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shrike@cyberspace.org wrote:
> If you designed an aircraft to leverage modern production lines, what
> would it be made of?
>
> Thanks!
> Matt
>
Fairy dust 8*)
You have to consider the economics of the thing. Modern assembly lines
are set up and expected to produce hundreds of thousands/yr if not
millions/yr of a product. We're talking a yearly volume on the scale of
the entire US GA fleet. One airplane for every registered pilot. The
most you could hope with any airplane design is more on the order of
100s/yr. The type of tooling you speak of takes as much R&D as an
airplane design. All that cost has to be amortized somewhere in a
reasonable amount of time. You very quickly get to the point where you
can roll off airplanes that have never been touched by human hands, but
they're so expensive to pay for the tooling that no one can afford them.
And just having the work done by a machine doesn't get you home free.
Machines break. They are usually out of calibration, and they rarely
work as designed the first time. So now you're paying people to watch
the machines. Machines that makes airplanes that cannot be sold any
faster than it took the people to make the machines.
SA gave a tour of the Cirrus factory a month or two back. I think they
have it right. Automate the simple things. Have humans do the
complicated things. Design the airplane with the lowest possible parts
count. I suspect that they will slowly add more automation as the
capitol budget allows.
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Re: Why no plywood monocoque homebuilts?
