http://makerplane.org/
Who volunteers as test pilot for the maiden flight? Interesting project.
Who volunteers as test pilot for the maiden flight?
One of the most well known quotes of William Powell Lear goes like this: "If it looks good, it will fly good." The opposite is true as well. So no, I'm with Mr. Lear and will not volunteer ;-) And this is really not the first "open source" kitplane out there, there have always been building plans that were available for free. And I wonder which parts of a light aircraft might be made on a 3D printer? Most of them work with molten polyethylene which is really not the best stuff to make aircraft parts from, and those that can make aviation approved parts are very expensive and use very expensive raw materials. But who knows.
Patterns to make fairings perhaps? I think another website suggested knobs and dials.
Personally I would get excited about open-source avionics - but presumably certification (e.g. radios) would be harder for something that wasn't produced by a specific company?
... but presumably certification (e.g. radios) would be harder for something that wasn't produced by a specific company?
This aircraft is probably aiming to be certified in a category that does not require certified avionics (in some countries) so they can use their home grown equipment. If I could chose, I would also like be involved in the development of the avionics. Not to re-invent some wheel, but to show that decent quality equipment can be made for a small fraction of the current market prices of avionics (but this is Peters favourite topic...). Currently I am busy making a replacement marker board for the FNPT of our flying school because the original part is currently unavailable and very expensive. It already works on my desk and all it needs is a little microcontroller and a dozen other parts for a total of 10 Euros (the quote for the factory part was over 2000$...).
But for example, a CE certificate involves having a single named person responsible for EM compatibility. It's a big ask to take on that sort of responsibility for no pay. If firms were into making one-offs of equipment, perhaps it would make sense to say that the end-user could download the files, look at the schematic and housing, and decide whether it passes muster before ordering themselves a prototype. However in practice you're likely to want to make batches of most electronics.
There is absolutely no way that electronics will ever be manufacturable with 3D printing.
For a start, the way semiconductors are fabricated makes that totally impossible.
You can make radio gear for far less than the current avionics prices. For example it costs only about $200 to make a GNS430, in 1000-off batches. Somebody could make such a unit and sell it, trade, for about $400. You then have to support a dealer/installer network, so the retail price would be say $600.
But nobody will because it is clearly possible to extract a lot more money from the market, and only a fool is going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs - even if the goose is laying them for everybody else as well.
Ever asked your Product Liability insurer's about selling Approach certified avionics in the USA?
Our premium ratess for Automotive parts, just body features so not safety related at all, is several times higher for the US than Europe.
I recall somebody researching this and he found no evidence of any significant product liability expenditure in Garmin's accounts.
Sure insurance for the USA can be expensive but not as a % of the selling price. I export to the USA and we pay next to nothing extra for the product liability cover (industrial electronics).
I think that if Garmin were paying $ thousands per GNS430 in insurance (as they like everybody to think) something would be done about it a long time ago, because there are almost no crashes where an avionics company gets sued (and makes the news). A company the size of Garmin would simply self insure, or self insure anything below a claim size of say $100M. Same as you would not insure a fleet of 100 company cars "fully-comp".
There is often litigation but usually it is settled for a much smaller sum. Same here in the UK - people know that they can instantly collect say £20k from the insurer (IF the employer has insurance for this) if they claim unfair dismissal, or better still sexual harrassment, etc.
So I think this is a myth. An extremely useful myth for PR purposes, however, and everybody making anything in aviation buys into it.
Does anybody know of major claims in avionics (or approach charts) resulting from crashes where the product was implicated?
I recall Jepp had some, which would be interesting because the chances of "you" crashing due to a drafting error is miniscule... most are not flown anywhere near minima, thousands will have flown it before you, etc.
