failure rate, etc before even thinking about one. I imagine they make everything including the carburettors. And then there is price, Euro 14,640 (AUD$23,716) for the 912 ULS copy & does this include exhaust, radiator etc and tax?

[Kyle Communications]

I just checked the transferWise rates..they are damn good. My Forex guys are a little better but not by much. The main reason I stick with them is at times some banks are difficult to get the transfer to.

For example when I did my first large transfer to RANS...For RAN's bank there are only 3 branches in the world and they are all in Kansas...My Forex company couldnt transfer direct to any of them because they were not setup for it in Kansas not surprisingly as the American banking system is so backwards. They had to transfer to a intermediate bank to get the funds to RANS account. I didnt have to do anything and my money wasnt held up or bounced back if it wasnt correct

Edited August 30, 2020 by Kyle Communications

[Kyle Communications]

I was dealing with the dude from Zongshan early in the year to see what they were like...they wanted to dictate how many engines you had to stock and other stuff. So told him a few home truths about "perception" of chinese engines...He didnt get back to me after I explained what obsticals here would find in the Australian market so he obviously didnt want to go down the road that I thought necessary :)

[IBob]

I just checked the transferWise rates..they are damn good. My Forex guys are a little better but not by much. The main reason I stick with them is at times some banks are difficult to get the transfer to.

For example when I did my first large transfer to RANS...For RAN's bank there are only 3 branches in the world and they are all in Kansas...My Forex company couldnt transfer direct to any of them because they were not setup for it in Kansas not surprisingly as the American banking system is so backwards. They had to transfer to a intermediate bank to get the funds to RANS account. I didnt have to do anything and my money wasnt held up or bounced back if it wasnt correct

Mark I have used TransferWise into the US, and it worked fine. But you're right: it's not nearly as slick as into other parts of the world, and the reason for that is that they are stuck with some archaic and inflexible 'universal' internal transfer system, and there is this opaque period over there where you are waiting for it to finally pop out of that to where it belongs.

 

When you use a DIY transfer system like TransferWise, you get to see some of the banking system differences from country to country, since different countries require different info to finish the job. Where the thing really starts to fly is with repeat transfers: your account then has all the necessary info, and you just plug in the new amount, check the quote, and remit the funds: approx 4-5mins for me, and I'm slow and getting slower!

[Kyle Communications]

I didnt realise how backward the banking system was until I went back over in 2018 to go to RANS. More than 60% of transactions are still with paper cheque..almost totally non existance of paywave for CC in any business. If you have an account in a bank over there you can not do any EFT unless you have a social security number. They have a sort of PayPal like transfer system in the banks and they use a unusual routing number system for internal transfers.

Chinese banks also can be problematic too when trying to transfer money to some of them. Thats why I stick with the Forex guys I use...there has never been any issues at all in the 20 years I have been using this style of transfer. I think though now you must have a registered business to use their services but I always have had that so again no issue. Its good to see finally someone sticking it to the banks who used to screw me over really well until I found the Forex way of doing things

[IBob]

Yep. One peculiarity of the US internal system is that it has no capacity for adding further info or flags to a transaction.

So, for instance, when I send money to the daughter in London, I can label it with a plain English tag that arrives with it: from Dad, Happy Birthday, or whatever, appears alongside the deposit in her account. The US system doesn't allow that, the transaction has some sort of number, generated by them, and that's it. And the money vanishes into one end of their pipeline, and you wait for it to pop out the other end. Just like the good old days!

If you think about it, this aspects of banking, with all the delays, is just a great big Ponzi scheme. For the most part, there is no justification now for the delays in transfers. But all that money moving around, put in at this end but not fed out of that end until days later, makes for a huge pile of free money for whoever is in the middle..........

[Downunder]

I've used currencyfair for business transactions. They also have personal accounts.

The good thing is that you can transfer aud into other currencies at any time and it is held in that currency.

You can also "bid" for a better rate which will automatically exchange when hit. Good for taking advantage in any spikes in rates.

You can also transfer between currencies and back to aud.

 

I sent a payment one night to china. It was in the bank at 8.00 am next morning.

This was sent at standard currencyfair rate, not express.

The sales rep was amazed. She had never seen such a fast transaction ever.

This was from a fairly large industrial manufacturing company.

[Kyle Communications]

Most of the Forex companies do the same. I know at work we buy US$ and keep it regularly as we get material from the USA every month of so and its 100k at a time so currency fluctuations can rain havock on the amounts. So when the currency is crap we use the holding funds and not the immediate funds..it can mean 6k per order at times.

I put my work onto the one I use and its been excellent for them as well. They just used to do Comm bank international transfers and were getting screwed even at getting "special good rates as a large business customer"..what a joke

 

All that free "missing" money is not missing its invested in the short term money market by the banks

[planesmaker]

My concern with the Chinese rotax copy is parts supply, no not for the Zongshen but the genuine rotax if fake parts start filtering through that could cause your rotax to become less than it should be.

[Thruster88]

My concern with the Chinese rotax copy is parts supply, no not for the Zongshen but the genuine rotax if fake parts start filtering through that could cause your rotax to become less than it should be.

I see this as well, the clone Honda 6.5hp industrial engines are incredible copies of the real thing, every single part is visually perfect.

[Downunder]

I don't see the point of a direct copy of the Rotax. If it's any more than half or 2/3 rds the price of a genuine one I don't see the reason to buy one.

An engine with the same dimensions and power would be nice as a bolt in replacement.

"Modernised" with fuel injection and such......but not a copy with carbs.

[RFguy]

27k rotax / 2000 hours = 13.50 $/hour.

yeah there are intermediate costs on your way to 2k hours, I'll try and get them all from Bert.

 

Now, I know that 2000h comparison for flyers that might fly 500 hours in 10 years is not apples for apples.

[pylon500]

I don't see the point of a direct copy of the Rotax.

Tend to agree. Considering the age of the 912 I would assume there has beed room for improvement over the years...

My personal thought is that Rotax made a mistake by not having a common crossflow head, which would have;

a. Allowed one common head for the whole engine,

b. Allowed the eventual creation of a six cylinder (worked for Jabiru).

Obviously in todays market, the engine should be fuel injected as standard with a single throttle body. The new longer gearbox housing was a long time coming as well.

Maybe a choice of gear ratios as well?

Anyone know if Rotax still make 4:1 C or E boxes?

[onetrack]

The patents, and the "registered design" rights on certain parts, of the Honda OHV industrial engine, have long expired - and it's entirely possible many patents and registered design rights on the Rotax have expired, as well.

 

Most of this stuff is covered more by registered design rights, than by patents. Patents last for between 14 and 20 years, depending on the type of patent and the country it originates in.

Registered design, however, only lasts for 6 years. Because there's generally no ability to patent a component that uses commonly-known principles, registered design is generally all the manufacturer can do, to prevent copies appearing soon after release of a product.

 

To get a full patent, you must have a design that is innovative, entirely new in principle, and which meets the requirements of the Patent Act. Vast amounts of manufactured products simply utilise known principles and designs, called "prior art".

 

The concern about substitution of Zhongshen components for genuine Rotax components is certainly of great concern. A concern regularly shared by many other manufacturers, who suffer from an onslaught of copied parts and components.

[kgwilson]

The problem with the US banking system is that they don't actually have a banking system. There are thousands of individual banks and there is a very complex and largely paper driven process of transfer between them. This is why they keep vaults and a bank can be robbed and then go broke. Archaic is not even a close description. It does however keep a lot of people employed. Even during the Covid crisis the government has been sending paper support cheques to people.

 

Until Zongshen establishes a reliability track record I'd be pretty fussy about getting genuine Rotax parts even if the cost is over the top and their service is poor. Any why copy a 50 year old carburettor design anyway. Well this is aviation after all & tried & true is always the order of the day but I do think we are beginning to slowly embrace the 21st century..

[RFguy]

I have bought a fair bit of chinese made/built robots and robot components etc. So I feel I can comment with some lead in my pocket. Here is some fact :

 

I have found that manufacturers making individual parts, like ball screws etc :

 

They build to a price and quality is proportional to price. As the price goes up quality goes up. Consistency goes up with price, also because WHEN the quality gets high enough the YIELD falls, and this FORCES inspection and QC.

Below that quality line where yield is 100% , FORGET IT for consistency. They never look at it.

 

Now, companies that make completed assemblies and systems. The consistency is VERY POOR. That yield curve thing above doesn't work anymore with something with 100 parts. They seem to , in a 90% case , have no concept for QC and checklists that actually get adhered to. It's like quality can come down to the kid on the final assy who doesnt know much. While R&D DO understand, the FACTORY floors do not seem to understand the concept of pass and fail a whole assembly, and that the device must meet 100% of everything specified. The whole assembly integration is where the chinese products fall very short. They don't seem to want to fail things.

 

I have quizzed them on this, they consider the western customer is getting a lower price for this overall assembly and therefore will accept less than perfect aspects. This is not always the case, it very much depends on where the boss was educated. But again, I have found that high quality chinese organisations get let down by the lowest paid person on the factory floor at final QC.

 

Now, my opinion : If you want to accept that attitude for your aircraft engines, well I'll make sure I prepare a ready to go flight plan for your funeral.

[IBob]

I am a retired automation eng and have done a certain amount of 'reverse engineering', or copying in my time.

There's another, more subtle, aspect to copying:

With the original item, design choices are made for various logical reasons: the general specification is refined to a number of components, which are made of selected materials and shaped to perform their functions. So the final assembly is the result of a large number of deliberate logical decisions, based on experience and engineering calculations.

When you copy an item, you get none of that; you get only what you can see. You get none of the original understanding of how and why the thing works as it does. And you are at risk of all sorts of incorrect assumptions.

Which is why, for instance, our markets are now flooded with poorly performing domestic products.

It's cargo cult stuff...........

[RFguy]

IBob Amen ! so true.

The chinese can copy the Japanese ball screws pretty well for looks and measurement, static.

Under dynamic loads some of the chinese ones are garbage. something to do with grinding and tempering of the steel by the Japs .Some sort of secret technique. The chinese doing a copy, without insider information, (usually stolen) would not know this. The chinese know something is different, so they simply compensate and make the thing harder, and they shatter...

 

I won't go on, IBob perfectly summarized this aspect.

 

There are some VERY good chinese manufacturers that make fine parts. But my experience is that you need a personal relationship with the factory to get it. They make fine parts but again- the copy aspect- the do not know what they do not know.

[IBob]

They make fine parts but again- the copy aspect- the do not know what they do not know.

 

That's it in a nutshell.

That, and people who would put melamine in their own baby food as a means of fooling protein tests, with an estimated 54,000 babies hospitalised. They're not going to be concerned about a few folk daft enough to fly...