cliffy Posted February 23, 2022 Report Posted February 23, 2022 3 hours ago, A64Pilot said: I don’t believe you could build a fixed gear Mooney and only lose a knot or two if gear were the only difference. Yes you can build a Mooney sized airplane with fixed gear and only lose a few kts , but you do so by making the aircraft less draggy so that the total drag is about the same. In other words a Cirrus airframe is less draggy than ours, by quite a bit. The fuselage shape behind the wing of a Mooney is actually quite draggy, narrowing it down to a wasp shape is way less draggy for instance. Some of those LSA’s that look like an egg with a helicopter tail boom are actually pretty low drag. I’m one of the old types, I want a complex airplane, one that you control RPM and retract the gear, what needs fixing is putting a pilot in charge of mixture, that's just plain dumb. But as an example, Mooney gear are WAY more expensive than Cirrus’s fixed gear as is the 4130 tube steel fuselage is way more expensive than popping composite fuselages out of a mold like a boat hull. Read the last paragraph of this article to see how few people can build as many Cirrus fuselages as they do. https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/fuselage-skins-redesign-streamlines-production Going to pre-peg saves them a whole lot, prior method (wet layup) required a lot of skill as you manually lay down each layer, wet it out and squeeze out any excess resin, apply a vacuum bag etc. But still way less expensive than welded tube steel. Pre-peg is pre impregnated with resin and the layup is already there, just lay the prepeg in the mold and ideally a male mold goes into the female squeezing the prepeg and they are steam heated to cure the resin, wait a short while and out pops a fuselage half. ‘I don’t know if Cirrus uses steam heated molds or not, but if they do it’s ridiculously fast, way way faster than hand fitting fuselage tubes and welding them up. then of course comes the outer skin which has to be hand fit because a welded tube fuselage can’t hold the tolerances required to make it so that the skins don’t have to be hand fit. So you have a hand built custom airframe with all of the inspections steps and skill required to manufacture compared to one that lends itself to automation and requires way less skilled laborers Then why is Cirrus $800,000? Quote
LANCECASPER Posted February 23, 2022 Report Posted February 23, 2022 6 hours ago, cliffy said: Then why is Cirrus $800,000? The SR-22 (non turbo) can push $1,000,000 if you add a few options. https://cirrusaircraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-SR22-Domestic-PriceSheet-v3.pdf The SR-22T (turbo) is well over $1,000,000++ with options. https://cirrusaircraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-SR22T-Domestic-PriceSheet-v3.pdf And both have at least a one year waitlist. They have an entry level SR-20, which is not their top seller, for $625,000 plus options https://cirrusaircraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-SR20-Domestic-PriceSheet-v3.pdf Quote
A64Pilot Posted February 23, 2022 Report Posted February 23, 2022 6 hours ago, cliffy said: Then why is Cirrus $800,000? I don’t understand, are you asking why they are so expensive? My answer would be because they apparently can get it. The price of a object is driven by what the market will bear, not necessarily by what it cost to manufacture. Of course if the market price is less than cost to manufacture, the business fails, unless it’s some kind of government thing Quote
Guy123 Posted February 24, 2022 Report Posted February 24, 2022 3 hours ago, A64Pilot said: Of course if the market price is less than cost to manufacture, the business fails, unless it’s some kind of government thing No one else may find it anywhere near as humorous as I do but that was very funny sir!! even though it shouldn't be. Quote
carusoam Posted February 24, 2022 Report Posted February 24, 2022 On 2/22/2022 at 7:53 AM, A64Pilot said: I’d bet lunch Mooney tried building a Diesel powered trainer, because the Chinese with their money wanted it for the Chinese market. The Chinese are known for getting US manufacturers to design and build for this mythical huge Chinese market, that has never existed, but they convince people it will, any day now. I was in aircraft manufacturing for a number of years, one thing I can tell you for sure is “Beware of Chinese bearing gifts” Don’t try to make that racist, it’s not. Very often your not really dealing with a Chinese business, but the Government, and they are slick. We had our Chinese experience, not with them buying into the business, but with a 24 airplane contract, convinced the owner that there would be a continued yearly purchase, all he needed to do was prime the pump. In short they took the fool to the bank Consider using the words China, and words are slightly different, but their difference in meaning is quite vast… China… the government and the country… Chinese… the people that are in Asia, and here in the Americas… It takes a bit of extra effort… Writing takes a lot of effort anyways… It helps to not annoy millions of people including MSers… when you only mean to poke the Country and it’s government… China has an interesting philosophy…. Buy one machine… and copy it the best they can…. The machine companies I worked for have learned this reality the hard way… Best regards, -a- Quote
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