Resurrected thread(!)
35 years have passed, with a whole new generation that's never heard of ultralights. I can only speak for myself, we are plenty bored of our mobile phones and gaming rigs we don't even game on anymore, and slugging it out at retail job day in / day out to pay the rent or credit card debt we used to survive on (because govt programs are a joke here), with no sign of freedom on the horizon.
I myself, actually despise phones - but being able to text and check your email anywhere is handy. I didn't get a budget smart phone until.. finally a few months ago because it was required for work because I have to take pictures of my work and shoot it up the pipe to the company to view remotely.
A lot of people would lunge at a cheap ultralight that arrived on your doorstep from Amazon and you could put together like IKEA furniture by following a pictorial diagram. But most of them, I dare say, would not be milenials, but actually, a wide assortment of different people for different reasons.
But the key here is just trying to sell someone on plans don't cut it. People have no idea how to source parts and it's actually a huge job just sourcing raw materials.
It has to be a real box of parts. Not raw tubes, that you have to cut and drill and measure. Finished parts. That you bolt together with an included wrench. Like a pressboard bookshelf.
If my
post giving a free ultralight was any indication... I found:
1. There were as many women as men that wanted the plane (to fly). That in itself was the most surprising thing to me. This place and every other aviation forum gives one a very distorted and skewed impression that the people who want to fly are 99.9% male. EAA events and chapter meetings look a little more diverse; I want to say maybe 66% male (guess)? But if my 200 or so responses are right, just as many women want to fly as men. So 50/50, right down the middle. Sarah/Beth/Dorlisa/Mary/Ashley/Sabrina/Karen... in the "From:" etc
2. Some of them had previous grandfathers/fathers in aviation, and want it because they grew up touched by aviation, or wanted it for their grandfather/father to restore who was now fiddle farting his last days away.
3. There were a few who wanted it as father/son projects, but it was not overwhelming in any way, as one might think from the skewed view you might get from other threads in this forum. There was one woman who wanted it because she had a dad into aviation and her daughter was named Alice and that it shared her daughters name got her real excited. So, mother / daughter project.. (!)
4. A few aeronatical engineers (with no flying experience (really?)) and A&P's, which surprised me. Why would someone who works on Gulf Stream jets at work day in and day out want a... 40 year old Woodhopper made of sticks?
5. A few past general aviation pilots that no longer could afford to fly.
6. If there were any milenials, I got no indication of their age from their post. Not saying they weren't in there, I just couldn't tell from their speech or description of their connection to aviation.
7. Some scrappers, that had no idea or respect for anything historical and wanted throw the airplane in the dumpster and sell the engines and few aluminum tubes. They went straight to my trash box.
8. Some people, that just jumped at anything "free" and interesting.
9. Some who saw it as a huge crafty fun project (ala Martha Stewart)where at the end that have something that says "wow, we made an airplane!
So if you design a low cost ultralight airplane project, you can bet:
1. You will have a lot more interest that you think. The impression one gets around here is that aviation is dying, dead, and that you have to build anything yourself from nothing but a plan so might as well build a fast metal tin can that can take you from point A to point B. But then really, is that all there is? You're missing a whole other audience. For me, I see flying as an extreme sport, not a high speed rail train. Think skateboarder / skydiving / rock climbing / planking / aerial silks. Therefore my many clashes with the rule following radio gibberish speaking rail train fast metal tin can general aviation crowd. It's a different point of view. Once you get in the air, what are you going to do? Make time going from A to B, or have some fun and Play, Play? I don't want to be at Point B, if I did, I'd be there already. So that leaves.. .fun.
2. The interest will be from a wide range of people for a lot of different reasons. Your marketing should be a lot broader than the narrow market you think it would appeal to (for example, trying to market it as a father son project, when that is only a small slice of the pie). And also, it may not be milenials you want to target exclusively either. I'm not saying they won't be in there, I'm just saying they will be only one slice of the huge pie of types of customers.
3. Fear did not seem to be a factor keeping people away from aviation. I kind of consider flying a Woodhopper to be an extreme sport... the people that wrote me were blissfully unaware that flying is dangerous, the enthusiasm just kind of avalanched over such a thought. Which is understandable, replying to a post for something free where you get excited to find something you want. Anyway, that enthusiasm makes sales. After the sale, and spending all those hours assembling it and imagining yourself flying in it, reality will set in and the level headed measured approach to flying the thing can set in.... include some instructional manuals, flight sims, and books in your kit... how to go from babysteps off the runway to flying like a boss in the air, practicing one step at a time... in the same way Apollo flew tons of redundant missions, each time perfecting something, before they inched ever closer to their final goal of landing on the moon and getting back.
4. It's sad this forum only represents or serves 10% hardest core of the people who actually want to fly (those hell bent on doing whatever it takes no matter how labor intensive, expensive, or insane... building a plane from scratch). What if everyone had to build a car from scratch... only 10% would be driving, and the most funky assortment of vehicles out there on the road .The cars on the road in American would then probably look homebuilt / cobbled together funky steampunk cool...
5. If one marketed an airplane exclusively to women, they could clean up. Nobody has ever done that, ever, and that's 50% of the underlying market completely neglected. Imagine marketing cigarettes only to men. Boom, rebelious flapper girls comes along in the 1920's and start smoking, then again with the 60's and sexual revolution. Boom some corporate exec thinking out side the box looking at the statistical charts says, lets come out with a cigarette just for women.. .and we'll call it Virginia Slims and hawk it as a diet substitute like coffee and cigarettes. Boom, they clean up. Because a cowboy on a horse speaks to some, and a camel in the desert to others, but not to a whole bunch of the other half judged critically day in and day out based on their attractiveness and looks and not wanting to look old West macho or be Lawerence from Arabia.
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Hey rich GA pilot. If you want a $100 hamburger, go to Burger King, and order a Double Whopper for $3.21 using the mobile app. Then give the person building a burger a $96.79 tip. You'll make their day.