Why is Flight Equipment so Expensive?!

[KieranBal]

I'm currently a PPL student with about 35 hours and just about to do my QXC. For the past month or so, I've been having to borrow the club's computer/protractor/ruler etc. when planning a flight. This can not only get embarrassing, but very annoying when I know I can get all of my planning done at home before I leave for a flight, but when I search online for all the planning equipment I need, I can't understand the prices they charge!

£8 for a ruler? Come on! It's just a ruler with different markings on it! You can go into WHSmiths and buy a normal ruler for less than 50p, so why should one with nautical miles on it be so much different?! The same goes for CRP-1 computers, which when new are about £50. Yes, they are clever and indispensable, but really? It just seems that any product that can fit 'aviation' into the name seems able to charge 5x what should be charged! :mad:

KieranBal

[Genghis the Engineer]

Small volume production, and a perceived cash-rich market.

Try eBay, try compromising where you can. I use a cheap fabric bag for my flight bag, a £6 stopwatch from Argos, keep my charts in a holder from Staples instead of something similar for many times the price from Transair...

A cardboard ASA whizz-wheel (or second hand RAF one) will work as well as a much more expensive Pooleys model, and a 50p WH Smiths Protractor will measure angles just as well too. Nothing to stop you marking a 1:500,000 scale on a bit of perspex...

You can save a lot of money if you need to.

G

[trex600]

Trust someone with the name Airpolice to have a totally different view from what most other human beings would call an absolute rip off.

If the flying itself had a similar markup as the flight equipment it would cost over £1000 per hour to fly a tomahawk so i don't think it's such a bad question.

And who funds the OP's flying is nobody's business nor is it relevant right?

[Pilot DAR]

Though I agree that many aviation articles are overly expensive, I have seen other pastimes whose associated peripheral equipment is pretty expensive too. Yaughting and horses come to mind. The truth is that some parts of my VW, are more costly to service the my plane, as is the insurance!

Genghis offered some appropriate suggestions to be economical, and I agree with them.

Brace yourself, 8 pound rulers are just the beginning....

[Dan Winterland]

''Yaughting and horses come to mind.'''

Yachting can be expensive, but not in every area. Sailing electronics are much cheaper. For example, the VHF radio I installed in my boat last year has many more features. It's got variable transmit power, digital SELCAL, a meesaging system, the ability to automaticly transmit a distress meaasge including position, and listen to three frequencies at once. It can also link to other electronic systems to transfer data - and it's waterproof. It cost about 160 GBP,whereas the less capable aviation equivalent will cost five times more.

Of course, it doesn't have to be certified and I expect the production run will be greater, but the price disparity is just too much to explain. Could it be that pilots are being ripped off?

[Fitter2]

Hi Kieran

if things could be sold much cheaper, and make a profit, use a little of the money from your flying to invest in budget flight planning kit, and watch the PPL students beat a path to your door.

You will (in the process) discover the difference in tooling/production costs of runs of a few thousand as opposed to millions of units, and your bank manager/investors will explain what return on investment means.

Do you see Bob Pooley (or his competitors) owing business jets, and having megayachts tied up at Monaco?

[welliewanger]

As a quick note (not going too far off topic)
I found it useful to mark times on my ruler. Put a mark for every five minutes of still air flight distance (at 120 kts this is every 10 nm, at 90 kts its every 7.5 nm. This is a good sanity check for planning purposes and makes diversions much easier.

[stiknruda]

WW - good idea! I do something similar when mentally replanning whilst airborne but use 6 min increments. As six mins is a tenth of an hour, the maths is easy:

... at a g/s of 140kts, I'll expect to run 14nm in 6 mins or 7nm in 3. My next turn is 20nm away, I'll be on the turn in 9 mins.

A s/hand whizz wheel and a secondhand or homemade rule and protractor work just as well.

Stik

[jxc]

Just wait till you have your PPL and you flu somewhere for a burger that's expensive !

[AndoniP]

just wait until you need to buy a headset :( the 8 pound ruler will seem insignificant.

[Hamish 123]

The first headset isn't the problem . . . . it's the second, third and fourth ones so that you can take your friends and family flying!

[Andy H]

I really cannot understand why folk pay so much for flying kit. My headsets cost £25 and £48 on Ebay, standard DC products that cost megabucks from Transair. My flight bag came from the market at £2.99 and my stopwatch from a mail-order tool shop at £3.99.

And I have a whizzywheel somewhere that is free to any caller, I never used it after I got my license. Still can't believe we are expected to use such ancient kit in the 21st century!

Andy

[billiboing]

Just wait until you buy your first aircraft! and you get the bill for the annual!

The ruler will seem superb value!:sad:

Alternatively, - start a business selling the stuff. More competition the better if it bring prices down!

[IO540]

Indeed, the cost of little bits like rulers is insignificant against the ongoing cost of flying.

Learning how to reduce the ongoing cost of flying, especially aircraft ownership, while still doing top-grade maintenance, is a major learning curve :)

[BackPacker]

Actually the worst cost is not a ruler marked in nm, a headset or an annual. You all need those. It's the stuff you buy during training while you have money burning in your pocket, thinking it will make you a better/smarter/more competent pilot, but you end up not using at all.

Loads of stuff like this in the typical pilot shop, from holding pattern computers to expensive "aviator" watches and sunglasses. I personally fell for the ASA flight timer which I never used in anger because it was too unwieldy but there must be thousands of pounds worth of "pilot" stuff lying in cupboards around the world.

Oh, well, maybe one day we can sell it off as 'vintage'...:{

[IO540]

Much of the stuff in pilot shops is useless rubbish, which might get used a few times and then never again.

That's before you get to things like £500 leather jackets and "pilot" watches :)

But I might have to buy a pilot uniform.... it seems that most IR conversion options are at schools which mandate it. That will be about £100 and will go on the bonfire immediately afterwards.

BTW, I haven't used the 1:500k ruler since I got the PPL :)

[mrmum]

Seriously, you are going to a FTO as an individual customer, paying them thousands and then they are going to make you wear fancy dress :ugh::ugh::ugh:.
I'm sure it will make your flying much better, how many bars to they insist you wear?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Worse, they make you wear flammable fancy dress.

Look at the labels in any pilot shop - all polycotton, without any flame retardant.

Nearly as flammable as those horrible yellow jackets.


I turned up for my CPL skill test in my usual natural-fibres "uniform" of flying cotton trousers and cotton polo-neck, my instructor looked at me with horror and quietly asked me if I had "proper" clothes to change into. I didn't, the examiner didn't seem to care and I got a first time pass. I have yet to own a white shirt with eppaullettes, and suspect that I may never do so.

G

[IO540]

Seriously, you are going to a FTO as an individual customer, paying them thousands and then they are going to make you wear fancy dress
I'm sure it will make your flying much better, how many bars to they insist you wear?

Most FTOs require the uniform even for a private pilot doing an IR conversion.

The one I saw this morning would however allow me to wear four bars because I already have a CPL :)

[Wessex Boy]

I am the Owner of a supplier of clothing and accessories to the GA market.

Starting up a caper like this is expensive and the volumes are very low. At current volumes we have to do our manufacturing and customisation in the UK, which is great for jobs, but terrible for margins.

We have made some big/expensive mistakes along the way and found some of our market assumptions where a bit off. For instance, we had a desire to broaden the colour palette avilable for Pilots from black and navy...but all that happened was that people only bought the black and navy items!

A big lesson we have learnt is that Pilots are unlike Sailors, riders and snowboarders (wearing Crew, Joules & Fat Face respectively) in that they don't tend to want to display their hobby as an aspirational lifestyle

We are more focussed now, most of our clothing is low-key with small discrete logos and we are trying to focus on items that enhance the flying experience/safety, such as the Wristboard, Flight Cap, Gilet and trousers, but everytime we think we may turn the corner and start to turn a profit, the bank raises its charges....

We are well on our way to a small fortune, having started with a larger one!

Edited to add that in response to the above post on materials, the majority of our clothes are made from cotton

[Genghis the Engineer]

Wessex Boy, thanks for chipping in with that.


A couple of comments I'd make:

- You're quite right, that most aviation people prefer not to display their activity outside of the flying environment too ostentatiously (microlight and hang-gliding people probably being the exception).

- It would be really helpful if catalogues such as Transair actually stated fabric and flammability next to clothing products.

- If you can make a modern, smartish, non-green copy of the RAF cold weather flying jacket, there is a massive market for that- especially in the rotary wing world.

- I'm not a moderator on Private Flying, but speaking as a regular contributor and a mod elsewhere on Pprune, I reckon that you'll find people here more than happy to contribute to sensible attempts to gauge opinions about designs, styles and composition of clothing for flying.

G

[mad_jock]

Most FTOs require the uniform even for a private pilot doing an IR conversion.

No they don't usless you are pulling folks legs either that or its a southern england thing.

The default uniform seems to be a pair of dark chino's and white shirt from primark which costs under a tenner. well its was in my day and also from what I can see in the IR schools north of Brum

[Mariner9]

No uniform requirement for IR training at Aeros. Having shelled out £11K for IR flying training I expect them to teach me how to fly on instruments, not what to wear!

[Wessex Boy]

Thank you Ghengis, we always state the materials on our products so that the customers can make an informed choice on what they wear.

A flying jacket is something we would like to do, but everyroad we travel down would lead to a retail price of over £100, experience has told us that this is too steep for the average flyer, but we will continue to look, I liked my cold weather jacket too!

We do like feedback and comments on our products, I will also post some questions on here too.

We have had some great feedback on how our customers have customised their Wristboards to hold their iPhones/GPS, folding PLogs, rags on string, etc, etc which is great to hear, and shows that the great British inginuity is alive and well in the GA world!

[mixture]

Genghis,

- It would be really helpful if catalogues such as Transair actually stated fabric and flammability next to clothing products.

Allow me to rephrase that for you Sir.

- It would be really helpful if catalogues such as Transair actually stocked clothing products made of suitable fabric and flammability resistance.

:ok:

(I've yet to have any urge to buy any clothing from a catalogue, Transair or otherwise to make me look like a muppet when I'm off in a jaunt in a light GA aircraft !).

[mad_jock]

Wish you could get a cotton pilots jacket with a couple of pen holders on the shoulders.

The best I have seen was an old RAf flying jacket made out of the same stuff as they make rugby tracksuits out of. The bloke that had it said he could only wear if away from base and he had to be on constant guard of it being nicked.

And I know its not GA but if you could source some pilot shirts with a decent cotton mix. Not 100% been down that road and they are a bastard to iron. 70% or 80% cotton seems to be a good trade off.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I have a friendly tailor in Bankok who'll copy garments in the material of your choice. I'll bet they'd copy a good flying jacket in cotton or linen.

G

[mad_jock]

Some where east is where my current batch of shirts are from.

And yep you can get pretty much anything.

But its a long way to go just to get some more work shirts or a jacket.

[Wessex Boy]

We started due to the fact that the only flying clothing available was for muppetry, I don't need to wear a green babygro and Bonedome any more and I certainly don't want/need eppaulettes.

Our aim is to provide good quality, functional clothing, at reasonable prices that you can wear at the destination as well as in the cockpit. Our Vintage Sweatshirt was from the same supplier as Crew Clothing and looked identical (apart from the price-tag!) Alas we can't source them at the moment. Our jumpers are very smart and pure heavy cotton, so warm, but breathable and have sold very well in Norway!

[Conventional Gear]

I was kind of working my way up to a babygro :hmm:

'tis funny that you use the Chipmunk as a logo, the mostly likely thing to wear in a Chipmunk, is eeer a babygro with a map pocket 'cos there isn't room to wear much else!

[Wessex Boy]

We chose the Chipmunk as it is a generally admired aircraft in the GA scene, has some aspirational and historic overtones, makes ex-cadets go all misty-eyed (jump, jump John!) and both my Wife and I have had some terrific fun flying with Janie in hers.

It was cockpits like the Chippy's that we designed the Wristboard for, so you don't have to wear the gro-bag and scribble on your legs;)

[Genghis the Engineer]

Some where east is where my current batch of shirts are from.

And yep you can get pretty much anything.

But its a long way to go just to get some more work shirts or a jacket.

Mine does internet ordering these days - tailored cotton or silk shirts about about £24 delivered to the UK, not to be sneezed at.

If I wanted them, I've no doubt they'd add some eppaulettes for me. So far however, I haven't found the urge.

G

[Conventional Gear]

It was cockpits like the Chippy's that we designed the Wristboard for, so you don't have to wear the gro-bag and scribble on your legs

Damn, I'll never find an excuse to wear a gro-bag now, everyone will laugh at me at the club when I wear one and say, 'you don't need that, you should just get one of those Wristboard thingies'. :{

[mad_jock]

Sorta comes with the job though the eppaulettes thing.

H'mm wonder what the Thai's make though of engineering lecturer cords though.

Must admit though the trousers look good aviation usage or not.

[Heliport]

KieranBal

Good question. :ok:
Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about it except -

Check the internet (incl eBay) for lowest prices.
Check the prices at American pilot shops - usually much cheaper, even if you have to take shipping costs etc into account. (ie If you don't have friends/family visiting the States.)
Look out for second-hand kit advertised in your flying club and on aviation websites that allow ads. (PPRuNe doesn't.)

[Shunter]

I turned up for my CPL skill test in my usual natural-fibres "uniform" of flying cotton trousers and cotton polo-neck, my instructor looked at me with horror and quietly asked me if I had "proper" clothes to change into. I didn't, the examiner didn't seem to care and I got a first time pass. I have yet to own a white shirt with eppaullettes, and suspect that I may never do so.

Kinda likewise. I showed up to my CPL test in a pair of jeans, Megadeth t-shirt and Converse All-Stars. My instructor (a top guy, incidentally) asked if I had a shirt I could put on... I asked if it would help me fly any better.

If I were going for a job interview I'd be suited and booted, but when I'm paying over £750 for a CPL skills test I'll damn well wear what I like.

[Wessex Boy]

Thanks Mods, much appreciated, your removal of my company name and URL when I am making a constructive contrbution to this thread has a certain irony
:ugh::rolleyes:

[airpolice]

"Them's the rules!"


As they say in some parts.

[Wessex Boy]

Understand and accept that if they are administered in a consistent manner......

[CharlieDeltaUK]

Seems to me that if we ever want informed opinions from the supplier community, we need to let them announce themselves. Otherwise, we don't see the context. The contribution from Wessex Boy was relevant to the topic and any spin-off PR was proportionate to the contribution. One kind of knows when a post is just blatant publicity seeking (usually self-defeating) and this one wasn't.

[mad_jock]

The mods proberly don't care it will be the other advertisers that will moan along with the board admin wanting to protect there advertising.

Anyway wessex I think they left it longer than most things like that.

Its on my bookmark list now and in the future I will be getting a jumper and a pair of trousers out of you when I am in one place long enough to not miss it in the post. So no harm done.

PS you should get your website translated into German the Krauts love that sort of stuff.

[J.A.F.O.]

Life's not fair, we have to just get on with it, I suppose.

I guess it's not advertising if I say that I've got several things from Aero-ist since Wessex Boy opened up and the quality of everything is fantastic, not only the clothing (I've got two t-shirts, "Chippy" and "High Wing"; a sweatshirt and a jumper) but also the technical stuff - I've got a flight cap which saves me opening up my head every other walkround and a wristboard which is made to such high standards that I can't ever see me needing a replacement.

Well done, Wessex for having the guts to do something about the lack of high quality stuff designed by GA pilots for GA pilots. Whoever designed the Wristboard and Flight Cap is a very clever chap.

[Wessex Boy]

Thanks for your support all, it has been a risk and I am still in for a big chunk of money, I think it will be at least another couple of years before I see a return.

there are many things we want to add, such as a decent flight jacket, some fire resistant Flying boots and create some 'cool' clothing, so annoyed that Superdry have brought out an 'Aeronaut' range, that was one of the names we discounted (Forum pedants might have pointed out the ballooning connection....) but it does mean that Aviation clothing can be classed as cool if done right