Mooney_Driver wrote:
cost of workmanship
The labor rate at Part 145 shops in Germany is on par with what you pay in the US.
on the other hand, we can’t do anything else but try to keep GA flying mostly by doing it and by talking about it in public. People can be educated, our American cousins show us how, but we need to stand together. And that is a big problem here. Europe is a house divided on any level and also in GA. We have gliders going against motorplanes, airlines against GA, hangliders against gliders. No wonder our enemies can deal so easily against us.
I agree 100.000%
And that’s a good reason to support EuroGA 
It seems ever more clear that the formula here i.e. a polite and informative community, is the only way forward. And EuroGA is the only game in town for that. If you want to run a site funded by advert click-throughs then you have to waste those objectives and allow abuse and drivel because that’s the only way to get traffic. The other way is a forum behind a paywall but – in Europe – there will be almost nobody there and you just get a few characters talking to each other.
I don’t think there is a simple answer to the OP question. I bought my present plane (Robin HR100/285R) when it was 5 years old, I’ve now owned it for 34 years. When it was new in 1977 it probably cost about £50,000 in the UK, about £500,000 in today’s money. I bought it dismantled from a liquidator and spent about £17,000 in all in getting it airworthy, say £170,000 in now money. £500,000 is Euro700,000, so definitely not cheap.
The avionics fit made it expensive, but it was still much less capable than a similar plane today. Avionics have got cheaper and better, airframes more expensive and engines stayed more or less the same. Planes have always been expensive and if you wanted a serious travelling machine it has always been something for only a minority. Also fuel is pretty much the same price now as then. I’d guess that the percentage of the populations that could buy planes 30 years ago is much the same as today.
The real problem is that other things have got a lot cheaper so our expectations rise. e.g. a new Porsche 911 in 1981 was approx £25,000 (£200,000 in 2015 money?) as against £90,000 now. A dishwasher cost £200 (£1600 in 2015 money) as against £250 now. I paid £3,000 to fit out a kitchen in 1977 (£30,000?), the same kitchen would be about £6,000 now. Only housing in the UK has really got more expensive.
Even learning to fly cost about the same as now. I paid £9 ph dual in 1970 to get my PPL. That’s prob about £135ph now, That was for a minimally equipped C150.
All this obviously applies to Europe, the US experience was probably different.
Yes and according to those tables, Ted.P’s calculations are too steep. 2014 to 1981 is factor 3 so the 25,000 Porsche would be 76,000 € in today’s money.
1977 to today is 238.6/47.8 = 5 so a 50,000 Robin would be 250,000 in today’s money. That makes his calculation off by 100%.
How much is a new Robin?
Robin don’t make anything remotely resembling a 285hp all metal retractable now, so any comparison would be meaningless.
Inflation rate tables are inevitably skewed depending on the basket of prices used. Items vary enormously i.e. electronics and consumer goods are much cheaper whereas housing much more expensive. If the basket includes mortgage interest rates, but you don’t have a mortgage, then your perception of rising (or falling) prices will be very different from official stats. Also during high inflation period (e.g. UK 1970s) the variations within the basket can be extreme, especially if exchange rate fluctuations are involved in pricing (as they were with the Porsche 911 example). Planes and avionics were often priced in US dollars and you needed to have been around in the 70s and 80s to understand the strange results that produced at the time.
I have been earning and spending for decades and base my inflation on my own experience of prices and relative earnings. As I said before my money now goes further on most things I buy, but not with planes, they’ve stayed much the same.
I would guess that most people have a perceived personal inflation rate. As a self-employed fee earner I always needed to keep cash reserves and had a very good idea of the increase in costs that I incurred.
Indeed – I recall GBP 1.00 varying between USD 1.05 and USD 2.40.
