...And Here, Darn it, Are The Heartbreakers

It is both the most "fun," and most difficult task, facing the ANN staff at the end of every year -- determining who, or what, did the most to promote the cause of aviation in the past 365 days... while also chastising those people or entities that did all they could to undermine the many successes the aerospace community has managed to accomplish.

Alas, 2007 saw more than its fair share of downers, aviation-wise. Sure, "stuff" happens... but a few folks, issues, or entities seemed to go out of their way to create problems for the world of aviation.

So... it is ANN's annual obligation to recognize a solid dozen of our Aero-Heartbreakers for 2007... in something of an informal order, starting from 12th to the 1st. Let us know what you think of our selections... whom YOU would have liked be included, or omitted, from such a list. In the meantime, we hope those who had something to do with this year's selections think a little more positively about the welfare of this industry, so that future lists become harder and harder to catalog. Be it ignorance, arrogance or just plain incompetence, these were the folks or topics that made our lot a whole lot more difficult and immeasurably injured the aviation world in the past year.

Shame on those issues, folks or topics that made our lot so much tougher in 2007...

From the Heartbreaker's List #8--Foreign Mismanagement of Columbia  

If there ever was textbook case of mismanagement of an aviation company, Columbia Aircraft would seem to be it. Bad luck or not, they had a solid product, a growing market, and a promising company. And, they were downed by what appears (in the overview) to be nothing more than neglect and indifference from its foreign majority ownership.

For some reason, despite continual progress on a number of fronts -- strengthening sales, productions gains, further enhancements to the design and better market penetration, the money behind Columbia dried up after a series of setbacks made running the company a bit of an endurance test. While the damage done by a freak hailstorm, as well as even more costly delays in G1000 certification certianly hurt the company, there was little reason to believe that once these hurdles were over (and, of course, providing no new ones took their place) then better times were at hand for Columbia.

But... for some reason, the Malaysian owners seemed to have given up. They refused to put any more money into the company, screwed a number of folks close to the operation (needlessly), ran up dangerous amounts of debt, started getting very evasive on their conduct and ultimately let the company fall into bankruptcy... despite the fact that there were SOLID/SERIOUS offers on the table (just ask Granger Whitelaw... who was offering several million smackers, UPFRONT, to keep the doors open while they figured out a purchase) and indications of even more interest in a potential purchase of the company (from other suitors) if they had simply waited a little while longer before pulling the trigger on a bankruptcy filing.

But... no.

The Malaysians 'threw out the baby with the bathwater' and diminished the value of a considerable asset for 'God knows what' rationale... impatience, misunderstanding, idiocy, boredom, whatever. It will take considerable resources to undo the damage... but since Cessna picked this puppy up for pennies on the dollar and they do have a talent for getting things right, we see this as a temporary but horribly unnecessary setback. Still; there may be an upshot to all this, as bizarre as it may be... For those of you who are against seeing American dollars and assets go overseas... it was "nice" to see it come back here and (mostly) stay here. Hmmmm....

FMI: You tell us, what did YOU think of the Columbia matter?