Until everyone in their mother isn't sue happy planes will continue to be expensive. In buying a new plane or avionics you are paying up front for thier fees they will pay down the road to their lawyers.
Anyone have any insight into how often plane manufacturers are actually sued? Out of all the dozens of pilots I've know and met I've never actually met anyone who has sued an airplane manufacturer. Of the 35,000 or so Skyhawks that Cessna has built, how many of those resulted in them getting sued and actually having to go to court and pay a settlement? I still think they're just inefficient, riddle me this below
Let's build a Skyhawk in 2018. Your research, dyes, process, everything already exists and is paid off.. because you've had them for 7 decades.. so your raw production costs are going to be strictly personnel and materials:
-you will need 1,000 lbs of sheet aluminum, namely probably 500 lbs of T6 and 500 lbs of T3 aircraft grade aluminum
--t6: 500lb X $1.50 = $750
--t3: 500lb X $1.50 = $750
^based on $3K/metric ton sheet
-you will also need (1) Lycoming IO360
--$40K (that's being very liberal. We can get into the costs of a why bare bones simple dye cast Lyco is that expensive later)
-you will also need (1) G1000 avionics suite
--$100K (that's being very liberal again)
-you will need some fit and finish and other components
--say another $5K for upholstery seats, etc. miscellaneous items
-you will need to paint it
--say another $2,500 (that's super high. If you have your own paint booth there is no way it'll run you that much, but w.e.)
-then you need to build it. If a kit plane takes 2,000 hrs then let's say Cessna is at least four times as good as me (since you know, they've been building planes for nearly a hundred years) and can do it in 500 hrs. At $50/hr for labor (includes taxes, healthcare, etc., I actually doubts most aircraft assemblers make that much, but okay) you get $25K
So we have
+$1,500
+$40,000
+$100,000
+$5,000
+$2,500
+$25,000
=$174,000
+$20K for the cost of utilities, floor space, etc.
=$200K all in grand total direct cost to build, with extremely padded numbers. Assuming Cessna wants a 35% profit margin, that means it should sell for about $300K.. mind you.. you could get that price down to about $225K by ditching the G1000. Where is that extra $100K going? Plus, I guarantee that Cessna is not paying retail prices for their engines or avionics.. they probably actually spend $60K-$80K for that G1000 and $30K for the Lycoming
Going back to the law suit thing.. even if 1 in 10 people who buy a Skyhawk sue them, that still means that if they're banking at least $100K on every Skyhawk then they should have plenty of money to absorb a suit. Sell 5,000 airplanes you have $500,000,000 in the bank in straight profit. Get sued on 500 of them that gives you some legal fund for settling, fighting, etc. Plus, I highly doubt that 1 in 10 plane owners sues their manufacturer.. probably closer to 2.5% or smaller
Compare Cirrus assembly methodology <- that is a well oiled machine
Now look at Cessna <- no stations for the SE planes, just random Skyhawks strewn about with people randomly milling around to build them.. he even says "a team member doesn't just work on a 172 or 206, they have to learn to work on all models"
imagine you go to the Toyota plant and you have a guy building a Camry, Tacoma, Prius at the same time. Notice in the video they don't actually show you building anything. And they only just "most RECENTLY" learned to put the propeller on at the end of the assembly process so they can paint it more easily and limit the amount of time things just sit in inventory. This was painful to watch. These guys sound like the company was born yesterday and they just learned to build a plane... they've been around since 1927. Shameful
Anyway.. I stick to my story. These planes are expensive because they CAN be, not because they HAVE to be. Textron cares about their turbine market and they know that the flight schools will dump half a mil into their Skyhawks because the students going there will pay the rates since they're there on student loans anyway
Also.. there is a TON of regulation in the automotive industry, maybe even more than planes. I am not talking about Ford who sells over 500,000 F series trucks alone per year..
let's look this company right here, Ariel. they sell <100 cars per year.. and they build some high performance machines. Okay.. there's no roof and it's missing some creature comforts, but again, look at their assembly line process and how lean it is. You can buy an Ariel for around $70K... but that 172 will run almost 6 times that. Unfortunately there are no other good low volume auto makers to choose from because most low volume guys build "hypercars" or "supercars" and that has a whole different bespoke premium on it
