Friends don’t let friends buy SKYTEC starters.
I have one too (ST-5) but it’s clear that the (heavier but much more solid) ENERGIZER is a better starter.
I don’t agree that innovation would be totally wasted.
Let’s be totally corporate-cynical and screw the idea of doing anything for the customer – which (forget ethics) is always a good position to start 
For a start, it would reduce how much of everybody’s lunch is going to get eaten by the diesel scene – once the diesel scene gets its act together…. and everybody who remembers Mr Thielert has exited the scene.
If you are at the crossroads for a “new” plane, you have the choice of the allegedly non-innovated stuff, or a DA40/42.
So there is competition even if rather indirect and – due to the low rate of scrapping the old airframes – very slow to have any effect.
Thielert/SMA/Diamond had loads of investor money to burn. None have ever delivered any return.
Lycoming is an old and established company owned by a conglomerate specializing in the acquisition and optmization of boring cash cows. There is simply no R&D money available which promises any sort of ROI.
The Chinese did the smart thing and bought Thielert for pennies on the dollar. R&D money sunk, a good and proven product and with a little bit of extra money a 6-cylinder hopefully in the future.
Trust me, change is coming to this world sooner rather than later. Even in the US we’re looking at the end of Avgas with the new EPA rules real soon. I don’t think Lycoming will have a good future. Continental maybe slightly more so as they’re at least dipping toes into diesel.
My prediction is that we will go directly from Avgas to hybrid/diesel power trains. I don’t see a great future for pure diesel piston powered aircraft.
I think over the next couple of decades US prices for AVGAS may rise enough to force me out my own fantasy, a nice 300 HP Bellanca Viking to fly around in retirement, and into something with four cylinders. Maybe if things get really bad an RV, which is faster anyway…
The last period of GA innovation was the late 70s and into the 80s when the Ezes, Glasairs, Lancairs etc all appeared and people in the U.S. could then go faster, further cheaper. Since then the market has consolidated and RVs have largely taken over, doing all that in a more practical package. Right now its a stable situation, not a lot of demand for additional innovation, and whatever may change can’t be easily predicted… except that it’ll be decades from now if at all. Production aircraft issues, prices etc and similar European issues are indeed a bit extreme, but as such are basically irrelevant to the market.
Vans sells a brand new non-turbo experimental 260hp XIO-540-D4A5 for $47k. The only difference between this engine and the certified one listed is a piece of paper and a turbo charger. It is not that GA engine manufacturers are out of touch with reality, they charge these prices because as others point out it is a shrinking market and they can get away with it. The growing market place however is the experimental and LSA market place, particularly in north America where these planes are able to fly IFR just like certified aircraft. There are plenty of manufacturers offering avgas piston engines in this market place and it is growing not shrinking (Lycoming, Superior, ECI, Rotax, Rotec, Jabiru and UL Power to name a few) so the prices are much more competitive. There is plenty of money being spent on R&D for engines, avionics and all kinds of gadgets imaginable for aircraft, they just aren’t certified. You only need to visit the EAA Air Venture at Oshkosh each year to see how big a market place piston GA still is; it’s certified piston GA aircraft that are dying a slow painful death, not piston engines or GA in general. Here in Europe the regulators may eventually catch on to this but it is unlikely, at least in the UK the LAA is working (slowly) to enable individual owners to get their aircraft approved for night/IFR flying if they wish, which is a good start.
In my view there are two key drivers for the stupid prices of light aircraft and their engines (not necessarily in order of importance, but each at least four times as important as the next lower factor):
1-Volume
2-Product liability costs: I remember this link but would like to see updated figures#
Of course Owen you are right: non-certified aviation does not have the burden of (2), which in turn fosters the virtuous circle of (1)
You just need to see what a change GARA brought to realize the importance of product liability. If you manage to get than down to decent figures, then you can talk management, production efficiencies, marketing…until then, well.not much breathing space uh?
That is why I think all of the efforts in both FAA-land and Europe to lower part-23 requirements are good. In Europe, however, part-21 and part-M would be more effective.
All of the money that we spend on Part-M and Part-21 (design changes) could be used in more flying training and more flying hours and would be much more productive GA-safety-wise than all of Part-M and Part-21. As a side-effect, the increased flying would also bring more of (1) and hence reduced costs.
Also as a sidenote, for some reason and looking at the Oshkosh/Aero picture Owen was painting, a lot of parts and specially avionics suppliers dont seem to be so affected by (2) as airframers and engine manufacturers.
Of course Owen you are right: non-certified aviation does not have the burden of (2)
Where would the law make a distinction between liability for a certified and a non certified engine?
Owen, I think what you’ve written is exactly right.
I do not believe the product liability angle as a justification for product costs or the lack of innovation.
The amounts that are awarded might be silly-big but anytime somebody goes past the headline reports, does some painful legwork, and actually digs out what was actually paid out at the very end (the amount is usually hidden in local court records, and anyway nobody goes public with it willingly) your 100M award got settled for 1M and was probably paid by some other party anyway.
I think GARA was a slightly different thing, in that the sheer numbers of old planes, falling apart, could have incurred large costs on the industry. But even that suited the likes of Cessna because nobody was buying their planes for ages, so they got a handy bit of time to stop making them while blaming everything on litigation.
I have simply never seen any evidence presented anywhere, showing the account of Company X, and how it was affected by litigation. We had a thread here on Cirrus allegedly getting sued all the time, and nobody came up with anything on that either.
