Malibuflyer wrote:
Last time I checked, the “Steve Jobs Phones” have not been much cheaper than the other ones.
I was not thinking about phones but about computers. (I don’t think the iPhone was anywhere near as revolutionary as the Macintosh.)
Well, if anything in GA is to be compared to Apple products in terms of business model, pricing and attitude to users, then it’s probably Cirrus.
Innovation is airframe design has not proved particularly useful in cutting low volume factory production costs. What’s been effective in the real world GA marketplace for those who aren’t interested in spending all their cash has been the transition to kit built aircraft that are designed with ease of remote construction in mind: CNC manufactured skins with pre-made and matched rivet holes plus providing the customer with low labor cost offshore (Philippines) manufactured components and subassemblies. The innovation is largely in the business model, and removing paid labor where the relatively unskilled buyer can do it himself if the design is right. That has cut purchase cost while very careful detail design has also vastly improved performance of e.g. RVs and the Sling in relation to similar aircraft of 50 years ago.
In terms of performance gains from highly innovative airframe designs, for example the Long Eze which does so well on the same engine as a Cessna 152, the net result has not been better, just different. The huge performance gain in this example came from tandem seating and accepting long runways. Composite construction which was supposed to make that era of planes ‘Eze’ to build was beaten in that regard by the RVs and their more conventional technical approach, plus business innovation.
As a nice example of innovation in the kit world as quoted by Silvaire, look at this:
Airborne_Again wrote
You’re basically saying that innovation is impossible
In certified GA that is pretty much the gist of it
Innovation is not fully impossible but is so expensive that in most cases it is not worth it commercially as the numbers p.a. needed to earn a profit have not been happening since the 1980ties.
It is not impossible to make money in GA.
Like I said above there is a way, but Cirrus have already taken that battlefield, with the chute making their planes much more “family acceptable” (the aircraft itself contains very little innovation).
Certification is very little to do with it, IMHO.
Other niches in GA do make money, if they are distinct and the product works well.
If Sonaca was bankrupt it would offer a buyer a fresh start, and likely success.
Eurotunnel?
For all who keep mentioning Apple: Making innovative products almost made them go bust in 1997. Only when they started to sell standard but nice looking hardware, not unlike Cirrus, they started to make billions.
Airborne_Again wrote:
I was not thinking about phones but about computers.
Same story – with Lisa as well as the Mac might have been revolutionary (or at least put a great marketing behind the revolutionary concept of the Xerox STAR), but of course not cheaper. Introduction price of the Mac in Europe was about 30% higher than that of a PC with similar speed. And the Atari ST which also had a Motorola 68000 and a graphical user interface was half the price only one year later…
Again: very few examples of innovations that have been better and cheaper at the same time.
Here are some innovations that were both cheaper and better than what they replaced:
Aluminum monocoque aircraft structure versus wood, nails and glue
Stamped steel monocoque car structure versus separate chassis and coach built body
Making books with a printing press versus feeding a room full of monks to write books by hand
Telegraph versus human courier
Steam engine versus multiple teams of horses
Paper money versus coins
And so on.
The issue in GA aircraft is that our definition of what we want to buy, i.e. a plane we fly ourselves to carry us and others from place to place, is narrow enough that 120 years of innovation has pretty well optimized the basic architecture and solution within that constraint. It actually took about 50 years, and since then progress has been achieved by working all the little details. What amazes me is how much better an RV-7A performs than an Airtourer or Zlin that is basically the same thing done in the 70s. Much faster and double the climb rate with little or no loss of strength or utility. It’s also easier to make given CNC’d skins and other similar things that aren’t obvious to the pilot. However, the RV series of designs was at no point a revolutionary concept.
