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Ernest Christley wrote:
> 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.
>
I understand your argument, and it is absolutely valid. But humor me
for a moment, and lets assume that a market could be found. Call me an
optomotrist, but I think there might still be a market, even if the
pilots do not exist at the moment.
> 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.
Understood. But speculation is the inbred half stepbrother of
invention, (or something), and I might speculate that their is an
abundance of machines being discarded as modern factories go to third
and fourth generation robotics, and that much of it can be had for a
song.
>
> 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.
>
What parts did they automate?
-Thanks!
-Matt
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Re: Why no plywood monocoque homebuilts?
