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Evan,
I do not want to drag this out, I think some good points ahve been made --
however, I do not see why fiberglass airframe construction is going to be
less labor-intensive.
There is almost zero opportunity for automation in fiberglass construction,
unless you go to specialized processes and tooling that are probably out of
reach for a small firm. Even Cirrus and Adam do a lot of their layups by
hand -- granted using pre-pregs.
Now look at a simple little plane like the Zenith 601. They used to build
one of these in a week at Oshkosh, using volunteers from the crowd. It uses
pull-type rivets rather than bucked, so the structure can be assembled quite
quickly. I think the total time to get to the flying plane was about 300 man
hours.
And I do not think the Zenith kit parts are as automated as they could be --
for instance I do not the they are fully precut and pre-punched etc. like the
Van's kits.
My point is that if you purpose-designed a small aluminum airplane for quick
construction and automated the sheet-metal stamping part of the process, you
could make that airplane very cost-effectively.
Perhaps a fiberglass approach could work just as well, but I think more
ingenuity would be required.
Regards,
Gordon.
"Evan Carew" <elcarew@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:MOoXe.134$i31.42@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com...
> Gordon,
>
> Unfortunately, I've to disagree with you on your analysis of aluminum
> use in commercially built LSA aircraft structures. While it is true that
> the aluminum materials costs for an aircraft are lower, the labor costs
> (which I've already shown to be the largest cost in building any plane)
> are much higher, thus making it a poor choice if you are trying to build
> such airplanes for a profit. On the other hand, if you are trying to sell
> kit LSA airframes, then the builder assumes the labor costs, thus making a
> comparable kit seem less expensive.
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Re: These are not YOUR airplanes - Was: High Cost of Sportplanes
