Why is there such a low parts count in the Chrysalis?

From : Don Stackhouse

Don,

Thanks for the feedback. Regarding your comments:

>I just received my Chrysalis kit in the mail.  I am impressed 
>with the plans and the very detailed instructions.  This is my
>first hand launch kit so I was negatively surprised by the
>low amount of wood in the box.  I am also working on a 2m 
>Kestrel from Northeast Sailplane Products.  There seems, at first
>glance, to be a much higher value for the money with the
>Kestrel.  I'm sure that once I see the Chrysalis in the air
>I'll be quite happy.  I just wanted to give you my first impression.

We went to a great deal of trouble in the engineering phase of the Chrysalis to eliminate the need for any leading or trailing edge sheeting (it's a lot of weight, and a traditional problem area for beginners, as well as being a pain-in-the-neck to repair), and I think this might be what you're noticing. Actually, any good HLG should have a low volume of parts in the box, otherwise it would be too heavy! Built-up kits in particular do tend to look rather sparse since the un-assembled parts don't take up much room in the box.

The price of a kit depends on a lot of things, and the cost and volume of raw materials is actually a very small part of the total picture. The engineering is a big part (it took 10 months and many man-hours to get the Chrysalis from initial concept to prduction article), the advertising and distribution costs (which are just as high for a low cost kit like the Chrysalis as they are for a high-end contest ship) are an even bigger part, and of course the parts processing is another factor - laser cutting isn't cheap! Neither is the machining of parts like the fuselage sides. The parts count is a better indicator of component manufacturing costs than the part size, it takes almost as much labor to make a batch of small parts as it does to make the same number of large ones (and note that the Chrysalis has about the same number of ribs as the Kestrel, but the Kestrel costs 50% more). A lot of the primary structure on the Chrysalis is spruce and hardwoods, which are more expensive than balsa, but give less variation in finished weight from kit to kit, and more strength and durability. The plans and instructions add their share of expense, too. We took 219 photographs for the instructions, of which 89 made it into the final version, and 27 pages worth of printing costs for each kit adds up. And of course, there is the on-going cost of product support, which continues long after we've sold the kit.

We probably could have cut a few corners and sacrificed some quality to get the price down a bit, but that's not the way we do business here. I know the feeling you describe, but believe me, after all the other factors have taken their cut from the kit price, there really isn't that much left for Joe and I.

>I do want to thank you both for bring an all wood built-up sailplane
>to the market.  I love built-up wings.

There's a certain contingent of modelers out there who "don't want to build anything they can't see through". They were one of the groups we had in mind when we designed the Chrysalis. I like the way the wing "lights up" with the sun behind it. Some folks have talked about trying the "butterfly" paint job on their Chrysalis, but I personally prefer just a simple transparent yellow with a few trim stripes, the structure showing through the covering is all the trim it needs.

Thanks,
Don Stackhouse @ DJ Aerotech