----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 6:23
PM
Subject: [LML] Re: 320/360 efficiency and
economy - hole in the market?
Well, let's take a look at this. I was all
set to agree with you until I ran some numbers.
In its day, the 320/360 was arguably the
best value on the market, as long as you didn't have to carry a big
payload. The standard kit was $20,000, and the fast-build kit was
somewhere around $27,000. The closest competitor (in cost and
performance) was the Glasair II which I seem to remember costing about $27,000
for the RG model. The 320/360 is a legit 200 mph
plane.
One could argue that one of the major
improvements (and cost drivers) of the Lancair kits over the years has been
the amount of pre-fabrication done at the factory. The Legacy
has far less fabrication than even the fast-build version of the
320/360, and can't even be seriously compared to the amount of fabrication in
the standard build kits (trust me on this one). This actually applies
across the entire line of kits, as any early L-IV builder can
verify.
Using the split kit ES with the fast-build
options as a basis ($51,800 in 1996) the E-glass 320/360 fast build kit would
probably cost around $43,000 today. When you cross reference other kit
manufacturers, you get similar numbers (a standard build RV-6A kit was about
$10K in 1996 and an RV-7A standard kit today sells for about $19K).
A quick browse of the Lancair website shows that they do indeed offer a 200+
mph kit that uses a 4-cylinder engine for around $40K - the Legacy
FG.
So where would an updated version of the 320/360
kit fall in the Lancair lineup? How much pre-fabrication would the
factory have to knock out of the kit to drop the price to, say, the $35,000
neighborhood? Is the end product a kit that the marketplace
would tolerate?
As for the $200K Legacy, well, if you throw dual
Cheltons on the panel, get a Reno-ready engine with an MT prop
firewall-forward package, and get someone else to put it all together for you,
yeah, you can hit $200K. However, if you start with a $60K Legacy kit,
do 2 weeks of builder support at the factory ($8K), use an overhauled engine
(rebuilt Lyc 540's and Cont. 520's are all over Trade-A-Plane for $25-30K, so
lets use $30K) still use that MT prop (~$11K from Lancair), use decent
quality tradional flight instruments for about $11K (and that
includes a single axis autopiliot), buy basic IFR radio stack for
about another $12K (which includes a Garmin 430), and 3K should cover your
engine instrumentation, and (here's the key) ACTUALLY BUILD THE PLANE
YOURSELF, you get a total of $135K, which leaves $65K for a paint job and
interior before you hit $200K. Going up to a rebuilt Cont. 550 would add
$13K ($43K from Lancair). On the other hand, you could also subtract a
bunch if you got really creative with your engine choice.
Gary Fitzgerald
LNC2 extra-slow build
~70%
engine: TBD
St. Charles, MO
Has Lancair left a hole in the
market place?