[HN Gopher] The $20 an hour Cessna 172 experiment (2020)
___________________________________________________________________
The $20 an hour Cessna 172 experiment (2020)
Author : BWStearns
Score : 223 points
Date : 2023-02-09 18:07 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (airfactsjournal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (airfactsjournal.com)
| inamberclad wrote:
| This is what we need to make GA an accessible hobby again.
| bischofs wrote:
| What the FAA has done to this guy is disgusting, they don't
| respond to requests and treat him like a little guy despite the
| impressive engineering here. I'm not a republican but this is a
| great example of government destroying innovation and progress
| through bureaucratic nonsense.
| matt_morgan wrote:
| My heart wants to agree with you but all those regulations must
| have something to do with how few people die in airplane
| crashes. It's like the textbook case of when regulations work,
| and I don't think the FAA has a department of special
| exceptions. We can wishfor it, but it's not easy to handle
| someone who wants to do something different.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Commercial aviation, sure. General aviation, e.g. a private
| pilot flying a Cessna 172 as in the article, is about as
| deadly per-mile as riding a motorcycle: far more dangerous
| than driving a car the same distance.
| outworlder wrote:
| > Commercial aviation, sure. General aviation, e.g. a
| private pilot flying a Cessna 172 as in the article, is
| about as deadly per-mile as riding a motorcycle: far more
| dangerous than driving a car the same distance.
|
| Others have touched on the probability thing.
|
| The issue with motorcycles is that a some of it is under
| your control (driving safely, protective gear, bike
| maintenance) but there's a lot that isn't: potholes, other
| drivers, animals and so on.
|
| Flying, almost everything is under the pilot's control.
| That includes most plane failures. Good preflight and
| maintenance takes care of most issues. The rest is taken
| care of by the flight planning - for example, engine
| failures. You should always have a place to put down the
| plane at any moment if you lose an engine - and general
| aviation aircraft land pretty slow.
|
| Newer advancements have made it even safer (see also, whole
| frame parachutes).
|
| That basically leaves freak accidents; they are a minority.
| Go spelunk the NTSB database, you'll find most accidents
| were preventable.
|
| In a nutshell, you are probably going to find the risk is
| very skewed by complacent or otherwise irresponsible
| pilots.
| p1necone wrote:
| The usage of 'per-mile' stats for aircraft safety irks me a
| little bit. It's certainly not how I think of safety when I
| hop on a plane - my internal comparison is more based on
| time - like, I'm about to spend 30 minutes on a plane, how
| much safer/less safe is that vs 30 minutes in a car?
|
| The distance comparison also doesn't make sense because
| it's not like you could drive across the ocean even if you
| tried.
|
| I guess it makes sense in terms of aggregate safety for a
| population for transport planning, but on an individual
| level it just doesn't communicate what I want to know.
|
| Edit: for an analogy - imagine if someone invented faster
| than light space travel, but 25% of passengers don't
| survive the trip. The deaths per 100 miles statistic would
| be _amazing_ compared to both car and air travel, but would
| you sign up for a ticket?
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| The distance comparison does make sense, because the
| point of getting on a plane/car is to travel. People
| don't say "I'm going to drive for 30 mins", they say "I'm
| going to drive from Los Angeles to NYC". Comparing how
| dangerous that is on a plane requires comparing by
| distance, not time.
| p1necone wrote:
| Eh, not really. Distance travelled !== quality of
| destination.
|
| I can travel X minutes on a plane for Y cost to one set
| of destinations, or I can travel A minutes in a car for B
| cost to a different set of destinations. The actual
| distance between my current location and my destination
| means _nothing_ to me, although the potential
| destinations do, which certainly are more varied with
| plane travel.
|
| But I live in a pretty nice place, so travelling locally
| is pretty good too.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| We're comparing safety, not "quality of destination".
|
| If you were to travel from point A to point B, and wanted
| to know whether driving or flying was safer, then the
| correct metric to look at is the "per distance" one.
| bitdivision wrote:
| Agreed.. Though it's an often used metric: fatalities per
| billion kilometers (f/bnkm).
|
| Someone told me that risk per unit distance was higher
| when walking than riding a motorcycle, which I thought
| sounded like it could be possible. Sadly it seems its not
| true [1].
|
| Interesting how f/bnkm is so low for driving vs walking
| though.
|
| [1]: https://www.normalizecycling.com/risk-in-
| cycling/units-of-ri...
| anamexis wrote:
| I would guess the majority of time in general aviation is
| not for the purpose of travel. It's a hobby.
| hollerith wrote:
| A lot of it is to give pilots the experience they need to
| qualify to fly commercial airliners, also.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| If you're assuming it is a hobby then comparing it to
| car/motorcycle usage for travel is useless/invalid.
| anamexis wrote:
| Yes, exactly.
| tormeh wrote:
| The point is, being a hobby pilot is extremely dangerous.
| anamexis wrote:
| Is it?
|
| In US General Aviation, there were 332 deaths in
| 19,454,467 flight hours in the year 2020.
|
| https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-
| releases/Pages/NR20211117.as...
| ineedasername wrote:
| _> Is it?_
|
| Yes, it is.
|
| Very similar to how dangerous motorcycle riding is. Work
| out approx. hours of operation from miles driven (say
| avg. 30-50mph) and from there use annual fatalities. [1]
| Given that, death-per-hour for 332 deaths/19M in flight
| hours is roughly comparable to the 6000 deaths seen in
| motorcycle accidents. Much higher than automobiles, much
| higher than commercial flight.
|
| [1] https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-
| motorcyc...
| anamexis wrote:
| Ok, so per hour it is comparable to motorcycles. But
| consider also that the average private pilot only flies
| 100-150 hours per year.
|
| I don't disagree that it is more dangerous than
| automobiles or commercial flight. But I wouldn't
| characterize it as "extremely dangerous." Nor would I
| characterize motorcycles as such.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I guess we disagree on motorcycle danger then. I consider
| motorcycles to be extremely dangerous (mostly to their
| drivers). A friend of mine dies about 1.5 years ago on
| one. I'd had two other people (not as close) in my life
| die in motorcycle accidents so I used to cringe inside
| every time he told me he was going riding over the
| weekend, though I would just wish him well & to be safe.
| Riding made him happy, was a stress reliever for him. And
| as far as that goes there are probably worse habits like
| smoking & drinking to excess, but that doesn't make any
| of them non-dangerous.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Google says "motorcycles are usually ridden for around
| 3,000 miles per year on average" so that's less than a
| hundred hours. Another result says the median is 1000 and
| 90th percentile is around 5000.
|
| Neither one is "extremely" dangerous but it's a far cry
| from "all these strict regulations make it extremely
| safe" like with commercial flight.
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| Assuming all hours were flown at Cessna 172 cruise speed
| of 140mph, that gives about 2e7 * 140 = 2.8e9, divided by
| 332 gives about 8.4 million miles per fatality.
|
| Compared to 85 million miles travelled per fatality on
| the roads in general, and about 4 million miles travelled
| per fatality on motorcycles.
|
| 2X better than motorcycles, 10X worse than road
| fatalities in general.
|
| And that's being quite generous about the mileage.
| anamexis wrote:
| I don't think miles travelled per fatality is a useful
| point of comparison for general aviation. This puts it
| about on par with pedestrian deaths per mile travelled,
| and I don't think most people would call walking
| "extremely dangerous."
| TylerE wrote:
| Being a lazy hobby pilot is dangerous. The majority of GA
| crashes are pretty basic pilot error/"gotta-get-there-
| itis".
|
| Motorcycles are the same way, actually. An overwhelming
| amount of fatal motorcycle accidents involve alcohol at
| night, usually in combination with not wearing proper
| gear.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| Bikers frequently get killed by other forms of traffic
| (at least as a major contributing factor), pilots
| typically kill themselves (usually unintentionally, of
| course), with rare exceptions.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Have you even looked into the history of aviation and why
| we have the FAA? Thes homebrew airplanes were falling out
| of the sky all over the place. A lot of people were dying.
| rippercushions wrote:
| Obligatory link to why the FAA maybe should have a couple of
| special exceptions.
|
| https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2011/06/16/revitalizing-
| th...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The crash/death rate for piston general aviation is
| staggeringly high and a lot of it has to do with how
| unreliable ancient systems in the planes are, and task
| saturation from pilots still expected to manage stuff like
| fuel mixture settings by hand.
|
| It's almost entirely about protectionism of a massive
| industry of rebuilding and servicing companies for ancient
| engines and electromechanical systems, not safety or
| reliability.
|
| Compare a modern electronic gyro to its electromechanical
| cousin. The electromechanical version is unreliable, power-
| hungry, and extremely expensive to service.
|
| The modern electronic equivalent is ultra-reliable, can self-
| test, needs no servicing or repair, can contain its own
| battery to self-power in an emergency, and be networked with
| other devices in the cockpit.
|
| Want to put the electronic version in your plane? Ooooo,
| sorry, no can do, Mr. Airplane Owner, says the FAA. Can't
| hurt the profits of an entire industry dedicated to emptying
| your wallet of thousands of dollars every time your gyro
| needs to be rebuilt.
|
| A modern fuel-injected, water-cooled airplane engine can run
| constant self-diagnostics and logging, and provide highly
| useful, actionable information to both the pilot and
| mechanic. It's single-lever, increasing reliability and
| reducing task loading during the most critical phases of
| flight, and reducing emissions substantially, too. It doesn't
| have special considerations in terms of flight profiles; air-
| cooled piston airplane engines require a gentle descent
| profile or they will be "shock cooled" and undergo high wear
| or outright seize. There are no issues with carb freeze.
| Starting is a breeze, instead of a chore. The list goes on.
|
| We should be encouraging the hell out of EFI conversions and
| EFI engine options...but instead the FAA buries them all
| under mountains of paperwork and regulations to protect
| Lycoming and the like.
| vkou wrote:
| > My heart wants to agree with you but all those regulations
| must have something to do with how few people die in airplane
| crashes.
|
| Very few people die in large commercial aviation crashes, but
| the hobbyist pilot space is a graveyard. ~400 deaths/year in
| the US, ~13 deaths/100M miles traveled. Meanwhile, commercial
| aviation is closer to 0.002 deaths/100M miles traveled.
|
| Incidentally, the FAA rules around general aviation are a lot
| more relaxed than they are around commercial aviation. As a
| landlubber who occasionally spends a week geeking out about
| planes, but would never own one, their rules don't really
| seem to be ridiculous.
| tysam_and wrote:
| GA is extremely dangerous, piloting runs through part of my
| family and single-engine aircraft are for the post-
| midlife/retirement crisis that many pilots go through. It
| also is their deathbed.
|
| One family member was at breakfast that morning with several
| other pilots, all of whom had private aircraft except him (he
| is a voracious pilot, though). Every single one of them
| apparently had some extremely harrowing stories about engine
| failure, etc. Every one of them.
|
| It's not a game, and the FAA is really sleeping on the
| private sector as far as I understand. Its dying under
| bureaucracy.
|
| To respond to the parent comment as well -- I don't think
| this is a 'Republican', 'Democrat', or even a 'Libertarian'
| issue. All three of those parties have weaknesses that tend
| to screw over this kind of organization -- the first two with
| extremely bloated processes, and the second with perhaps far-
| too-little regulation.
|
| This is the kind of org that just needs good leadership with
| integrity and funding that focuses on getting the little guys
| up and out there, as well as promoting development and having
| _very strict_ best practices for safety. It's a very hard
| blend to do right, I think. Sorta a combination of reducing
| bloat and inferred/accidental corruption, etc, I think.
|
| (not to get terribly political, I do not like politics at all
| personally. Just talking through the technical points of the
| matter as much as I can. Much love! <3 <3 <3 <3 :)))))) :D :D
| :)))))) )
| ineedasername wrote:
| _> must have something to do with how few people die in
| airplane crashes_
|
| Yes, at least somewhat:
|
| 1) The safety record of flying is often cited but that safety
| record pertains to commercial aircraft, not private aircraft.
| For hours of travel, private aircraft are significantly more
| lethal commercial flight and even more than driving [1]
|
| 2) The article mentions having to jump through regulatory
| hoops in the same sentence as literally putting out engine
| fires. Maybe the two are unrelated but I can see a strong
| public to regulatory hoops on something that, if done wrong,
| amounts to a small homemade fuel air bomb with 1,000lb+ of
| cessna debris added in to the mix if things go wrong.
|
| [1]https://www.wijet.com/private-jet-crash-
| statistics/#:~:text=....
| kragen wrote:
| a fuel-air bomb is very much more difficult to build than
| you think it is
|
| it isn't going to happen by accident
|
| right now lots of people are getting exposed to fumes from
| both leaded gasoline itself and the combustion products
| from the engines, which probably kills more people than
| faulty civil aviation engines ever will
| ineedasername wrote:
| Yes sure, it's not literally a military-grade thermobaric
| explosion. It's a few hundred lbs of fuel strapped to a
| 1,000lb+ airframe and I don't mind regulations and
| oversight of such things when people want to propel them
| through the air.
|
| As for the rest, I agree...? I'm not sure how that was
| related. I think a dislike for leaded fuel is not
| incompatible with my comments indicating that some
| regulatory hoops are reasonable when creating customized
| aircraft.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > I don't mind regulations and oversight of such things
|
| Do you think anyone is arguing against the existence of
| plane regulations?
| outworlder wrote:
| It is not going to explode any more than a car will.
|
| It may catch on fire, though.
| voldacar wrote:
| You are demonstrating a lot of status-quo bias
| pdonis wrote:
| _> all those regulations must have something to do with how
| few people die in airplane crashes_
|
| Many of them do, but that certainly doesn't mean all of them
| do.
|
| It's really hard to see how using decades old engine designs
| with leaded gas is necessary to prevent crashes, or how
| updating a proven airframe to newer engine designs that have
| a lot of operating time in cars needs to be an extremely
| onerous process to avoid crashes.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Cars and planes have significantly different impacts on the
| engine.
|
| https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft-do-car-engines-make-
| good-...
|
| > Car engines are designed to provide quick bursts of
| relatively high power output for acceleration, and then
| only modest power output for steady-state cruising. It's
| unusual for an auto engine to operate anywhere near its
| redline rpm or max-rated power output. Airplanes, on the
| other hand, usually take off and climb near 100 percent
| power output, followed by steady-state cruise often at 75
| percent power. Aircraft engines are designed to sustain
| this punishment reliably over a typical 2,000-hour service
| life. Try running your car's engine at or near redline rpm
| all the time and see what happens. Of course, we don't know
| what will happen, and in an airplane we can't pull over to
| the side of the road when it does.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| So de-rate and conservatively tune the engine to a peak
| HP that can be sustained indefinitely. This is SOP when
| putting automotive engines in industrial uses. Just
| because you don't know of it doesn't mean it's not dirt
| common and well practiced in industry.
|
| 2000hr equates to, generously, like really generously, a
| 150-200k service life. It really drives me up the wall to
| see you acting like this is a big number when in any
| other context you'd be happy to pop in and tell us about
| how your you're so smart because you bought a Toyota and
| it's _guaranteed_ to make it that far.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > So de-rate and conservatively tune the engine to a peak
| HP that can be sustained indefinitely. This is SOP when
| putting automotive engines in industrial uses.
|
| Those industrial uses don't crash into a random person's
| house if they fail, and "conservatively tune" means
| you've changed the engine's behavior. The FAA likes you
| to demonstrate safety when you change safety-critical
| things.
|
| > 2000hr equates to, generously, a 150-200k service life.
|
| At a much higher cruising RPM, which is the entire point
| of the article.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > Those industrial uses don't crash into a random
| person's house if they fail,
|
| It is _highly_ unlikely to crash into a random person's
| home due to engine failure. Planes don't drop out of the
| sky like stones when their engines fail. You can still
| fly them and pick a spot to attempt emergency landing or
| controlled crash.
|
| For comparison, cars crash into people's homes all the
| time, but i don't believe it is ever a result of car
| engine failure. No reason to expect plane engine failures
| to cause these.
| p_l wrote:
| Considerable amount of plane crashes, including deadly
| ones, involve engine failure - often due to things that
| aren't present at all in automotive (or marine or
| industrial) use.
| stenius wrote:
| I personally don't know what will happen, but I figure
| that type of test is easy to do in a lab environment.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Easy, but quite expensive to have a meaningful sample
| size.
| bischofs wrote:
| the 24 hours of Le Mans, and tens of thousands of
| runabout marine applications with automotive engines
| disagree with you. The real question is would you prefer
| a 1950s Lycoming engine with a mechanical fueling system,
| or a modern car engine that has been proven in millions
| of vehicles?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Hours_of_Le_Mans says
| "Racing teams must balance the demands of speed with the
| cars' ability to run for 24 hours without mechanical
| failure", which implies a slightly shorter lifespan than
| you'd want in a plane.
| aredox wrote:
| As if running an engine for 24 hours was good enough for
| a plane!
|
| And le Mans is not an oval track: engines don't run at
| 100% all the time.
|
| And how many le Mans cars break down during the race?
| voldacar wrote:
| Hence why they used a marine engine.
| aeternum wrote:
| This is often achieve by simply derating the engine. You
| redefine redline to be 75% of what the engine was
| designed to produce. Then your takeoff becomes 75% power
| and cruise is more like 56%.
| cduzz wrote:
| The story suggests they used a marine engine, which in
| turn is an automotive engine modified to run under marine
| conditions, which among other things includes "run at
| full load for hours" or "run at partial load for hours".
|
| Typically, of course, you're not seeing a lot of
| elevation changes in a marine application, but with
| modern fuel injection that's probably not such a big
| deal.
| aeternum wrote:
| The problem is that regulations are often a knee-jerk
| reaction without consideration to the second order effects.
|
| When a crash happens, add a rule to prevent it from
| happening again.
|
| Eventually however you have so many onerous rules that it
| becomes incredibly expensive to design a new aircraft
| engine and thus are suck with decades old tech that lacks
| modern innovation and safety features.
|
| It's very rare to do a pass over regulations to try to
| simplify them. From a regulatory POV, there is little glory
| in that and lots of risk.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Exactly. This is similar to medical context, where it is
| found that decreasing regulations typically _improves_
| safety, both because it is easier to innovate and bring
| better products to market, but also because it increases
| liability of manufacturers: in a highly regulated market,
| they can say "sure, our device have caused you harm, but
| it operated exactly as FDA (or FAA) required, so take it
| up with them".
|
| See https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/202
| 2/11/fd... for example.
|
| FAA overall has done a lot of good for the safety of the
| flyers (and I respect it much more than other regulatory
| agencies tasked with protecting us). The problem is that
| very often there is a trade off between safety and other
| things, and regulatory framework prohibits the people it
| is meant to serve from deciding on their own where
| exactly they want to be in terms of this trade off. For
| example, if motorcycles were invented today, they would
| almost certainly be banned as way too unsafe to operate.
| That would suck, because I love riding motorcycles.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Almost all of the innovation that's going on in light,
| piston airplanes today is happening in the experimental
| category. I've got newer, better, and safer avionics,
| sensors, lighting, and engine systems in the E/A-B
| category airplane I built in my garage than I would on a
| 1970's Cessna. The richness of inputs I have in the
| cabin, including a big moving map GPS, ADS-B traffic,
| satellite weather, carbon monoxide detection, a vast
| array of engine monitoring signals, AOA, and so on
| provide so much more in terms of safety and situational
| awareness. Pilots in the USA are truly lucky that we have
| this option.
| gocartStatue wrote:
| Ha! Classic Theory of Constraints: most constraints come
| from rules that used to accomodate for some limitations.
| Most of those limitations are long gone, but we've come
| to not question the rules; we mistake them with reality.
| [deleted]
| xnx wrote:
| I can see how the cost and regulation of museum-piece general
| aviation planes makes battery powered personal VTOL craft
| (despite their other shortcomings) attractive.
| mcculley wrote:
| > "Even the largest marine engine manufacturers use mass-produced
| automotive engines that they modify for the boat mission, an
| engineering process I was more than familiar with."
|
| This is not true at all, unless one is only talking about small
| inboard boats.
| bluGill wrote:
| The larger boards will use mass produced construction and
| agriculture engines (I work for John Deere, so while I can't
| speak for the company I can tell marine engines are important
| enough of a market that we consider their needs when designing
| a new engine).
|
| The largest ships get custom built engines.
| mcculley wrote:
| I work in the tugboat industry. A quite standard engine there
| is the EMD 645. That was never a "mass-produced automotive
| engine" and it is not custom.
|
| Our smallest truckable tug uses John Deere engines.
| Everything else uses engines that would never fit in any
| automotive application.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| Most marine engines in that size range are used in either
| rail, power generating or other stationary applications.
| The manufacturers aren't idiots. They're gonna get as many
| sales out of a design as they can.
|
| Regardless, the point is they're not bespoke for your
| industry.
| mcculley wrote:
| I am well aware of the other uses of these engines. I
| argued only with the assertion made about "automotive
| engines".
| BWStearns wrote:
| 90% sure he means "largest manufacturers of marine engines"
| rather than "manufacturers of the largest marine engines". If
| I'm right then the largest mfg probably produces smaller
| engines since there's so many more small boats.
| dave78 wrote:
| Yeah, seems like all you see anymore for I/O engines is
| Mercruiser and Volvo, which do indeed use automotive engines.
| I'm not sure if there are even any other manufacturers left.
|
| I'm less familiar with outboard engines, and I don't know
| what is more common (I/O or outboards) for recreational
| boating. In the Great Lakes, I/Os appear to dominate, but
| I've noticed that videos of boating in Florida and the east
| coast show a lot of outboards even on the bigger boats.
| bri3d wrote:
| I think they're referring to gasoline "small" boats, like
| Mercury Marine type stuff, rather than full-sized ships, which
| generally use industrial / "stationary" diesel engines. I think
| the point still stands though, as these larger stationary
| diesels are usually shared with locomotives, gensets, and the
| like.
| mcculley wrote:
| Yes, these engines have other uses. But there is an enormous
| market of yachts, tugs, etc. smaller than what is considered
| to be a "ship" and bigger than any automotive engine could
| power. I argued only with the assertion about "automotive
| engines". It was true when I was a kid that most engines I
| was around on commercial boats were special versions of
| automotive engines. It has not been true in my experience for
| a couple decades.
| nine_k wrote:
| "Even the largest marine engine manufacturers use mass-
| produced automotive engines" means that they use such
| engines for _some_ purposes, say for the smaller
| watercraft. It does not mean that they exclusively use
| automotive designs.
|
| So likely both you and the article author are correct.
| jabl wrote:
| Depending on the kind of yacht, might also be considerably
| smaller than an automotive engine. I'm somewhat
| superficially familiar with sailboat engines, and the
| market leaders in that segment are Yanmar and Volvo Penta.
|
| Yanmar, AFAIU, is a big maker of various industrial and
| agricultural engines, so I guess the Yanmar marine engines
| are variants of those.
|
| For Volvo Penta, I'm quite sure the bigger ones are
| marinized variants of Volvo car and truck engines, but for
| the smaller ones, they might sell them also as gensets or
| such, not sure.
|
| Beyond Yanmar and Volvo Penta, there's a plethora of engine
| makers (Beta, Nanni, Westerbeke, etc. etc.), which make
| marinized versions of Kubota engines, which are AFAIU
| mostly used for agricultural and industrial equipment (e.g.
| those ubiquitous small Kubota tractors). These are
| generally well regarded, and sell for considerably less
| than Yanmar and Volvo Penta.
| mcculley wrote:
| We love the Kubotas for generators and other small
| workloads. Nothing else we have would fit in an
| automobile. The smallest yacht I have worked on had
| engines with ancestry in locomotives.
|
| As another commenter suggested, I read the assertion
| about "the largest marine engine manufacturers use mass-
| produced automotive engines" as "largest engine" not as
| "largest manufacturer". Maybe the author intended the
| latter.
| blhack wrote:
| There is a whole subculture of pilots seemingly trying to run
| around some of these regulations using "experimental" aircraft
| like the carbon cub:
| https://www.youtube.com/@TrentonPalmer/videos
|
| (I'm not saying Trent Palmer is trying to run around any
| regulations, just that his videos are cool, and seem like a good
| entry point into experimental bushplanes)
|
| I'd also encourage anyone here to check out Mike Patey:
| https://www.youtube.com/@MikePatey/videos
|
| His current videos are about a really interesting and unique pool
| he is building at his house, but most of his stuff is about even
| cooler and even more unique airplanes he builds. He's an
| _incredible_ engineer /hacker.
| cpp_frog wrote:
| Mike is perhaps one the most impressive plane hackers I've
| seen. His creativity and transparency (he shows all the
| process!) are much appreciated. He inspired me to try and make
| some carbon fiber models for RC planes. By the second half of
| this year I plan to have built an RC delta wing, and use my
| programming knowledge to automate its flight path.
|
| EDIT: To add to it, and even more remarkable: Mike has
| apparently got no formal education in engineering. His twin
| brother also wrote a book about the blessings and curses of
| ADHD, which both have.
| TylerE wrote:
| Not so much a "runaround" as "established procedure by the
| FAA". The big restriction is that you really can't use them for
| commercial purposes.
| google234123 wrote:
| It's annoying how antiquated the engines used on these single
| engine planes. Continental is selling engines designed in the 60s
| that are just so inefficient.
| bombcar wrote:
| The market for small planes is basically entirely gone; the
| entire amount is so small that they can't really get through
| the cost of certification for the amount they sell.
|
| Even the relatively modern SR20 uses a Lycoming engine:
| https://cirrusaircraft.com/aircraft/sr20/ -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycoming_IO-390
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| It's not "gone" as if evaporated; it has been murdered by the
| certification requirements.
|
| The odds of a random stranger dying from a light aircraft
| falling on them are trivial, several orders of magnitude less
| than the odds of their being hit by a car or being killed by
| inactivity; the pilot is free to refuse to take off, so risk
| appraisal really is on them; it's time to dump safety
| bureaucrats into your nearest woodchipper and CHANGE. THE.
| LAW. if you want ANY interesting activities or skills to
| survive.
| aredox wrote:
| It's not the certification: flying is an expensive hobby,
| with a huge time commitment. People have moved on to other
| hobbies and fads.
|
| We see the same with dinghy sailing. It used to be a big
| scene with hundreds of ordinary people showing up for
| regattas. It was killed by windsurfing (at least here in
| Europe) and just people moving on to other things ,not
| regulation of any sort.
| rlpb wrote:
| That's a circular argument. Recreational flying is an
| expensive hobby _because_ of the certification barrier.
| Most of the price is in fuel inefficiencies and expensive
| maintenance of ancient engine designs. Airframe parts are
| expensive because they 're obscure and certification
| requirements prevent modern equivalents from being used
| instead. And so forth.
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| I dunno. I'm pretty sure the lack of barriers to entry,
| inconvenient and costly certification, and safety
| nannying helped windsurfing get ahead there too. That and
| dinghy clubs inevitably devolve into race clubs that
| revolve inexorably around the race safety boat, and if
| you just want to noodle about or explore you're out of
| luck unless you are geographically lucky or you can
| afford a yacht. (which is great. But it's an uncommon
| privilege)
| outworlder wrote:
| > It's not the certification: flying is an expensive
| hobby, with a huge time commitment.
|
| People have plenty of expensive and time consuming
| hobbies. All hobbies are at least time-consuming, that's
| what a hobby is.
|
| All certifications add to the expenses. It's the reason
| why one can't buy a headset off amazon and have to pay 1k
| for a used headset. Sure, safety requires certifications
| but I guess we went overboard. It's also the reason why
| GA aircraft are expensive to this day, even those build
| 40 years ago. It's pretty expensive to keep maintaining
| old tech at low volumes. I'm rooting for Diamond and
| their car-derived engines (as well as the Experimental
| aircraft scene).
|
| Note that boats are also notoriously expensive.
|
| There's a very good parallel to your example: gliders.
| You want to fly cheap (just to fly, not to go places)? Go
| soaring. Problem is, it's even more location-dependent.
| nimish wrote:
| FAA is incentivized to do nothing and sit on its hands.
| It's a mess. A good quarter of the country is medically
| barred from ever flying, even solo. The chances of this
| changing are 0 and it'll get worse.
|
| Insert the "who could have done this" meme with the FAA
| shooting interest in flying and # of pilots.
| gburdell3 wrote:
| The medical system is really messed up. I would love to
| eventually get my PPL, but I also highly suspect that I
| have undiagnosed ADHD, and I don't want to essentially
| sign away my right to ever get treatment. Fortunately
| Microsoft Flight Simulator and VATSIM scratch the itch to
| fly for now, but it still sucks that I'll probably never
| get to actually do it in real life.
| outworlder wrote:
| Disclaimer: this is not legal advice, it's just to give
| you some ideas. AOPA and EAA have resources that can
| professional advise you.
|
| Note that 'undiagnosed ADHD' holds as much weight as me
| saying you have bad energies. There are many conditions
| that masquerade as ADHD to a layperson, including some
| purely psychological ones (they are no less real, but are
| very different from a neurodivergent brain and require
| very different treatment).
|
| If you are otherwise a high functioning adult (can
| function in society, operate vehicles safely, etc), get
| your third class medical, which should be no problem. You
| have to disclose _diagnosed_ conditions. Do a discovery
| flight and ask for an opinion from the flight instructor.
| If he thinks you are fit, go start your training and
| enjoy.
|
| If, one day, you do get diagnosed (with ADHD or some
| other disqualifying condition) _AND_ require medication,
| then it 's a problem. If you don't need medication
| (because most if not all ADHD medications are
| prohibited), don't try to renew your third class medical
| (because, if you get denied, it's a big problem) and get
| advice about _BasicMed_. It has far less requirements; my
| understanding is, unless there 's something strictly
| prohibited, if a doctor signs you up you are good to go.
|
| You won't be able to fly commercial or faster than
| 250knots but I suspect you don't care.
|
| Failing all the above, there's light sports aircraft and
| gliders(no medical requirements, you just need judge
| yourself to be capable and unlikely to be incapacitated)
| - although I am not sure you can operate them while
| taking meds; some professional advice required here.
|
| Disclaimer 2: Obviously the above assumes that whatever
| you have does not impair you. This is just to get around
| FAA's antiquated view on mental health while complying
| with the law. The most important thing is to be safe. If
| you really can't due to health issues, then don't, even
| if a doctor says you are fine.
|
| Otherwise, don't give up!
| exhilaration wrote:
| _A good quarter of the country is medically barred from
| ever flying_
|
| Can you explain this further?
| selectodude wrote:
| If you've basically ever taken an SSRI, or been to a
| shrink, you auto-fail your medical.
| nimish wrote:
| Just about everyone who has ever undergone psychiatric
| care cannot ever get a medical. There is technically a
| process but it is extremely difficult and expensive.
|
| Some conditions are uniformly disqualifying, for good
| reasons. But it results in a perverse situation where a
| regular person can choose to either get mental health
| care or fly, but not both.
| heelix wrote:
| Pilots don't suffer from depression, smoke pot, take many
| types of medication as a child, or have many other issues
| because if you did - the FAA might pull your medical and
| you can't fly after that. It can cost tens of thousands
| to try to get the FAA to let you fly again if a medical
| gets botched. And that is still an if...
| trilbyglens wrote:
| Probably because it's so expensive! Cheaper and more modern
| engines and aircraft could totally make for a new wave of
| aviators.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| Yeah, I would totally get a PPL if it wasn't at minimum
| $15,000.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Right, but that's the problem: with no market, things can't
| get cheaper because there's no capital to innovate with.
| That's why General Aviation is in a death spiral
| (ironically, since "death spiral" is a GA term): fewer
| people buying planes, companies exit the market and
| remaining companies have to charge more per-plane to cover
| fixed costs, GA becomes more expensive, fewer people buy
| planes, etc.
| Petersipoi wrote:
| Why is nobody willing to take a risk to revive this
| market? If the only thing preventing a revival is cheap
| planes, couldn't someone get some investor to pay for all
| the certifications of their modern, fancy, efficient,
| cost effective plane, and then sell a million of them?
|
| That is essentially how any new industry works. EV's were
| too bad/impractical/expensive until Tesla decided to take
| the risk and put down the capital to make them
| mainstream. Why can't/doesn't someone do the same for GA?
| flangola7 wrote:
| Why is the market smaller than in the 60s? There's more
| people with money than ever.
| ben7799 wrote:
| There's a secondary issue that in a lot of places the sky
| is a lot more crowded and the airports are very crowded.
|
| I wanted to be a pilot. I took lessons in the 1990s at a
| small field, relatively uncrowded, relatively low cost. I
| stopped due to weather/money.
|
| When I tried again after I finished college where I lived
| things were more expensive and the airspace was so crowded
| you would run up costs waiting in line to take off, and the
| whole thing was much more stressful.
|
| It has to be fun, in a busy enough environment it becomes
| stressful enough fewer people want to fly.
| abujazar wrote:
| Not really - the upper middle class is smaller even though
| there's a lot more billionaires. And billionaires in
| general aren't hobby pilots.
| metadat wrote:
| The cost compared to the 1960s seems to be much higher.
| Even for "people with money".
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| It really isn't though. Yes, the GA fleet is extremely
| old, but the inflation-adjusted cost of a PPL is pretty
| much exactly what it was in the 1960s.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Inflation adjusted wages aren't.
| cdot2 wrote:
| Median per capita inflation adjusted income has steadily
| risen since WW2 https://united-
| states.reaproject.org/analysis/comparative-tr...
| kevmo314 wrote:
| Part of the problem is that this V8 engine is a 2x
| improvement. It's definitely an improvement, but a sub 10x
| improvement isn't enough to bring on a revolution. The
| article alludes to investors' lack of appetite for the risk,
| I suspect a larger improvement would convince them.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, all the development that IS going on is happening in
| the very light jet market:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_light_jet
|
| But that's a $2m aircraft vs a half-million one.
| jabl wrote:
| VLJ's are cute, yes. I'm slightly hopeful about small
| scale turboprops too. Yes, generally turbines don't scale
| down very well (well, applies to VLJ's to an extent as
| well), but if they only could make the capital costs of a
| turbine decent enough, the reliability, power/weight, and
| cheap and available Jet A-1 would still make such a thing
| attractive, I think.
|
| There's a couple of companies working in this space:
|
| Turbaero: https://turb.aero/ Turbotech:
| https://www.turbotech-aero.com/
| ben7799 wrote:
| If he actually got this V8 certified and Cessna switched
| to then it might be dirt cheap to run but the 172 with it
| preinstalled might be $1M because they will sell so few
| and have so much engineering & certification cost to
| amortize.
|
| That's how silly it all is, and why it will stay stuck in
| Experimental.
| gnabgib wrote:
| SR20 you mean (as you linked, but not written). SR22 uses a
| Continental https://cirrusaircraft.com/aircraft/sr22/
| blantonl wrote:
| ...which incidentally has a very nasty problem brewing with
| Continental engines, grounding of all of the manufacturer's
| fleet running Continental engines that were made in the
| past few years.
|
| It's actually an aviation crises in the making with 1000's
| of SR-22s.
| outworlder wrote:
| Any more details on that?
| blantonl wrote:
| https://twitter.com/JonHuntTV/status/1623390223190134784?
| ref...
| bombcar wrote:
| Yep, went with the cheaper one.
| jeffbee wrote:
| These engines have parts that are interchangeable with pre-WW2
| engines. It's pretty generous to say they were designed in the
| 1960s.
| _ph_ wrote:
| I think that is one of the reasons why the upcoming electric
| small planes are such a huge thing - getting rid of not only
| combustion engines, but very old and inefficient combustion
| engines. Could be a real game changer.
| outworlder wrote:
| They are probably not going to take off (pun intended) any
| time soon. Just fuel reserve requirements alone are about the
| full range they have.
|
| I suspect hybrids will be developed first. Basically an APU
| sending power to the main motor + a relatively small battery.
| The 'APU' can be relatively compact and deliver a lot of
| power, with less engineering requirements (can place it
| anywhere, doesn't need to interface with a prop). If it fails
| you have some emergency battery power. Electric motors are
| incredibly strong and have very few moving parts, so
| reliability is higher. They are also light.
|
| Net net, there's some complexity and the combined equipment
| may be heavier (may! existing powerplants are some heavy
| beasts) but there's probably advantages.
|
| Certification would be horrendous, I imagine.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They'll end up with a fraction of the range/payload of the
| old planes.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| I'd literally fly a bicycle with wings for fifteen minutes
| at a time if that made [fixed-wing] aviation more
| affordable. I live in one of the better-off eastern-bloc
| countries and I make significantly more than most people I
| know, but getting a PPL would almost certainly ruin me
| financially at this moment.
|
| I know that paragliding and hang gliding exist, but those
| are a bit out of my comfort (and safety) zone.
| outworlder wrote:
| There are also actual gliders (aka soaring). These are
| planes in all but the engine, and are pretty safe.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There are clubs that own small aircraft that you can fly,
| I've done some time in these:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus_C42
|
| Technically it is a microlight but top speed and handling
| are much closer to a regular GA craft. I absolutely loved
| it and if my eyesight was better I'd definitely go for a
| license.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Maybe that's fine if the point is just to go up on a
| Saturday for fun and land at the same field you took off
| from.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Continental sells a range of general aviation engines based on
| modern Mercedes Benz diesel car engines, initially developed by
| Thielert as the Centurion. They run on regular Jet-A fuel, and
| are extremely efficient.
|
| https://www.continental.aero/diesel/engines/cd155.aspx
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thielert_Centurion
|
| I think these, combined with biofuel based Jet-A are a good
| solution to this problem, as electric tech is a long ways from
| having the range needed.
|
| Maybe someone who knows more could chime in why these haven't
| already completely replaced the ancient air cooled leaded gas
| motors? My guess is that they're very expensive...
| jabl wrote:
| I think this is the $100000 conversion alluded to in the
| article. Not sure what makes it cost that much. Maybe the
| same thing that seems to have caused GA to stagnate, very
| small volumes combined with high certification costs.
|
| (There's also a company called Austro engines that makes aero
| diesel engines, AFAIU even based on the same MB car engines
| Continental/Thielert uses. I think Austro is a subsidiary or
| spinoff of Diamond, so that's where you see these engines
| used.)
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I would guess that whatever makes it cost so much would
| equally apply to this solution once it is certified and not
| experimental. The gas V8 will be much less fuel efficient
| than a small turbo diesel, especially at altitude where the
| turbo offers huge advantages.
|
| Those Mercedes engines are found in small cars and delivery
| vans around the world, and are widely available and pretty
| cheap. For example, the Centurion 3.0 uses a Mercedes-Benz
| OM642 which is found in Freightliner/Sprinter vans, Jeeps,
| and tons of other very common cars. You can buy these
| engines straight from Mercedes for like $8k.
|
| In this case, the author mentions using an aluminum marine
| GMC V8, but not which one exactly. This is most likely
| based on the LS V8s, which are fairly expensive motors, and
| a pretty ancient design (e.g. pushrods).
| bluGill wrote:
| You need to get the whole airframe certified to change the
| engine. If the airplane hasn't been in production for 40
| years+ who will pay for that? Does the engineering data
| needed to start that process even exist anymore?
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Interestingly, I found that the airplane in question here,
| the Cessna 172 was actually sold with the Thielert /
| Continental diesel, but ended up cancelling it because they
| were so much more expensive than the gasoline models that
| nobody bought them:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_172#Special_versions
| jabl wrote:
| I think if you want to see 'modern' gasoline powered piston
| aviation engines, you have to look elsewhere than Lycoming or
| Continental. ULpower and Rotax make fuel injected aero engines
| with FADEC. I think Rotax has even certified some of their
| models.
| nickff wrote:
| This is a product of the regulatory process. I am sure Cessna
| would love to sell new stuff, but it's just not worth it for
| them or their clients.
| mopsi wrote:
| The whole small piston-engine plane industry collapsed in
| 1980s because of excessive liability: https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalizatio...
|
| If I recall correctly, Cessna was found infinitely liable for
| every plane manufactured, meaning that each new plane off the
| assembly line increased their potential overall liability
| without liability over decades-old planes expiring and
| decreasing it.
| mfkp wrote:
| That's true of US-based manufacturers, but foreign
| manufacturers thrived during that time (French, etc).
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| > If I recall correctly, Cessna was found infinitely liable
| for every plane manufactured, meaning that each new plane
| off the assembly line increased their potential overall
| liability without liability over decades-old planes
| expiring and decreasing it.
|
| This was a problem in the 90s. And it was fixed! Back when
| the government still fixed things. https://en.wikipedia.org
| /wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalizatio...
| ck2 wrote:
| Leaded fuel, leaded fuel fumes and spray.
|
| Adapt the engines or ground them. There's no acceptable middle
| ground.
|
| It's like secondhand smoke to the rest of the population.
|
| No your "immune system" does not handle lead, it's forever and
| why it was banned in cars for 25 years
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/news/42218/if-leaded-fuel-is-so-bad...
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/leaded-gas-wa...
| jabl wrote:
| The big news in the past decade or so in this space is the
| G100UL fuel which now has a STC for almost(?) all prop planes.
|
| Not sure what the next step, regulation-wise, is. An official
| 100UL spec followed by the sunsetting of 100LL?
| sand500 wrote:
| The later is already happening as cities ban the sale of
| leaded fuel in their airport.
| sfeng wrote:
| Tiny correction, it's not really true that an experimental can't
| land at a class bravo airport.
| blantonl wrote:
| There's really very little reason for a GA single piston
| aircraft to land at a Class B airport anyway.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I fairly regularly (several times per year) land our A36 at a
| class B airport: mostly BWI, PIT, and DTW. They are often the
| most convenient airport to access something downtown (such as
| a sporting event via public transport or a shorter Uber
| ride). Even our older 182 could blend in reasonably well
| speed-wise [though it often meant flying at full cruise power
| through much of the approach to keep the speed up to 135-140
| KTAS].
| base698 wrote:
| Family has extra members so keep thinking about an A36,
| currently fly a Mooney. Seems to be better than paying
| Baron upkeep.
|
| Any advice welcome.
| selectodude wrote:
| Landing at a class B airport is flipping cool, for one.
| base698 wrote:
| I did it once at KLAS. Way closer to the hotel.
| jaclaz wrote:
| [2020]
|
| Seemingly the author is still working at it:
|
| https://corsairpower.com/
|
| Last update (2022):
|
| https://airfactsjournal.com/2022/10/the-20-hour-cessna-172-e...
| falcolas wrote:
| Very cool. And also a little depressing that the state of the
| art is still back where it was in 2000 when I last looked at
| this.
|
| May they drive a revolution.
| titanomachy wrote:
| He complains that the plane which cost him $45 an hour to rent 30
| years ago costs him $125 to rent now. Isn't that basically just
| inflation? $45 in 1992 is $104 today.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I think his point was the same planes are much older today and
| so he expected them to be cheaper after inflation. They were
| also old when he first flew them so the capital expenditure was
| likely already a small component of the per hour price.
| sowbug wrote:
| The complaint is that it's the exact same plane, but 30 years
| older. Inflation sucks, but with most durable goods you get the
| benefit of improved technology. Imagine paying $1,000 for a PC
| today -- not bad, except what if it were a 60MHz Pentium with a
| 40MB hard drive?
| cholmon wrote:
| I did a discovery flight with my son last summer in a C172.
| We had a blast, but I was pretty surprised how old the plane
| felt. My recurring thought is that Cessnas are like the
| TI-85s of airplanes; ubiquitous workhorses frozen in time.
|
| Is it just Cessnas though? Is this the way all small planes
| are?
| greycol wrote:
| There is a pretty big "experimental" scene with small and
| ultra light airplanes. Experimental here basically meaning
| you can't use it for comercial. So mostly because of the
| costs of certification and liabilities involved and how the
| segment of the market is lifestyle/hobyists you end up with
| a lot of nice modern small planes that only the
| owner/syndicate flies and only for personal flights.
|
| There's plenty of neat little planes out there, my favorite
| was basically the go cart equivalent of a jet that I saw at
| our club airport. Something like this
| https://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=92070
| TylerE wrote:
| The GA market pretty much died in the late 80s. Outside of
| very high end flight schools (think University programs
| targeting potential airline pilots), or the doctors and
| dentists flying Cirruses... yea, they pretty much ARE all
| that old.
|
| Even the 172 went totally out of production for a decade.
| Cessna almost went under.
| tcas wrote:
| For certified piston aircraft, generally yes. The engines
| are pretty much made by a few manufacturers based on
| ancient designs, and while you may get some "newer"
| benefits in some models, such as fuel injection (instead of
| carborators), or digital engine control (FADEC), they're
| pretty much ancient technology compared to modern engines.
| Most still have manual mixture control for example and very
| limited monitoring.
|
| The only example in that class (sub $750k) I can think off
| the top of my head with a better engine is DA40 NG, which
| uses a modified Mercedes diesel engine.
| docandrew wrote:
| It's not just Cessnas. Besides the normal wear and tear of
| a plane that's potentially 40 years old, most of the
| single-engine planes at a flight school are going to see
| extra abuse from all the student pilots.
| sowbug wrote:
| Someone else can tell the story better than I can, but
| supposedly the cost of certification of new light-aircraft
| models got out of control in the 1980s, which stifled
| product evolution, so it became more cost-effective to keep
| a really old plane airworthy than to scrap it and buy the
| latest and greatest. I do know there's been a lot of
| innovation in the LSA (light-sport aircraft) segment, so it
| does seem odd that four-seater and two-seater evolution
| would diverge so much.
|
| I have a feeling I'm perpetrating a certain angle to the
| truth (maybe that product-liability lawyers suck). I'm just
| passing on what I heard -- please don't shoot the
| messenger. A more comprehensive retelling would be
| appreciated.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You're not paying for a depreciated product. You're paying
| for the maintenance and operating fees which don't depreciate
| in value.
| docandrew wrote:
| On an airplane you're really paying for the engine.
| Typically after 2000 hours (depending on the model) they
| are supposed to be overhauled, which will be a cool $20-30k
| or so for something like the 172 in the OP. If you're
| airplane shopping you'll see a very tight correlation
| between the asking price and the "SMOH" time or hours since
| major overhaul.
| nine_k wrote:
| For $20-30k, you likely can buy and install a new engine,
| or two, were it car engines. (That's the route taken in
| the article.)
| docandrew wrote:
| It seems like kind of a slam dunk, though I wonder about
| the reliability of a car engine left at full-throttle (or
| close to it) for long periods of time the way airplane
| engines are.
| melling wrote:
| I'm pretty sure everyone understands you can't compare the
| price drops of electronics with durable goods.
|
| Are cars cheaper today? How about all that construction
| equipment the Caterpillar sells?
|
| Are the price of tanks and jets getting cheaper?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| If you buy a new car today, it'll be better than a 40 year
| old car in pretty much every metric. Performance, fuel
| efficiency, comfort, safety, etc.
|
| I think the OP is complaining that they're paying "modern
| vehicle" prices to rent a plane that has had minimal
| changes since the 1960s. The vast majority of old cars
| (other than collectable ones with low mileage) are gonna be
| cheaper than they were new.
| akiselev wrote:
| They're all much cheaper than they were and more advanced
| by leaps and bounds.
|
| GA airplane production collapsed from a peak production of
| 17k a year in the 1970s to a few thousand a year starting
| in the 90s continuing to today. Cars and tractors and tanks
| and even jets have all seen their markets grow, not
| disappear.
| Retric wrote:
| That's sometimes true but the standards have improved so
| much it's hard to do these comparisons.
|
| A new Model T in 1925 cost had fallen to 260$, that's
| roughly $4,348 in todays money. Sure it's missing a great
| deal of modern features, but it's hard to get a new golf
| cart at that price.
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| > Are cars cheaper today?
|
| Cars are AVAILABLE for pretty much the same price.
|
| People WANT more expensive cars.
|
| The Volkswagen Beetle was pretty much the least expensive
| car on the market for its entire sales run in the United
| States.
|
| The inflation-adjusted price of a Beetle in 1973 was around
| $12,000.
|
| The price of a Chevrolet Spark in 2022? $13,000.
|
| Nobody wants a Spark, though. They want an SUV. So Chevy
| killed the Spark.
|
| Before Chevy discontinued the Spark you could walk onto a
| lot and drive away in one of the dozen or so Sparks they
| had rotting away in the corner for less than the price of a
| VW Beetle in 1973-- and the Spark was superior in every
| measurable way.
|
| 2023's cheapest car is the Nissan Versa. You can 100% find
| dealers who will part with one for less than the cost of a
| Beetle. It is also better than the Beetle.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| The car today that costs the same as the price of a car
| yesterday. But your car of today provides airbags, ABS
| brakes, much better crash protection, backup cameras,
| power windows, automatic transmissions, the list goes on
| and on. You are getting way more for the same dollar you
| paid in the past for cars
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Carmakers want to sell expensive cars.
|
| Back in the 1970s my dad had plenty of stories about how
| American car dealers had all kinds of excuses why they
| couldn't, wouldn't or shouldn't sell you a small car.
|
| Now the Japanese car dealers do the same thing.
|
| A few years I went to a Honda dealer looking for a new
| Fit, found they didn't have any because "the factory
| washed out in a flood" but they had 50 CR-Vs which are
| made in the same factory which were somehow not affected
| by the flood.
|
| They really ought to put up or shut up: when they have a
| $7000 sales incentive on that monster vehicle that is not
| a sign that people want to buy a monster vehicle but it
| is a sign they want to sell you a monster vehicle.
| Aunche wrote:
| The only reason for a manufacturer to want to produce a
| cheap car is to sell a ton of them at a low margin. If
| not enough people are buying them, then there's no reason
| to continue selling them. At sub-$20,000, you're going to
| be better off buying a used car than a new, bare bones
| car. This wasn't the case decades ago when cars were a
| lot less reliable and generational improvements were much
| larger.
|
| >when they have a $7000 sales incentive on that monster
| vehicle that is not a sign that people want to buy a
| monster vehicle
|
| What cars are you talking about? It's generally the
| "monster vehicles" that have the greatest markup (e.g.
| Bronco Raptor)
| sn_master wrote:
| > People WANT more expensive cars.
|
| Because it's very easy to get financing for a car, that's
| why. If they had to pay it out of pocket you bet they'd
| choose the cheaper car.
| el_don_almighty wrote:
| The core features of most capital products are basically
| commodities. Every car now has an automatic transmission,
| A/C, fancy radio, electric windows, etc...
|
| Manufacturer's can only increase prices (and thus keep
| ahead of inflation) by innovating the edge with new
| features, wanted or not.
|
| Is Ford or Caterpillar really best positioned to design and
| deliver a mobile flat-panel touch screen device? Not
| likely, but putting one in their vehicles creates
| opportunities for higher prices and new innovations.
|
| VERY LITTLE of this is available in the aircraft market
| where every new part number requires justification,
| testing, and approval.
|
| The health-care market is very similar yet demand is so
| high and inelastic that it still justifies huge
| investments.
|
| Aviation... not so much
| mc32 wrote:
| Especially in a heavily regulated industry --where changes
| takes years before approval is granted.
| mannerheim wrote:
| You can get a street-legal car from China for about a
| thousand dollars.
|
| https://www.hotcars.com/these-are-the-cheapest-new-cars-
| you-...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Their cheapest one failed a crash test against a child's
| _pinata_.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkgPqkJ5iJI
| mannerheim wrote:
| Well, yes, they're not particularly good or safe cars.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| As unsafe as cars in the 60s.
| mc32 wrote:
| No, 60s cars were rigid boxes that did not crumple
| --which because of a lack of other safety features meant
| you got ejected or got banged around inside this metal
| box. These things allow you to get squished inside the
| foil box.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I didn't expect one to fare well in a crash test against
| another car.
|
| I also didn't expect one to receive significant damage
| from a lightweight cardboard box.
|
| There's "unsafe", and then there's _this_.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It messed up the bumper? Wouldn't that happen with tons
| of cars?
|
| And roof rack damage is definitely not a safety issue.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| None of that damage should have occurred from a pinata.
|
| At $1,000, it's probably safe to assume these aren't the
| only cheaply made parts of the vehicle.
| 8note wrote:
| How much is a 30 y/o beater car? Even one in good
| condition?
| ben7799 wrote:
| He's in a cheap area or something.
|
| Instruction in a 172 is more like $250/hr at the nearest
| airport to me in Massachusetts, with the plane being at least
| $200/hr of that. The gotcha is I think they are modern 172s,
| which are probably more than $500k each to buy at this point.
|
| I took lessons in the early 1990s and it was $125/hr in a 152
| which was a much smaller less capable airplane. People are too
| heavy now, the 152 sized plane is no longer used as much
| because 2x 200lb adults will put it over it's max takeoff
| weight if the gas is topped off or something.
|
| Everything about all of it is super wacked. The leaded fuel,
| the way people cling to old planes cause the new ones are so
| stratospherically expensive, the ancient technology because the
| manufacturers need so much money to get anything approved,
| etc..
| asciimike wrote:
| Yeah, prices in CO (where Corsairpower is based) are
| ~100-150/hr wet for a 172, plus 30-40/hr for an instructor. I
| think I'm paying ~120/hr plus a varying "fuel surcharge" of
| ~20/hr for a T41-D.
|
| The main issue right now is that all the flight schools are
| booked up and you can't get a DPE booked less than two months
| out.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| >People are too heavy now, the 152 sized plane is no longer
| used as much because 2x 200lb adults will put it over it's
| max takeoff weight if the gas is topped off or something.
|
| Why would you fly with full fuel tanks while taking lessons?
| However, your comment is correct that 152 is horribly
| underpowered
| Pasorrijer wrote:
| Safety purposes. If you're away from the school, a student
| gets off course, bad weather, etc, they would much rather
| you have extra fuel than too little.
|
| It's also dependent on what's being flown. Sometimes they
| will fly with less for weight and balance.
| ghawk1ns wrote:
| That's innovation in my book. Nothing wrong with trying to
| reduce your costs while improving emissions, especially when
| we're talking about 30+ year old technology.
| [deleted]
| kylecazar wrote:
| There must be something so incredibly gratifying about
| engineering a thing, and then successfully betting your life on
| the soundness of its design.
| w10-1 wrote:
| This person lost a lot of credibility over decades of promoting
| corsair engines which failed.
|
| Many people are complaining about the ancient technology, but
| newer ones offer very few advantages.
|
| An piston GA airplane runs basically at two speeds: flat-out for
| take-off and cruise. For both the fuel/air mixture is easily
| optimized to optimal, and the slow engines reduce waste. Benefits
| from EFI are decent but below 10%. Supercharging helps a lot at
| higher altitudes, but most planes aren't pressurized or carry
| oxygen, so even that has limited benefit.
|
| The main benefit of the current engines are robustness: I know
| people who have even flown without oil or with a blown valve.
| Many experimental builders combine mechanical magnetos with
| electronic ignitions, partly for fuel efficiency but mainly to
| lower idle speed on the runway when landing.
|
| The real difficulty is not technology but service. There are very
| few engine rebuilders, and they are happy with the current
| limited supply of engines keeping prices up.
|
| And unless you built your own experimental plane, or you get an
| experimental where the FAA permits owner inspections, the main
| cost of flying is service on the plane.
|
| Aside 1: many engines have STC's to run car avgas. All require
| there to be NO ethanol for its impact on the fuel system. The
| studies I've seen of those engines report bottom rebuild times
| more like 800-1000 hours rather than 2,000 hours, and of course a
| higher incidence of valve-related problems.
|
| Aside 2: experimental planes are not a subculture. They form the
| largest number of new planes. The $200K+ alternates only go to
| the wealthy. And after 50 years of competing companies, only one
| has been the overwhelming success, in both popularity and
| numbers: Van's aircraft. They use old-style, simple designs and
| construction, and (mostly) old-style engines, preferring the
| Rotax for their RV-12.
| [deleted]
| rdl wrote:
| One of the biggest markets for small aviation engines which run
| on something other than 100LL is small drones -- running on JP8,
| Jet A, or Jet A1 would make military logistics far easier and
| safer. Even road gas would be a reasonable alternative to 100LL,
| and both diesel/kerosene and gas are easier to find in the bush.
| Kerosene/diesel are probably better due to risk of water in the
| fuel at these places, but diesel engines tend to be heavier than
| gas.
|
| Deltahawk, Thielert, etc are the bigger projects I've followed.
| Getting an actual certified engine is...hard.
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