Cheap new GA planes......

[Monocock]

I read in Pilot this morning that the Japanese Air Force have decided to start building GA aircraft because there are only 10 GA planes in Japan. They intend to sell them at between £30k and £45k. I have a question....

1. How can the Pipers and Cessnas of this world justify selling new simple singles at £120k-£180k? The cost of the almost identical models back in the eighties was a third of that and if you apply the same formula to the Ford Sierra, the Mondeo would cost around £42k for a base model today.

I fully appreciate that there were some pretty heavy compensation payments to be made back in the eighties but the number of a/c they have turned out now would pay for that 10 times over.

Perhaps the a/c they intend building will be a microlighty kind of thing although it didn't appear that way in the article.

[Rod1]

If you take a look at the Kit market you will find you can get all the bits for a very sophisticated composite aircraft for under £45000, including the engine. It obviously does not cost £100000 to put one together, so the answer has to be either they are making a huge profit on each one, or the regulatory costs of certification are huge.

What astounds me is that people will pay this sort of money for such dated designs.

[Kolibear]

I suspect its to do with labour costs in the Far East and litigation costs in the USA.