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Comment by bluedino | Hacker News Reader

There are a lot of old helicopters out there. They're expensive so you can't just junk them and buy new like a car.

A 1970's helicopter can still be $500,000 US

As an aside, this is something that's always bothered me. A good car/truck should last decades with proper upkeep but somehow manufacturers have talked us into thinking we need to keep buying new ones instead of repairing the old ones.

For a specialised work vehicle... maybe. But for a personal car, even if a 20yo one still works perfectly, I'd still replace it with a new one for fuel economy and safety features. We made some serious improvements in that time. 1970s cars are deathtraps in comparison. I mean, in the US ABS wasn't even enforced until 2013!

The "somehow" is that they sell us brand-new cars for relatively little money. If new cars cost a million bucks, we'd be keeping ancient cars on the road with gusto, just like we do with airplanes. But since cars are so much cheaper, the point where continuing maintenance efforts stop paying off is reached much sooner.

Your comment reminded me of Cuba's car situation - all they have the option to do is continue to rebuild/repair existing cars.

It's rather different in aviation though. There's countless mandatory checks and services along with mandatory engine rebuilds required to keep cert of airworthiness. You also get pretty strict type approval of what you can fit, where, and when.

The regs get stricter if it's being used for commercial flying as opposed to private, also if turbine engined.

So you get an awful lot of Pipers and Cessnas from the 60s and 70s still flying around with 40s technology carburetor Lycoming engines that are still being made for new aircraft. Just the same for the countless Bell 205 copters flying around with 50s Lycoming turbines.

Cars have moved along far more by comparison and stop passing tightening emmissions regs, so they stop making a model or engine. Aviation emissions are often horrifying, though newer aero engines are getting much better. They've even started using fuel injection!

edit: e.g. Buy a $700,000 2016 Piper Seminole twin, lift an engine cowl and it'll be a 6L carburetted, air cooled 4, magneto 50s engine, with 50s noise (probably open pipes still) and emissions. Far more 50s station wagon than Ford Taurus. Cockpit will have GPS and some toys though. Probably much nicer seats.

Fuel injection was available on aircraft sold in the 60's. It's complexity is what prevents it from being dominant in aircraft, so you're quite right that a 2016 Seminole does in fact ship with carburetted engines (O-360-A1H6). The fact is that carburetted engines are cheaper to build and maintain, and their simplicity arguably makes then safer (due to fewer equipment failures).

Aviation emissions could be reduced through legislation, but people will die as a direct result.

>Aviation emissions could be reduced through legislation, but people will die as a direct result.

Or they will stop flying until manufacturers can put out reliable engines. I thought aviation safety was very high because of strict regulations around durability. Surely nobody would be allowed to fly if they were so unsafe?

Combination of both.

There's a reason aviation is many times safer than driving and an expensive field to play in. It came slowly though.

An old engine or airframe means they're well understood and don't trigger need for re-certifying. Every time an issue is found or production improvement is made it'll show up in EASA or FAA revised certification, maintenance schedules, time between checks, or even how you're allowed to operate it. Every identified accident cause filters into the system similarly.

A famous case came when jet liners were new, in the early 50s. The ground breaking DH Comet, and the world's first jetliner, was mysteriously falling out of the sky [1] with loss of all on board after around a year in service. That was when the world learned about metal fatigue in airframes and stress points. If it hadn't been DH it would have happened to Boeing or someone else [2].

The legacy was such that DH lost commercial opportunity for half a decade, and the world started along the track to a recognisably modern accident investigation and aircraft certification regime. Histories of that period in aviation are fascinating as it was also a particularly vibrant period as all the wartime progress was applied to lots of new designs of civil aircraft.

I'm not sure the thresholds differentiating between "it's a new engine now, full prototype testing and certification please", and the aviation equivalent of a revision note, but it seems incredibly low. Those Lycoming engines don't even put out a few more bhp than they did when newly designed back in 1950-something. A simple improvement in say carburettor design that would see a car maker just add the change doesn't happen easily in aviation. That's so some vanishingly rare circumstance doesn't cause it to fail in service with associated loss of life.

I dread to think what GA or Transport certification runs in at, but plenty have gone bust trying to make better GA planes or engines. Microlight, Light Sport and homebuilt (lightly certified) sectors have dozens of interesting weird designs and ideas, and experiments with new materials.

Even with all that mistakes are made, and people die, especially with new designs. The deaths stop much more quickly than in many other fields.

When a helicopter like a Super Puma, favourite of offshore operators, a 40 year old relatively simple airframe and engine has a $15m price tag faster progress becomes prohibitive. It's the aviation equivalent of a minibus. Just it's a very safe minibus with bookshelves full of accident history and safety revisions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet#Legacy (relevant section)

Some people have considered building "life cars" which are vehicles designed to run forever because all of their parts can be replaced. On the plus side you only need new tooling when the old tooling starts getting out of tolerance, on the negative side your car looks the same as it did in the 60s. So go back and look at cars in the 60's and ask yourself if the asthetic works for you.

So the next step is car chassis that last forever but the body can be replaced. Prior to unibody construction this is how a lot of cars were built. And the 1970's VW beetle chassis was used by lots of people as the starting point for a fiberglass re-make (look for 'VW kit car' in images and see what I mean) That fixes the "look" (sort of) but the body work and interior work is over half the cost of the car. So you don't save too much and do you keep tooling for the 10 year old bodies?

What about safety?

What about it? Such a car would always be just as safe as the day you bought it. One would have to sell new cars with the required level of safety equipment but it doesn't change the value proposition of a car that you can always get parts for. What are your thoughts about safety?

I presume the user meant that vehicle safety tends to improve over time: a modern car is substantially safer than a 1960s model can readily be modified to be, thanks to radical body redesigns as well as innovations like ABS that might be possible to retrofit. I'm not sure the rate of improvement in safety has been quite so large since the mid 90s, but certainly wouldn't rule out significant safety innovations over the next 30 or 40 years that couldn't be retrofitted to a chassis built this decade.

I presumed the same thing. Safety, like any requirement, cannot be applied retroactively. It does not invalidate the concept of a product that is maintainable in its useful state indefinitely.

> So go back and look at cars in the 60's and ask yourself if the asthetic works for you.

If I could, I'd drive a 1969 Ferrari 512s Berlinetta Speciale or a Bizzarrini Manta to work every day. ;-)

Few people want to spend the same kind of money on maintenance for their $10,000 car as they do on their $200,000 aircraft.

My last car had 150,000 miles on it, and needed around $3000 of engine work (timing chain, head gasket). The car was only worth around $4000, so I traded it in on a new car.

But when you have a $200,000 aircraft, a $15K overhaul every 1500 - 2000 hours is worth it to keep it in the air. 1800 hours is equivalen to 80,000 miles of driving at 45mph. Who wants to pay thousands of dollars to overhaul their car's engine after 80,000 miles even if it means that the car will run fine for another 80,000 miles?

>My last car had 150,000 miles on it, and needed around $3000 of engine work (timing chain, head gasket). The car was only worth around $4000, so I traded it in on a new car.

I don't understand this logic. You had to put up way more money to buy a new car. Unless you really want a new car, there is no cost justification for buying something brand new that will lose more than the value of your old car in less than a year.

Typically though once you get to that stage the continued maintenance of keeping it on the road is going to quickly run more than the value of the car. If that work would get you another 5 years it would be worth it, usually though something else will be close to failure.

At some point cars are so old and worn down that you're going to have to replace something every few months, and the maintenance costs explode – sure, you can completely refurbish the car, if you want to, but that's easily in the magnitude of a new car.

Labour costs to produce a new car on an assembly line are much lower than those of having two or three (skilled, but not necessarily familiar with your particular model) mechanics take your old car apart and test and reassemble it again.

That manufacturers sell spares at a premium and aren't interested in long-lived products doesn't help, but the basic problem remains.

> At some point cars are so old and worn down that you're going to have to replace something every few months, and the maintenance costs explode – sure, you can completely refurbish the car, if you want to, but that's easily in the magnitude of a new car.

I half agree. You are correct that cars will eventually wear out, but not in 150,000 miles. Most cars today can go over 300,000 miles with basic maintenance.

The original post stated the car needed $3000 work of work, which seems reasonable. If he had put that money into the car that repair would be good for another 150,000 miles - before he does it again. Now we have to assume another $3,000 (number pulled out of me head, but it seems reasonable) in other maintenance alone the way. So for $6,000 more he could have a car with 300,000 miles on it.

What did the new car cost? If we assume that he got the full $4,000 value on trade in (seems unlikely, but dealers often will not consider overdue maintenance in trade in value) plus the $3,000 he needed to pay, plus the $3,000 that the old car would need in maintenance, minus $1,000 for maintenance on the new car we can suggest that $10,000 comes off that price.

Did he make a bad decision? You need to decide which of my numbers above are valid before you can answer it. It is quite likely that buying a used off-lease car with 30,000 miles on it and trading it in after 100,000 miles is probably the cheapest option in the current market.

BTW, the dealer taking the trade-in above is not stupid. He isn't going to fix the car. He is going to ship it to Mexico, sell it for $4,200 with the note that it needs some work done. The buyer in Mexico has just saved up $4,500 for a car (this took a while) and he will do the work himself. (Even if he paid someone to do the work the cost would be much less than our $3,000 figure above)

> The original post stated the car needed $3000 work of work, which seems reasonable. If he had put that money into the car that repair would be good for another 150,000 miles - before he does it again. Now we have to assume another $3,000 (number pulled out of me head, but it seems reasonable) in other maintenance alone the way. So for $6,000 more he could have a car with 300,000 miles on it.

I doubt that the $3000 would have covered all necessary refurbishments to last every single component another 150,000 miles. Small bits here, small bits there accumulate over time (and have even higher labour cost overhead than refurbishing everything in one go).

> The buyer in Mexico has just saved up $4,500 for a car (this took a while) and he will do the work himself.

Dumping our problems on third-world countries with cheap labour is always the cheapest solution.

> I doubt that the $3000 would have covered all necessary refurbishments to last every single component another 150,000 miles. Small bits here, small bits there accumulate over time (and have even higher labour cost overhead than refurbishing everything in one go).

Depends on the car. I have 240,000 on my car, and so far the 150,000->300,000 jump is on track for about that. Tires for $500, Some AC work for $500, some brake work for $500. (I did a bunch of work myself, lets call if $500 for radiator hoses) There are some scratches that I'm ignoring but they are cosmetic. If you want to keep your car like new it will cost a lot more, but if you accept imperfections that do not hurt functionality the costs are lower.

Note, I'm assuming a good, honest mechanic. I had one quote me $4000, but the second opinion came in at $500 for the sensor and the brakes which is why the brakes were so high above - I didn't mention the other work done at the same time.

While you might think that a 14 year old 150K mile car is in pristine condition, that $3K of engine work was just the minimum I could spend to get the engine running and back on the road.

The air conditioning had stopped working, probably due to a bad compressor, one of the back windows wasn't working, the rear struts needed replaced, the power steering pump was making an awful racket when cold, the car was burning oil (which could have been the head gasket, or could have needed more engine work), the transmission needed work (it would sometimes take several shifts to get it to go into reverse, I tried to always park in pull-through spaces), it was nearly time for new tires, brakes needed serviced (and the master cylinder needed to be rebuilt). I don't even know if it would have passed a smog check due to the amount of oil it was burning. And that's just the problems I knew about.

Oh, and it was missing out on the past 14 years of car safety improvements (ABS, multiple air bags, etc) as well as modern emissions and fuel economy improvements. Meanwhile it was sitting at the shop and I was renting a car to get to work.

It really made no sense to keep it, so i visited a car dealer and got what I think was a good deal (with 0% financing) on a new car - they towed the car from my mechanic and I drove home in a brand new car, that 8 years later, has had zero problems (so far).

the difference is cars are expected to crash and a decades-old vehicle is a safety hazard. it will literally cut you in half if it crashes.

A car will last for decades if you're willing to pay for proper upkeep. But new cars are tremendously safer than those built 10+ years ago. Look at recent crash test videos. If you were going to be hit by a drunk driver which vehicle would you rather be in? The safety factor alone makes new cars more cost effective for many of us (depending on the value you place on your life and health).

Safety improvements in light aircraft have been far slower and more limited.

Cheap and readily available finance lures consumers into spending more than they need. Bigger newer houses, more medical tests than necessary, more expensive university, graduate degrees, etc. And then others want to keep up with peers so they get lured in too.

If you go outside the US cars will be noticeably older, even rich countries, but still serving their purpose just fine.

I just did a quick Google and came up with this helicopter priced at over 15 million USD: http://www.aerotrader.com/dealers/Global-Plane-Search-301499...

Why are helicopters so expensive?

Helicopters, like all flying machines, have much stricter safety regulations while also being extremely low volume. This means that for every part that goes into a production aircraft R&D, tooling setup, and testing will far outweigh the cost of materials, machine time, and assembly. This is very different from an a car where the cost of goods sold (materials, manufacturing, and assembly) is many times more than the sunk costs.

For example, if I wanted to make 30 complex six layer PCBs it can cost on the order of $9,000 at $300 per board. Realistically, $8,000 of that is the cost of labor for setting up all of the machines for the production run but if I wanted to make 1,000 of them the price can drop to $30 or less per board because the static setup cost is now spread across many more units. In aviation, every part is essentially custom and not made very often so you have no choice but to pay that huge overhead every time someone orders a chopper unless you a) batch together manufacturing (large inventory cost and risk) or b) maintain the machinery so that it's always set up to make your parts (large capital equipment underutilization cost). Either way you've got overhead that costs much more than the parts and is unavoidable. If you're lucky you can buy the machining equipment and save lots of money by renting out time like Boeing does with their multimillion dollar five axis machining centers which make very precise turbine blades for a variety of applications like power plants and dams. This rarely makes sense for a business to do however, because then they've got two businesses to worry about.

People are so used to cheap mass manufactured goods that many don't realize just how much more it costs to make anything custom.

Seems like there is an opportunity here? Presumably milling machines and so on will start to reduce this overhead, so that the overhead becomes just the cost of creating the original design?

Come to think of it, there might be some opportunity in standardization. I'm not an aviation engineer so what I say may make no sense, but a good enough set of "bricks" that would let you assemble anything from small twin-seater to a passenger plane would benefit from economies of scale, even if initially such a design would be more expensive and less performant than a custom build.

I guess since it isn't already happening, I'm probably missing something obvious.

Helicopters are extremely weight limited. In order to allow for any sort of useful payload, all of the airframe parts have to be designed for a specific model (or range of very similar models). The shapes and mechanical properties needed aren't well suited to highly automated mass production.

Avionics and engines are somewhat standardized "bricks", though.

Two obvious things:

Weight and balance is critical for airplanes. You can design the bricks, but you can't stick them together in any combination because a brick that will hold the tail wings for a 400 passenger plane is too heavy for a 100 passenger plane: the plane will not balance right and always be in nose up stall.

Also, there are not enough airplanes made. Even if the bricks idea can work, we still wouldn't make enough to give it significant enough economics of scale.

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