National Aeronca Association Bulletin Board

Just as a point of curiosity - does any individual or company still own the type certificate for the Aeronca L3 or any of the other Aeroncas ever produced?

I assume American Champion etc have the rights to the Champ etc, but did all the Aeronca aircraft Type Certificates end up somewhere ? Or do the rights to these designs eventually simply "expire" after production has ceased and the original company no longer exists?

Just curious.

Peter,
I believe the NAA is the holder of this TC.
Paul

The L-3A (O-58A) L-3B (O-58B) and L-3C type certificates are property of the NAA. Type certificate A-751.

Doug

Ah - interesting. Now all we need to do is get the NAA a factory built....

How far are you willing to go with this?

Hypothetically? I would love to be involved in a small scale airplane building business taking advantage of the LSA market. There are literally hundreds of Cub-clone LSAs out there, proving the market is there. All of them insanely priced; 100-160k!! I am not an altruist by nature, but I have enough passion for this industry not to let greed rule me - you can build similar aircraft and sell them for 50-60k and make a decent profit. You can hardly buy anything in the LSA market under 100k these days. Selling at anything less than an outrageous price instantly expands your potential market.

Think how successful the Cub-clones are; mostly based on the innate appeal the Cub has to many people. Now think about the how the original Champ came about and became so popular; it took the appeal of the Cub, with its shortcomings designed out of it and made into a better flying machine. There is no reason in the world a Champ-clone should not outsell the Cub-clone, especially at a decent price.

Aircraft production engineering has long been an interest of mine - with modern machinery a lot of the man hours can be easily cut out of it; CNC profiled tubing that fits together for welding with no further work, water-jet cut fittings, CNC routed ribs - you name it. I read somewhere the Cub required only about 300 man-hours to assemble (I assume that meant assembly, not actual fabrication), and doing a brief analysis tells me that that is not far off the mark.
Looking at it another way - a Cub originally cost about $1000 back in 1938. Since then wages have risen by a factor of 25, so given an equal sales volume, one ought to be able to sell a similar aircraft for $25,000 for a similar profit margin. OK, let's be realistic and say $60,000 - that is still 40%-%60 less than any other similar LSA out there. Believe me, I have looked long and hard at these numbers over many years and it's certainly do-able.

The real appeal is that the aircraft design is proven and beyond reproach - there would be almost no development work involved, apart from finding places to cut man-hours and take advantage of modern production facilities. There would be virtually no risk from a design point of view and judging by how well the original Aeroncas sold, they should do equally as well as the modern Cub-clones. (Yes, I know American Champion is trying that, but their LSA Champ is so overweight, it's virtually useless as a two seater.) I mention the Champ as probably the most suitable design for a project like this, where sales are based partly on pure appeal more than technical factors, but having spent a long time staring at (and sitting in!) the L3 project I have in my shop, it strikes me as a perfect design for the LSA market, mainly because of its comfortable roomy cockpit. It just isn't as well known as the Champ.

Aviation is slowly being priced out of reach and the whole LSA business, which was supposed to reverse, that has failed in bringing reasonably priced airplanes to the market, even with the comparatively simple certification process. Only by having a company committed to bringing back sanely-priced aircraft can that trend be reversed. Aeroncas were designed from the outset with similar goals - they were supposed to be affordable; no reason why they would not do well in this market, given a company dedicated to those goals.

Like I said, these are hypothetical musings; if I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd go for it - but right now all I have to offer is "blood, sweat, toil and tears", like the man once said. Heck, banks won't even give me a 25k loan for a Champ without 26k in collateral !

I wouldn't want to rain on anyone's parade, but I seem to recall several other attempts at successfully producing an affordable new aircraft; e.g., Aeronca in all its iterations, up to and including the 7ACA 2-cyl. I recall reading the reviews back in '71. I can't remember the projected cost, but it was supposed to be about third or half the cost of anything available at the time. Others have tried to revive the Taylorcraft multiple times, right up through the present day, but the history of all those ends the same way - in bankruptcy. Don't get me wrong; I'd love to see a new $50K Champ (or better yet, a Chief!), but the only way I could imagine it happening would be as a labor of love by a billionaire who didn't need to make a profit.

Oh, I know the pitfalls believe me. I think a lot of it boils down to starting the whole thing on the wrong premise; you will not turn the sky black with your airplanes or sell thousands of them and you will not turn shareholders into millionaires in short order. This is usually the promise put out to investors and when they get impatient, it's bankruptcy. Same in the kit industry- all those companies taking on board investors and about three times the staff necessary, thinking they'll be producing thousands, lots of fanfare and marketing hype and company directors suddenly driving around in expensive cars, buying unnecessary machinery and equipment - all these went belly-up. Which survived? Those that grew from small beginnings, working from garages and barns at first, expanding only when the business was working. This kind of stuff is cottage industry and always will be. It has to be run by people who know airplanes, manufacturing and business, not just people with a cheap degree in business administration and big ideas.

The previous attempts also didn't enjoy the current market situation - there was no LSA market and in the 70s airplanes were relatively cheap and plentiful. Aeroncas, Taylorcraft and Cubs were not quite the sought after classics they are now becoming. Also CNC work barely existed and it's a huge help for small scale industries as this.

No, I think as a get-rich business it is doomed to failure; that is why I think it can only be done by people willing to make a reasonable a living from it and with a passion for this kind of thing.

Peter
It would make sense to build it as a LSA aircraft. It would not require a Production Certificate like a Part 23 aircraft. This along with your other points would help to keep the costs down.
ACA tried with the 7EC-LSA and ended up with an aircraft that has too low useful load. They tried to spin doctor it as built to Part 23 specs and not to LSA standards. It never made the LSA empty weight numbers needed and had to be Standard Catagory. To make the weight it would need a lighter fuselage (7AC not 7ECA), 7AC struts, wood spars, lighter covering material, front seat brakes standard, optional electrical system, and a spartan interior. You would save 80lbs or so in the empty weight.
Paul