Tweet
Re: Anyone received their new factory struts yet?
Well, here is something to ponder. We’ve owned several T.C.s over the years including the Taylorcraft. We have never had any intention of ever putting any of these airplanes back in production and there are several reasons for this, we don’t have the facility for it, we don’t have a Production Certificate for it, getting a Production Certificate to build completed aircraft would be a huge headache and expensive. It would result in more Feds climbing around here and we learned from history that many of these companies had their day in the sun and are gone for a reason. There was no LSA for most of our history to consider in our decisions.
We still own the T.C.s for the Ercoupe and Stinson 108 series. We cannot go back into stock and get all of the parts it would take to build an airplane. We tell people we have about 90% of the structural parts for these airplanes. So, we don’t have headliners and door latches and a lot of other parts. I could spend all day explaining the reason for that, so I’m not going to go there. The fact is, we don’t have everything. What we do have are the parts that your average Ercoupe and Stinson owner will call and request on your average day i.e. cowling, struts, ribs, control cables. The average Stinson owner is not going to call up asking for 18 gauge wire to re-wire the original instrument panel lights on his airplane or gasket for a King Seeley fuel gauge sender.
There about 3,000 to 4,000 line items in the Ercoupe, Forney, Alon, M-10 inventory. Most of these parts are left over from when these aircraft were in production. However, in any given year there are zero sales on about 86% of this inventory. Now, these are very rough numbers but my illustration is still valid. Of that 14% to 15% of inventory lines that had sales, it is only about half that amount, (7% to 8%), that actually generates the lion share of revenue that we receive each year off of that project. The reality is, most of these other parts would not be used unless you were going to build the airplane. What is nice, if somebody wants some obscure little do-dad gusset that we sell once in a blue moon, we have it. My point is, only a couple hundred items do the heavy lifting for the project.
Now, on the T-Craft project these 200 or so “heavy lifters”, they have been sold and are long gone. They are gone by virtue of demand. Effectively, to do justice to the project and the greatest amount of good for the most owners, one would need to identify what these “heavy lifters” are and make them available. This is a much more “bite size” way of looking at things and certainly the way demand would naturally steer you. Some of the other odd ball do-dad gussets may be in the existing inventory, but if not – welcome to our world. Do you have the prints, do you have the tooling, can you make a production run worth you time, will you ever sell the balance of the run before the sun burns out, can you make it at a price the market will bear etc…?
This my friends is how you need to view the project. I afraid for those who think you will be on the fast track for a $40,000 LSA aircraft, time to up the medication.
Mike Sellers
Univair Aircraft
Well, here is something to ponder. We’ve owned several T.C.s over the years including the Taylorcraft. We have never had any intention of ever putting any of these airplanes back in production and there are several reasons for this, we don’t have the facility for it, we don’t have a Production Certificate for it, getting a Production Certificate to build completed aircraft would be a huge headache and expensive. It would result in more Feds climbing around here and we learned from history that many of these companies had their day in the sun and are gone for a reason. There was no LSA for most of our history to consider in our decisions.
We still own the T.C.s for the Ercoupe and Stinson 108 series. We cannot go back into stock and get all of the parts it would take to build an airplane. We tell people we have about 90% of the structural parts for these airplanes. So, we don’t have headliners and door latches and a lot of other parts. I could spend all day explaining the reason for that, so I’m not going to go there. The fact is, we don’t have everything. What we do have are the parts that your average Ercoupe and Stinson owner will call and request on your average day i.e. cowling, struts, ribs, control cables. The average Stinson owner is not going to call up asking for 18 gauge wire to re-wire the original instrument panel lights on his airplane or gasket for a King Seeley fuel gauge sender.
There about 3,000 to 4,000 line items in the Ercoupe, Forney, Alon, M-10 inventory. Most of these parts are left over from when these aircraft were in production. However, in any given year there are zero sales on about 86% of this inventory. Now, these are very rough numbers but my illustration is still valid. Of that 14% to 15% of inventory lines that had sales, it is only about half that amount, (7% to 8%), that actually generates the lion share of revenue that we receive each year off of that project. The reality is, most of these other parts would not be used unless you were going to build the airplane. What is nice, if somebody wants some obscure little do-dad gusset that we sell once in a blue moon, we have it. My point is, only a couple hundred items do the heavy lifting for the project.
Now, on the T-Craft project these 200 or so “heavy lifters”, they have been sold and are long gone. They are gone by virtue of demand. Effectively, to do justice to the project and the greatest amount of good for the most owners, one would need to identify what these “heavy lifters” are and make them available. This is a much more “bite size” way of looking at things and certainly the way demand would naturally steer you. Some of the other odd ball do-dad gussets may be in the existing inventory, but if not – welcome to our world. Do you have the prints, do you have the tooling, can you make a production run worth you time, will you ever sell the balance of the run before the sun burns out, can you make it at a price the market will bear etc…?
This my friends is how you need to view the project. I afraid for those who think you will be on the fast track for a $40,000 LSA aircraft, time to up the medication.
Mike Sellers
Univair Aircraft
Comment