For € 50 K you cannot find a great “UL” (German Ultralight Class, comparable to LSA). A C 42 is really the very low end of what I would call an “airplane”. A good UL is a Remos G3, a Dynamic, Tecnam P92 and similar. And those carry a price tag similar to a good older 172 with modern avionics.
Flyer59 wrote:
For € 50 K you cannot find a great “UL” (German Ultralight Class, comparable to LSA).
No?
The Viper SD4 costs about €50k as microlight, but can be purchased as a kit much cheaper. It also exist in a fully certified EASA CS-LSA version for the PPL-only pilot (don’t know the price for the CS-LSA version though)
Then there is the good old Jabiru J-170. They are sold now for under €50k many places now.
Then of course the Aeroprakt A22. More than 1000 sold. €50k. Now also the A32 is available for €60k (faster, the “touring” version of the VSTOL A22)
And there are many others, some cheaper, but simpler. You don’t HAVE to get a super expensive Dynamic to get a nice microlight.
@LeSving
In 2014 there was a test of the Viper SD4 in German flight magazine “aerokurier”.
“Price including radio: € 81.000”
And here’s a slightly used one with better instrumentation, € 79.000 + VAT on aircraft24.de
There’s another one on Aircraft24 for € 94.000 plus VAT
mh wrote:
But it is possible to set up a club with 480€ flat fee per year and 105€ per hour wet for a Cessna 172 or 120€ per hour wet for an Archer II in High-Price Germany.
It’s possible perhaps, but are you sure it is actually happening? What I see in the Netherlands is the following:
- One outfit in my local area offer a C172 for ~€210ph (granted it is a very nice Skyhawk SP, but there is also a landing fee of €25). Total fee per hour at least €235 and this is for club members!
- Another outfit at two hours drive offer a C172 for €185ph. Add the landing fee there comes to hourly fee of € 200 ph.
- Another outfit at a high usage area offers for about €130 per hours again excl. landing fees. Again you’d need to be able to travel to that airport.
I honestly do not know why it’s so expensive, but that is what I get invoiced and I don’t have a lot of choice…
LeSving wrote:
Private GA would have everything to gain by having an EASA that governed all GA, microlight, Annex II and experimental included, with the same regulations all over Euro. It’s just that it cannot be this draconian over-regulated nonsense it is today.
The only difference is that before the regulations were written by bureaucrats in your own country where with EASA they are written by bureaucrats in someone else’s. Before it made you feel you had more control whereas in reality you still had none.
Flyer59 wrote:
n 2014 there was a test of the Viper SD4 in German flight magazine “aerokurier”.“Price including radio: € 81.000”
In Norway it cost NOK 500k which is around €50k, straight from the factory. What happens “in between” that inflate prices in Germany is not a concern for us. Btw, none of your links work.
The price mentioned in the article was the factory price. And the one for € 94.000 was a private sale. So I do not understand what you mean by “inflated” price. The KIT only is around € 39.000 plus VAT.
Here’s the website of the German dealer. € 108.000 with some equipment (Dynon Skyview, Mode S XPDR, 8.33 kHz radio). I don’t know about Norway, but here we buy airplanes at their dealers.
http://www.flugsportzentrum-bautzen.de/
mh wrote:
In Germany the pilot population is growing and that is despite the LBA and EASA.
Germany has no experimental class, and no free microlight class as I understand it? In essence there exists no real alternative there. The only thing is N-reg, which comes with it’s own cumbersome stuff and uncertainties. The pilot population is growing in Norway as well (when including microlight). The interest in aviation, private ownership, the shear amount of private aircraft, and private airstrips, have never been larger than now. That is not the problem. Only EASA types have a problem, private ownership of EASA type aircraft. You can ask any microlight owner who has been a former certified owner if he has a problem. He will say he would like a microlight with larger MTOW, but he would also say he would never sacrifice that if it means going back to EASA regime.
mh wrote:
But it is possible to set up a club with 480€ flat fee per year and 105€ per hour wet for a Cessna 172 or 120€ per hour wet for an Archer II in High-Price Germany. Despite LBA and EASA.
Clubs are different. A club can take advantage of high utilization of it’s assets in a way a private owner never is able to (again, THE main problem with the EASA regime – private ownership). I am an accountant for my club. We have one microlight, 3 C-172s (EASA, one G1000) and two Annex II (Cub and Safir). The annual fee is around €235, and then the hourly rate is about €154 for the Cessnas and the Safir, 102 for the Cub and 96 for the microlight. Those prices include everything. We are among the cheapest in Norway, except from the microlight (which has other reasons for it’s price). Nevertheless, it is the Cessnas that keep the club going because they fly a lot (500h each per year). The Cub and the Safir goes about even, much lesser utilization. The microlight is not owned by the club, only used by it.
Flyer59 wrote:
The price mentioned in the article was the factory price. And the one for € 94.000 was a private sale.
I have only talked to an owner when he got his plane a year ago. He said he payed NOK 480k (about €51k).
mh wrote:
LeSving, your rants about certified GA is just the cause for the decline of GA in your area.
I just can’t let this one go 
It’s a nice try shuffling the main problem under the carpet. Blaming me for the decline in private ownership of certified EASA aircraft would even make Mr Ky laugh. How many times do I have to say this: There is no decline of GA, GA is on the rise. There is more activity going on now than ever before. It’s just that private ownership of EASA type aircraft has fallen to an all time low. There is no interest for it any more, not around here. Looking at the numbers, there is no interest anywhere in europe. New sales 28:1 in favor of non certified aircraft. That number tells the whole story.
Another thing. People gladly pay 100-200k for a microlight, I have even seen 250k. This is an aircraft that according to your standards is inferior in all respects compared with a C-172 at 30k, it’s not even comparable according to you. What this shows is that people are willing to pay a whole bunch of money. It is NOT lack of money that is the cause of the decline of private ownership of certified aircraft. You have to be blind if you don’t see the cause of this as a value per € kind of thing. When a 100k (to take some “average” number) microlight offer more value per € than even the cheapest certified EASA type for the vast majority of potential buyers, then this should start to explain how the real situation is. No one is forcing anyone to purchase a microlight at 150k, people do it because they cannot resist the temptation.
Silvaire wrote:
The people I know who have something like a Kitfox have it as a second plane, or third plane. A friend of mine and his wife until recently had an early seventies C182 as their utility plane, plus an RV7, plus a Kitfox. He built the latter two. Now they’ve sold the Kitfox, bought a PA-12 and are currently selling the RV. They decided to scale back and the PA-12 is the one that does the most for them.Another friend and his family have a 1960s Bonanza as their practical plane plus a Jungmann and a factory built RV-12. His dad is worried about his medical so stopped renewing and bought the RV-12.
This is all nice and cozy, but what has this to do with EASA? I can purchase a dozen 60/70 certified aircraft tomorrow if I wanted to, you can find a couple of abandoned specimens at every little field around here. This is what EASA causes, rendering these aircraft worthless.
