I think there's a third view -- business reality. Aircraft-specific
components are marketed in an environment of tiny unit sales volume,
high product liability exposure, and gov't regulation. A general
consumer GPS costs $100; the VFR aviation version around $700, even
though gov't regulation is no factor. But if the cheap receiver and
processor engines common to them all did not exist were there no
general consumer market, a GPS would cost $10,000. Add another
$10,000 for IFR certification in a panel-mount.
Taking our example of an electronic attitude indicator, the market for
use in low-end, production aircraft is problematic. Liability
exposure for a unit to be used IFR is enormous, as are possible
certification costs for a separate power source (that's what vacuum
instruments give you), for each airframe type you seek gov't
approval. These costs would not apply so much to a backup instrument,
but owners can do that now with an electric gyro, but at the low end
they just don't.
That leaves the homebuilt market, but take the number of aircraft
completed annually, and estimate a third will have an attitude
instrument. Included in this market segment are folks content with an
attitude gyro bought at a fly market for $150. Even if our high-tech
gyro sensor had an OEM cost of $10, and ditto for a display device
that's outdoors-readable enough so people will buy it, there's no
pricing strategy at the probable unit sales volume to prevent huge
operating losses, except at very high price levels that the Lancair
IV-P crowd will still go for. After 30 yrs. experience with the
Internal Revenue Service, basement businesses thru Fortune 500, I can
say that even that one is a maybe.
Regards,
Fred F., A063
"Bob.Harrison" wrote:
>
> Hi! Hedley.
> Tradition, resistance to change by the "establishment" jobs for the boys
> syndrome, etc. etc. That's why I can't sell an invention that saves 2 days
> on the discharge of 200,000+ bulk carrier ships! Those that do it are paid
> on time and labour so the more time and more labour the more they get to
> claim.
> Buy my kit which eliminates both and they "shoot their selves in the
> foot"!!!! It's funny though that I've been successful in Brazil where even
> life is cheap not even labour. They must realise the "telephone numbers of
> increased through put" must justify the change of attitude.
> Regards
> Bob Harrison G-PTAG
>
-----Original Message-----
> Behalf Of hedley brown
> Cc: europa@avnet.co.uk
> Subject: MEMS
>
> I quote New Scientist: tiny chip-sized micro-electromechanical systems
> include gyroscopes, tilt sensors and accellerometers which can be bought off
> the shelf and plugged in , made in a similar way to silicon chips so they're
> cheap. Now why do I have to have a bloody great suction pump and a tonnage
> of whirling dervishes in my dashboard just to get the same information? I
> could now surely put my flight simulator software to good use and have an
> image on my palm-top in the cockpit just like the one on my play-screen,
> which , with input from the Garmin, is topographically correct and visually
> corresponds to the attitude, speed, etc of the aircraft. All for a few bob.
> What's wrong with the world - the technology exists and is cheap and we
> haven't got it. Woe!.....h
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