Fri, Oct 25, 2002
The Big News is Still Coming
Lancair Honcho Bing Lantis wasn't able to say what
he wanted to, at the 2002 AOPA EXPO, today. Likening his inability
to announce that the long-awaited financing deal was fully done
(allowing Lancair to resume aircraft production), Lantis likened
his situation to waiting for a child to be born… you know
it's coming… but you don't know exactly WHEN.
Apparently; Lancair has a new "controlling partner," a US
entity, not publicly traded, with some "aviation background." But
like all things in a world that lives and dies on the paper work it
generates, there are still "T's to Cross and I's to Dot."
This is what we DO know:
-
Lancair had hoped to announce that it had sold a
majority of the company today but the paperwork is a laborious
issue that still may need a few days, even a week or two to
complete.
- The ultimate effect is this (and is right in line with what
Lance Neibauer has been telling ANN all along-it helps to have
spies in all the right places); Lancair stays in Bend, Oregon.
- The management team changes NOT.
- The current target is for Lancair to resume operations as early
as the first weekend in November, but certainly "next month."
- The first meetings with employees caught in the layoffs have
been positive and retention rates are quoted as "near 99%."
While
some engineering work has been done during the down-spell, little
or no flight testing has been done. Still; the current plans are to
have the all-electric 350 certified by the first of 2003 and the
turbocharged 400 "Legal" some time in April. The order book stands
at 180 planes… with few sales losses during the financial
drought, and some 20 airplanes sold since the layoffs were
announced (these Lancair guys are DEDICATED).
The order book is split evenly between 300 and 400 series
airplanes, and initial production is scheduled to hit 10 airplanes
a month (which is their break-even rate, by the way) and move to
one a day as soon as they get production sorted out.
With 56 airplanes in the field, the birds already flying seem to
be holding up well and erstwhile owners are chomping at the bit as
the guys with the airplanes keep bragging painfully within their
earshot. It seems that current lancair owners are a boastful lot,
donchaknow…
More news to follow.
More News
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