- Joined
- Aug 3, 2017
- Messages
- 2,437
I think it is just as much the industry as a whole got lazy. Everyone was happy flying 40 year old Cessnas/Mooneys, and the new planes were able to charge $500k because you had no other choice. The Experimental aircraft I think are cutting into their profits a whole bunch, so they not have the motivation to try to get better certified stuff out there.I think the disrupting part has been the amateur built and maintained aircraft. New avionics were pouring in that rivaled what the big guys had. And wasn't tens of thousands for an AM transceiver. I think this started to become an embarrassment to the FAA, as it has clearly demonstrated just how big of a millstone poorly done regulation can be.
Heck, even today a new C152 is something like $190k last I looked. You can build an RV12 for $60k, or buy a certified one for ~$120k that is 2x the plane.
The old manufacturers just got used to sending out the same crap year after year and investing nothing into the planes, knowing that flight schools were going to pay whatever they asked for the same old planes.