Adam Aircraft Is Bragging About The A500's Severely Restrictive TC... Why?

I know we've mentioned this before, but we're a little concerned at the precedent set by companies that claim to be certificated when the paperwork involved is virtually worthless to the task at hand.

Take the case of the A500 that we've seen at two VERY public venues with "FAA Certified" Emblazoned across its schnozz.

Adam Aircraft has earned a VERY limited TC for the A500... which is WORTHLESS in terms of current production. The current TC has extreme limits... the aircraft can only seat THREE -- the 2 forward seats and 1 center seat on the right hand side only. No baggage allowed. Only 180 out of 230 gallons of useable fuel are allowed. A current airframe life time of only 250 hours. And, of course, we've already told you about the 12,500 foot (msl) altitude limit, no Take-offs above 10K (MSL), Day-VFR only, not to mention no icing or ANY flight in visible moisture with temps below 40 degrees F, and a number of other limitations.

So, you tell us -- is that "certified?"

In name only... maybe. But maybe not. As we read the A500's Type Certificate Data Sheet, we also understand that according to Note 3, a Standard Airworthiness Certificate can not be issued until Adam finishes a Continued Airworthiness Document with all airworthiness limitations. So, it appears that the A500 may not really be all that certified, after all.

If Adam was a little more forthcoming with all this, maybe by describing their TC as a basic version and adding that much work is yet to be done before the TC process was complete; we'd be a bit more reserved about all this -- but we've been within earshot of Adam staffers telling interested passersby that the A500 was "fully certified" and that they were the only company in the VLJ business that had a TC'ed product... which seems pretty disingenuous to our ears.

Mind you, Adam is not the only one to pull this stunt (and yes, we'll have more on some other such tactics shortly)... but they certainly seem to be the least forthcoming about the facts surrounding an early, very basic, and commercially restrictive TC that still leaves them months (maybe a year?) away from a significant, reasonably useful, TC that will allow them to start serial production of what might otherwise be a pretty solid offering, if not for the (as we see it) less than up front tactics of the manufacturer.

FMI: www.adamaircraft.com