1416. Price-Weight Relatonships of General Aviation, Helicopters, Transport Aircraft and Engines

Paper

Abstract

The NASA must assess its aeronautical research program with economic as well as performance measures.
It thus is interested in what price a new technology aircraft would carry to make it attractive to the
buyer. But what price a given airplane or helicopter will carry is largely a reflection of the
manufacturer’s assessment of the competitive market into which the new aircraft will be introduced.
The manufacturer must weight any new aerodynamic or system technology innovation he would add to an aircraft
by the impact of this innovation upon the aircraft’s cost to manufacture, economic attractiveness and
price. The intent of this paper is to give price standards against which new technologies and the NASA’s research
program can be assessed.
Using reported prices for sailplanes, general aviation, agriculture, helicopter, business and transport aircraft,
price estimating relations in terms of engine and airframe characteristics have been developed. The relations
are given in terms of the aircraft type, its manufactured empty weight, engine weight, horsepower or thrust.
Factors for the effects of inflation are included to aid in making predictions of future aircraft prices.
There are discussions of aircraft price in terms of number of passenger seats, airplane size and research and
development costs related to an aircraft model, and indirectly how new technologies, aircraft complexity and
inflation have affected these.