azseattle

My Feedback: (1)

Hello,
Just curious to know how big the turbine community is. Most of the turbine flyers (excluding a few who dont follow AMA rules) need a wavier from AMA. I guess, this would make it easier to keep track of people who fly turbines...
What stops people from flying turbines? Is it the cost or the wavier requirement or is it that people are just too afraid to try it because of the risks involved. If in the future, the costs involved in purchasing a turbine come down, would there be a possibility to see more turbine flyers?

jsnipes

My Feedback: (3)

I think you're already seeing a rise in the number of turbine flyers due to lower costs and more verstatile airframe designs. I can only see this trend continuing as the costs go down.

You should be able to contact the AMA and inquire on the number of current waiver holders.

JS

scubyfan

Of course. As prices go down, more people will turn to the hobby. I am waiting for prices to fall under $1000 tested and I'll get a couple for myself, too. The same was true of R/C and just about any other technology introduced. It has only been in the last two or three years that ready-built turbines have become available and affordable, even though many built them prior to that time, but I only see cheaper prices, greater selection, and greater reliability.

I only worry about the unqualified people who will have access to them. It's bad enough that glow powered planes crash, but with jets, the problems are sometimes compounded, with the introduction of propane, kero/jet-a, speed, etc.

seanreit

My Feedback: (60)

There's roughly 700 current waiver holders.

Ram-bro

My Feedback: (101)

If I recall, the AMA said we were only 2% of the membership, but i fear their calculations are off. We are far less than that. I still like the title of being a 2%er

F106A

My Feedback: (2)

Hi,
If you could get sales figures from the various turbine manufacturers on how many turbines have been sold in the US that would give a much more accurate figure then the number of waiver holders. I know that there are turbine flyers that don't belong to AMA, which inflates the number above the waiver holders.
I just don't see the price of a turbine going to $1000, although it could happen I guess. I remember when the Bonner Digimite 8 came out it was $700 in 1963-64 dollars, and now the price of a radio is pretty cheap. I just don't see that there will be enough demand, unlike radio's that everyone needs to fly r/c, to drive the cost of turbines much lower than they are today.
Plus, a lot of people I talk to don't want anything to do with turbines, mostly because of the personal liability issue, especially things related to crashes and fire. Also, they just don't want to sink that kind of money in a model. I think you'd be hard pressed to spend less than $3500-$4000 to get into turbine modeling.
Jon

grbaker

My Feedback: (29)

scubyfan
I think you're going to be waiting a long time. You can't find used turbines for under a $1000 now and prices on new ones are not going down.

Flyjets

My Feedback: (51)

Hi Guy's


This is the current list of all the USA Turbine Waiver holders as of 5/25/04

http://www.modelaircraft.org/templat...-files/566.pdf

I never added them up but it looks to be under 1000 folks.

Best Of Luck

Ian

Shok

My Feedback: (28)

http://www.modelaircraft.org/templat...-files/566.pdf = 817 current waiver holders

F106A

My Feedback: (2)

It looks like there are approximately 825 waiver holders.

ajcoholic

My Feedback: (10)

In Canada we estimate the number of jet flyers at less than 100... something like 80 or so.

The general rule is that the USA has 10 times the number of flyers (in most disciplines) so that seems about right...

I know the nearest jet flyer (turbine or DF) is a 4 hour drive from me, and the nearest "group" (of more than 1 or two) is about 6 to 7 hours away.

Most people I know like to see them run, but have no interest in actually owning one, for many reasons. The main one is $$ I think. I know I gave up buying a lot of other "traditional" planes and engines to fund my two sport kits and engines...

But its worth it!

AJC

mr_matt

My Feedback: (10)

Is the question how many people FLY turbines or own them?


2 very different answers I can assure you.

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

Only if you know how to correct for

(a) how many people own more than one engine
(b) how many people own engines without actually flying them
(c) how many engines have been destroyed

Gordon

azseattle

My Feedback: (1)

Okay, how about this..on average, what would the number of turbine engine owners in the US or the world?. This would be easier to figure out by looking at the sales figures from jetcat, wren etc. Im sure most people who fly turbines own more than 1 engines at times.
Why would some company want to mass produce turbines if there are only 1000 turbine flyers in the US? Do you guys think that these companies are monopolies hence charging high prices?
I know that if you bring the prices of a turbine engine down ot 300-400$, you will see this number of 1000 increased to a couple of thousands. I've seen people defending these high prices on other posts. Wouldnt the people who have to drive for hours before meeting another group of turbine flyers be happy to have more turbine flyers in the community?
by the way, are the high prices of turbine plane kits also due to the high prices of turbines in any respect?

mr_matt

My Feedback: (10)

Monopoly! You gotta be kidding, there are more turbine "manufacturers" than there have ever been. No one has a monopoly. Of course, this is according to their advertising, I'll let the reader be the judge of what being a "manufacturer" entails in their mind.

JetCat USA has given out their sales numbers in the past, in the hope that others might do likewise, in order for the manufacturers to better judge the market size....to date I do not think anyone else did.

IMHO, you are not going to see meaningful price reductions until the volumes go up by one to 2 orders of magnitude (10X to 100x)

Ram-bro

My Feedback: (101)

it almost seems to me that there maybe more turbine manufacturers than there are ICU manufacturers. The turbine manufacturers have more than us as a market, they have they private sector(us), the military and the business sector who are all part of this market. So in that case then the # of turbines sold would not be an accurate #.

AlW

My Feedback: (17)

The number of turbine waiver holders has little to do with the number of people who actually FLY turbines I know four guys in my area who currently hold waivers and have never even run a turbine nuch less fly one-one of them has had a waiver since 2000 and has never owned a turbine. By my count we have six active turbine flyers in the general area so if this were to hold true across the country only 60% of current waiver holders actually fly turbines. With the new rules and the requirement to fly so many times per year I expect to see a big reduction in the number of waiver holders.
Al Watson

azseattle

My Feedback: (1)

Hey Al,
please respond to my private message.