Your answer likely lies in two areas.

First, the numbers of airplanes built. How many 182's were built in the 1960's and how many are built in 2010? Production economics.

Second, there may be union issues with factory workers. The existence of the unions has been one of the primary factors in the old-school Detroit American car makers no longer having the lion's share of the market. If there is a union that is involved at the Cessna plant, it might be a contributor.

All that being said, the new crop of light sport airplanes are all $80-150K. Cessna's 182 has already paid for its development, tooling, production jugs, etc. etc. long ago... so you would think that Cessna could make a 182 as cheaply as a Czecholslovakian LSA plastic airplane they just tooled up for three years ago?

EZFlap wrote:Your answer likely lies in two areas.

First, the numbers of airplanes built. How many 182's were built in the 1960's and how many are built in 2010? Production economics.

Second, there may be union issues with factory workers. The existence of the unions has been one of the primary factors in the old-school Detroit American car makers no longer having the lion's share of the market. If there is a union that is involved at the Cessna plant, it might be a contributor.

All that being said, the new crop of light sport airplanes are all $80-150K. Cessna's 182 has already paid for its development, tooling, production jugs, etc. etc. long ago... so you would think that Cessna could make a 182 as cheaply as a Czecholslovakian LSA plastic airplane they just tooled up for three years ago?

Good points, it does seem like it would be easier to resume production of something than start from scratch designing a new one. But, I admit I know little about composite construction techniques, or manufacturing for that matter.
I found a well done online business article while researching this: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5814/is_3_46/ai_n29479185/?tag=content;col1

It gets a little dry towards the end but I was astonished at the statistics in the first few paragraphs.

Thanks for posting that link
Was interesting, sad but interesting

So.......
Many factors.....some add, some are multipliers.......all go up, up, up,-the big exception being electronics. If aircraft had followed suite, somewhere around 10 grand would buy a loaded 182!

HA!
lc

Why hasn't someone in 'Pet peeves' cited 'emoticons'?