The slowly death of General Aviation in the U.S.

SteveCostello said:
Can you get floats for Kitfoxes? If so... problem solved, dream achieved!
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icon-a5-light-sport-aircraft-personal-private-jet-plane.jpg

Best of both worlds...................:cool:
 
Bernoulli Fan said:
Is there some connection between Eclipse and Icon Aircraft I'm unaware of?
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Vern Rayburn and his track record now. Grossly underestimate the price of your product, then jack the price up. Deliver late, with an aircraft that won't do half of what it was promised to do. He's at Icon now.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
Vern Rayburn and his track record now. Grossly underestimate the price of your product, then jack the price up. Deliver late, with an aircraft that won't do half of what it was promised to do. He's at Icon now.
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Are you sure? I found some articles from last year and earlier that say he is a "director," but there is no mention of him on the Icon website, even on the director page.

*edit* Just found an article that says Linden Blue replaced Raburn on the board as of July 17, 2012.
 
Bernoulli Fan said:
Are you sure? I found some articles from last year and earlier that say he is a "director," but there is no mention of him on the Icon website, even on the director page.

*edit* Just found an article that says Linden Blue replaced Raburn on the board as of July 17, 2012.
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Eh, if he had his hand in it at all, it was too much. He should stick with what he knows, software
 
Bernoulli Fan said:
Are you sure? I found some articles from last year and earlier that say he is a "director," but there is no mention of him on the Icon website, even on the director page.

*edit* Just found an article that says Linden Blue replaced Raburn on the board as of July 17, 2012.
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True... Seems like he was trying to buy American Champion. Watch out!
 
If oil was cheap, fuel prices went down, and you could rent planes for $60-120/hr everywhere, I think people would be flying all the time. I know the one and only thing that stops me from flying as much as I'd like are the prices.
 
If prices even got back near $100 and hour to rent you would probably see more people flying. You think Cessna would still build planes with the standard six pack. I would wager the average weekend warrior doesn't use 1/2 of what the avionics provide. IF Delta, freighters and etc can fly around the world on basic equipment so could Joe pilot. You don't need 3/4 of what is in today's GA aircraft to learn how to fly. Producing aircraft without these toys would IMO reduce the price. They would also need to strengthen liability laws to product company from frivolous lawsuits too which would help lower prices.
 
Bandit_Driver said:
If prices even got back near $100 and hour to rent you would probably see more people flying. You think Cessna would still build planes with the standard six pack. I would wager the average weekend warrior doesn't use 1/2 of what the avionics provide.
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Customers want to buy aircraft with fancy avionics. That's what sells, so that's why they get built that way.

Everything will be glass panel eventually, it is better and cheaper.

And it still is not hard to find rental aircraft under $100/hour around these parts.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Everything will be glass panel eventually, it is better and cheaper.
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Agreed. It should be very cheap to produce solid state LCD instrumentation with redundant power and sensors and a large amount of features. I mean you can get instrumentation that rivals a G1000 in a hand held now for $500. It will be interesting to see if some manufacturer cuts the crap and starts producing TSO'd packages that are priced to blow away the market. I sincerely hopes so, but am skeptical that will ever happen.

There's no technological hurdle, someone just has to decide they will do it.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Customers want to buy aircraft with fancy avionics. That's what sells, so that's why they get built that way.

Everything will be glass panel eventually, it is better and cheaper..
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HAH!

Say that to someone who had to replace their G1000 panel or Aspen when it was out of warranty.

And guess what? That G1000 goes tango uniform on you, you are A O G with not just a VSI that died, but the whole shootin' match. Can't just placard it INOP and fly home VFR.

I can replace the instruments in my six pack in the panel of my airplane 4 or 5 times over with what one Aspen unit costs. And that's with NEW stuff. Plus I'm not limited to just one supplier.

Better yet, fast forward a couple of years when Garmin or Aspen decides that their display is "end of life", and you're only option is to buy a new model from them at 2x the price. Meanwhile, the steam gauge guys buying their stuff from Spruce and keep on trucking.

Richman
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Customers want to buy aircraft with fancy avionics. That's what sells, so that's why they get built that way.

Everything will be glass panel eventually, it is better and cheaper.

And it still is not hard to find rental aircraft under $100/hour around these parts.
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What I'm seen is that the new pilots are so focused on learning to play with the videogames(glass panels) that the true airmanship is getting forgotten in some way.
 
Richman said:
HAH!

Say that to someone who had to replace their G1000 panel or Aspen when it was out of warranty.

And guess what? That G1000 goes tango uniform on you, you are A O G with not just a VSI that died, but the whole shootin' match. Can't just placard it INOP and fly home VFR.

I can replace the instruments in my six pack in the panel of my airplane 4 or 5 times over with what one Aspen unit costs. And that's with NEW stuff. Plus I'm not limited to just one supplier.

Better yet, fast forward a couple of years when Garmin or Aspen decides that their display is "end of life", and you're only option is to buy a new model from them at 2x the price. Meanwhile, the steam gauge guys buying their stuff from Spruce and keep on trucking.

Richman
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Meh. Something north of 1500 hours in glass panel GA planes and the worst avionics/instrument failure I've seen was an alternator died in an airplane that literally had just been dragged out of the hangar and jump started with a van after 3+ years in storage. On the other hand dry vacuum pumps and iron gyros....
Also, the G1000 KOEL allows VFR dispatch with all kinds of inoperative stuff, at least in the installations that I'm familiar with. What it seems like a lot of people assume is that if you have a failure in the G1000 or any glass cockpit that "the whole thing quits and you're SOL!". That is simply not true. The system is modular and the airplane is totally flyable (even IFR) with any one component dead. The only failure that takes out the whole thing short of a massive lightning strike is a total electical failure, and even then with the backups you have in the plane even after the ship battery and the emer battery die you're not really in any worse shape than in a steam gauge plane after such a failure.
The planned obsolescence argument is a legitimate one though.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Customers want to buy aircraft with fancy avionics. That's what sells, so that's why they get built that way.

Everything will be glass panel eventually, it is better and cheaper.

And it still is not hard to find rental aircraft under $100/hour around these parts.
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If only Dynon stuff could be put in certified, VFR airplanes (like a 150 or something...)
 
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