The price-argument seems plausible. Might explain (in part) the $$$-delta with the GFC600.
Avionics retail price bears almost no relation to the manufacturing cost. For example the BOM for a GTX330 is around $300.
It is purely product positioning.
But they won’t sell at a loss, would they ?
Peter wrote:
Avionics retail price bears almost no relation to the manufacturing cost. For example the BOM for a GTX330 is around $300.It is purely product positioning.
Peter, what about the cost of development and certification?
Obviously, AFTER you’ve developed the manufacturing and QA processes, it is cheap to produce…
Of course. You make 3 different boxes. BOM costs $300 $350 $400. The market will bear $10k $20k $30k, so what will “you” do? Overall, you have to recover the fixed costs of the operation, somehow…
The central issue is not the costs usually quoted. It is the low volumes in GA avionics, and the high overheads in the way they are marketed (dealer discounts, lots of installer support, warranty, etc). Occassionally you make a killing e.g. the GNS boxes selling > 100k, after getting certified 20+ years ago.
there was a thread I cannot find right now that you cannot validate a STC for non TSO autopolilot anymore.. I’m quite happy that I just reseived my EASA STC verification for trutrak..
Peter wrote:
It is purely product positioning.
Largely, perhaps, but not purely. In the case of autopilots, Garmin confirmed what we already know and their comparison between the GFC500 and GFC600 is enlightening. The pricing of autopilots, as well as the sometimes very limited STC AML, certainly has a lot to do with certification costs. Manpower effort and equipment (esp. aircraft) for testing ILS/LOC/VOR capability is very expensive.
Peter wrote:
Occassionally you make a killing e.g. the GNS boxes selling > 100k, after getting certified 20+ years ago.
That’s standard product cycle economics, not just avionics. A new product becomes increasingly profitable as the development costs are amortized. In the IT business, development cycles are becoming so short and technology is moving so fast that competition usually catches up quickly. The result is that products have a shorter lifetime and quality is reduced to coincide with product obsolescence/lifecycle. Garmin is often beaten up when they drop support for a 20+ year old product, but what else can you buy today that is still usable in 20 years, beyond a house? 60 year old VHF nav equipment still mostly works since the technology hasn’t changed, but the com is obsolete in Europe due to regulation.
From the Garmin poster: “tuning the autopilot system to be able to fly well using just the ground based navigation signal is extremely complex, often aircraft specific, and always time consuming”. I get the point. What I don’t understand is what the complexities exactly are. My previous 30 year analog KAP 150, and KFC 200 are able to track the ILS without GPS aiding, perhaps not as precise, but that’s still better than reverting to hand flying. In the real world, it is a non-issue, and barely mentioned, and therefore can’t be a product positioning issue. Would love to understand the engineering decisions though.
Could it be the airframe distorting the ILS radio signal ? So it needs to be tested with each plane separately ?
