New Aircraft Production...Production Cost Reduction
Following on the thread of what can replace an old Chieftain, it can only be a New Chieftain, but with some qualification.
The Caravan is a fine aircraft but in a league way above the Chieftain in size and cost.
The solution is to produce new build chieftain aircraft as well as other GA type aircraft but the production methods must have a radical change.
Typically, a new cessna 172 for example requires hundreds of man hours to build, each part is hand made then hand assembled on the production line. Little or no automation is evident on the production line.
Rather than make all individual pieces, then rivet them together by hand to for a component, wouldn't it be cheaper to mill that component from a billet of metal on a CNC milling machine.
Two examples I can think of involve a bulkead on a bussinesjet, used to be some hundreds of handmade pieces, welded/riveted together to form a bulkead, now it is done by a precision CNC lathe from 1 piece of metal. No human intervention, and identical compnonents, one after another.
Raytheons Premier 1 busseness jey is another example, the fuselage is made on a drum where carbon fibre tape is wound around and round till the job is done, in an hour or so with again no human intervention.
How would this apply to building a Chieftain, reduced parts count, all parts made by CNC milling machines, modern glass cockpit, new tecnology diesel engines burning jetA1. That's what is needed by GA.