Many years ago, I was an engineer working for Honeywell Avionics. We were at the Collins Avionics facility coordinating on a bid proposal. The Collins people told us that the decline in private plan manufacturing started when Mooney was sued for the crash of a plane they’d built thirty years before. The court ruled that because fuel injection was a “known technology” and they’d produced a plane with a carburetor and the carburetor had iced over, that they were liable for damages in the crash. At that point several small builders decided they had unlimited liability and went out of business. As did Mooney. The remaining manufacturers tripled the price of their products to set aside money to pay lawsuits.
It’s impossible to search for cost data when the Internet is focused entirely on selling you something. So, take it or leave it.
“It’s impossible to search for cost data when the Internet is focused entirely on selling you something. So, take it or leave it.”
Not impossible. In 2000 a new 172 was almost $300k.
Now it is about $500k.
Definitely not a triple.
Thank you for sharing your extensive knowledge, experience and background here.
You were responding to TexasGator who indicated in post 33 that he did not believe your statement that liability costs tripled the expense of a new aircraft. One might think that he would apologize after you responded. TexasGator went on in post 35 to tell ComputerGuy that "he needed to do his homework" after ComputerGuy stated in post 3, "If a single motor fails, you’re......" to which TexasGator replied in post 30 that all you needed to do was "Initiate engine out procedure and procede to landing." Of course, TexasGator post had already insulted shadeaud in post 31 who observed, “Not much space for your luggage”. To which TexasGator replied, "Your built-in bias prevented you from being the luggage compartment."
I mention this because there has been an ongoing issue with TexasGator starting his participation in a thread by insulting other posters, or even the OP. And then saying more stupid stuff, insulting people who bother to reply to him/her, and then claiming to be the victim if someone points out the idiocy that he/she has polluted a thread with and then threatening them saying that they were violating the rules. At this point I consider him/her to be comic relief, but I apologize to everyone in this thread who might not be as familiar with his/her antics and ask those who he/she did this to here to forgive his/her obvious struggle with the Dunning-Kruger effect.
It is typically not worth responding directly to his/her posts unless you enjoy trading insults with someone with very limited intellectual ability.
I am here because I am a long-time aviation enthusiast starting with kites, paper and balsa models, graduating to hang gliding, ultralight aircraft, vintage aircraft, and in my old age driving a Piper Cherokee around the pattern and beyond. But I also love to play with drones and various flight simulators.
To me it is not enjoyable to find TexasGater up to his typical antics especially on threads that I have extensive personal knowledge of. I wish he would just stick to being an unapologetic Zeeper and spreading misinformation on threads where people actually enjoy this type of activity.