Originally Posted by
slowrotor
Nick,
The current list price for a "robbie" on their website for an average equipped 22 is $215,000.
Will a computer chip bring the cost down?
Slowrotor, i began in an industry which pumps out 5000 vehicles every week for an average model. The modern car delivers reasonable quality at a good cost because of these volumes: Tooling for a panel can be $1'000'000, but each car makes a very small profit (including paying off tooling investment).
If helicopters are made easy enough to fly that training becomes less of an issue then production volumes will go up. This means that parts which are machined can be forged, parts which are forged can be ADI pressure cast and so on. It also means that suppliers are willing to risk more development capitol for system development, so more components become off the shelf.
I don't think that there will be a helicopter on every driveway, primarily since a low disk loading still requires good piloting common sense. I do think that by further increasing the versatility of this incredible machine, production volumes will at least double. A future rotorcraft equivalent of today's Robbie might be $107'500.
Besides, the next aerospace breakthrough may not be so far away.
Mart