Has SE GA Innovation Stopped again?

I suspect that the next big thing to come will be change in engine technologies, to the extent that I’d be surprised if anyone is really using Avgas in 20 years (10 years for the technology, 10 years for the adoption).

Dis it ever start?

In the US, there is no GA innovation. All the important stuff has happened elsewhere, Europe mainly.

In the last 30-40 years all innovation has been in microlight/LSA/sport and in kit planes. The German glider industry has been in the fore front regarding composites. Certified GA has adopted some of it. Cirrus adopted the BRS and some composite. They all have adopted glass cockpits. The only really new thing for certified GA is the diesel engine. Rotax and ULPower and some others have leapfrogged the gasoline engine by several decades compared with traditional engines.

What is happening now is sport planes are getting larger, more advanced and more expensive all the time. Things will converge at a new standard of some kind. US LSA will be increased to 1500 kg or thereabout. In 10-15 years time the same will happen in Europe.

In the US, there is no GA innovation

Are Garmin Avidyne etc avionics developed outside the US?

I think that the market has spoken, in that attempts to develop new engines which are better than the existing ones have mostly failed. And same with airframes.

What is happening now is sport planes are getting larger, more advanced and more expensive all the time.

Despite the hype and the publicity, their sales numbers are very small.

Peter wrote:

Despite the hype and the publicity, their sales numbers are very small.

Compared with what? Piper or Airbus ?

Innovation without sales doesn’t mean a lot. Anybody can innovate, especially on receipt of EU research grants, or VC money

If you look at all the weird plane projects which pop up here, there is no lack of ideas for … weird planes. But the market speaks. The manufacturers have been around the block a few times and they know that xyz is just not going to sell. And the buyers know that most new stuff is troublesome, that they get mercilessly exploited as unpaid beta testers and then shafted to pay for mods etc etc.

Look at some past debates on EuroGA, where I said more or less the above, and got jumped on for suppressing innovation and that if everybody was like me, nothing would ever change. And the person jumping on me was flying a 40 year old heap from Cessna or whatever

LeSving wrote:

In the last 30-40 years all innovation has been in microlight/LSA/sport and in kit planes.

You can leave out microlights and LSA here.

The entry routes into GA are:

Aerodynamics and FRP → Gliders
Integrated Flight Decks → Commercial and military application adopted in experimental aircraft, most of them not being microlights
Parachute → Military Idea in Microlights, but correct system integration done in certified SEP and Gliders
Engines → Diesel came in first for certified aircraft (SEP & MEP), also in Drones. Electric flight came through gliders and then being adopted by some experimentals.
Flight Automation → High end certified GA adoption of CAT and military systems
Traffic Information → High end certified GA adoption of CAT and military systems and low cost systems developed in gliders

Microlights don’t make any sense as testbed for technology. Innovation occurs in GA not because there has to be innovation, but only due to demand. And microlights, being crafted as a simple, low-cost regulation to get airborne (i.e. with a Skywalker or a Weller ULI in mind), don’t call for innovation. The most sold microlights have aerodynamics from the 1920s, materials from the 1940s and engines from the 1950s. Much like the Vans or sonnex. In Germany, the most manufactured ULM is a C42. I fail to see the Innovation over a C172 or C150.

But in general, yes, Aviation is a silly crowd to play. On the one hand they want innovation, on the other hand they disregard “unproven designs”. Competitors to old brands get trashed due to their novelty (be it SMA, EPS, Avidyne, etc.) and old companies get trashed due to their supposedly ancient technology (Lyoming, Continental) no matter what they’d do. People believe the claim of certification cost, but in reality a certified Belgium VLA or an Italian IFR VLA costs 50k less than a compareable Swedish uncertified ULM. It’s Development costs, that noone in Aviation is willing to pay. So it’s dependend on manufacturers who earn their money elsewhere.
Sure, AERO is full of manufacturers for shiney ULM. But how do they survice with a medium of 5-10 units sold per year? If a manufactuter can sell 12 aircraft per year, they’re among the bigger players. And each of them does the same work over and over again, so noone has the resources to go ahead.

What aviation really needs is an innovation in the production of airframes. They’re so labour intensive to make or repair.

Matched hole has helped a lot in the amateur sphere, but someone still needs to go around dimpling and bashing rivets in.

Innovation in GA is advancement in the ability to design and produce aircraft that people actually can afford to purchase and use. Unlike governments and airlines, the average pilot don’t have literally unlimited resources. The main problem is low numbers. Way too low for mass production to become a factor, except for necessary “nuts and bolts”. This means the aircraft should:

• have low part count
• be of a simple design, easy to put together.
• use as much cutting edge low production, automated production as possible (match hole sheet production, CNC machined engine parts and so on)
• use of standard construction parts (standard aluminium L, U shapes instead of complex shapes doing the same thing, for instance)
• use off the shelves fasteners, bits and pieces
• use as few different fasteners, bits and pieces as possible
• etc.

The low numbers also have another effect that work against all the above. For a producer of low number items, it is always more profitable to aim for the top. It’s better, and easier to produce 20 planes and sell them at 1M each with 25% profit, than to produce 20 planes and sell them for 1/2M each with a 25% profit. It’s easier to increase the profit margin the higher up in price you get. There is always enough people willing to pay what it takes to get “the best”, simply because the numbers are so low in any case. Consequently it is better to produce few and expensive items than lots of cheap ones.

This is why there seems to be no upper ceiling for what ULs can be sold for. It keeps increasing each year. It doesn’t matter if a new UL cost more than a certified plane. It’s just the way the market works for these items.

The only thing we can hope for is that some producers have a wider view on things than maximizing profit. Without an idealistic view of actually producing planes that more than a few can afford, it will never happen. Luckily there are lots of such people around, but they are not called Cessna, Piper, Cirrus or Diamond.