But isn't this all a bit of inflating one's importance with turbines? Let's be honest here - they can charge these kind of money because they're on the type certificate as the only engine that particular aircraft can use. It's what is called a 'captive market'.
Engineering-wise, there is nothing today that suggests they would be that hard to make. The tolerances are far lower than in many other industries where none such price hiking appears. Let's not forget they were certified and approved when they were still hand made on lathe's and manual mills. Today we have robotic CNC vertical mill stations that have more productivity and much higher tolerances. Neither are the materials used very exciting or expensive. I don't believe for a second these aren't downright cash cows for RR, GE and P&W. Nobody can with a straight face tell me a 250 or a PT6 costs $600.000 to make. The R&D and the certification costs were recouped decades ago. What we're left with is corporate bullying.
The basics of capitalism apply here as everywhere else. The reason they're not selling very many of these engines and why their R&D costs are high per sold unit is - surprise! - because they're too bloody expensive. We could have had a myriad of small turboprops in every LSA and Cessna since the 60's, but they chose to ignore that because the times were good and the military could be relied on to overpay for their stuff - ever wondered why every aerospace manufacturer ever devised has gone after military contracts? One doesn't have to be a genius to figure that one out.
Make a certified 100-300shp turboprop and sell it for the same as a piston engine and you'd see massive sales. Bitching about how they don't make any money on their $30 million a pop GEnx engines for the 787 - excuse me if I don't immediately shed a tear and buy too much into that one (if you take future sales into account). If the RC guys at Jetcat, Wren and AMT can make working turbines in their sheds and sell them for $3000, the most certainly RR and the good old boys can make money selling theirs slightly bigger ones for $600K a pop. Yes, I know there are differences between the examples, but they're more similar than they are different.
Last edited by AdamFrisch; 18th June 2011 at 08:10.