Why is Flight Equipment so Expensive?!
 

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

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

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?

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....

''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?

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?

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.

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

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

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

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!

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

cost of flying stuff
 

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!

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 :)

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'...:{

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 :)

Uniform!
 

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?

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

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 :)

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