Originally Posted by
A Squared
I think that a representative of BMW or any other current auto manufacturer would be surprised to discover that they aren't heavily regulated and aren't subject to lawsuits.
Of course they are regulated and subject to lawsuits (as are the manufacturers of $5 plastic kids' toys), but no-where near to the same extent. Someone quoted 50% of the purchase price of a C172 is now pure liability insurance coverage. That's before any regulation and certification costs.
I don't think 50% of your BMW purchase price would be liability insurance. Of course, we don't know the figure - we only know the Cessna figure because it came out in public to pass new liability laws to allow Cessna to recommence manufacturing.
There have been some high-profile liability cases against auto-manufacturers, but they generally don't kill the manufacturer and send the prices through the roof in the same way they did Cessna. I don't think anyone doubts that Cessna built good, safe aircraft*. It's a shame the legal system effectively killed them.
The only Cessna equivalent to the "modern" Mercedes sports car is the TTx (which Cessna didn't even design) and which costs more than twice a C172. So our 2.6-4.0 ratio (suggested by a couple of posters, thank you for that) then goes up to a factor of 5.2-8.0 or more. And that's in the US. It would be presumably even higher in Australia.
So perhaps we could suggest that in 1970, an average LAME (or any private pilot with a slightly above-average income) with a good savings discipline could have purchased a new C172 after 4-5 years of savings, whereas today it would take them 30-40 years. That aint gonna happen, hence private GA is dead, and enter the rise of the less-safe ultralights, experimental, home-builts etc.
Most automobiles reach the point of diminishing returns between say 12-16 years of age where it becomes cheaper to scrap them and buy a younger one than to maintain them to standard. That's a "good thing", because newer cars are generally safer, so there is a safety benefit in having a certain level of turnover. Commercial RPT aircraft, being built to more industrial standards, still hit that point around 18-25 years.
Yet we persist in flying 50 year old C172's not because we love them but because the new ones are priced out of reach. Is that really the optimum safety outcome the law-makers have been looking for all these years? Or, out of perhaps good intentions, all they have succeeding in doing is stifling innovation, research and development, and manufacture of better and safer aircraft for one and all.
Why? I don't know. But perhaps it is due to the absurd concept alluded to by an above poster that GA needs to adhere to a "zero accident" policy, which is not applied by society to any other private or small-business pursuit that I can think of. Seen a fatal truck accident near you recently? I certainly have. But them $5 kiddy toys have to make the warehouse by morning "or else".
At the end of the day, the only explanation for the current state of affairs is that it's the law-makers' fault. Do they care that they have killed GA? Sadly no. There's the problem, right there.