Originally Posted by
rwanttaja
I do? How? Because I've researched your company? Because I've examined your track record in other business deals?
Well, no. Don't know who you are. Don't know who you're shilling for (got pretty good idea, but it's not the same as *knowing*). So, how, pray tell, do I "know" I'm being unfair to you?
Never had much experience with con men, but the way I understand it, they never tell you their real name, and they use phases like "It's better than anything else on the market", and "You won't have to compromise" and "You can trust me." "You're not being fair" sound just like it fits in, don't it?
You're telling me that a program that doesn't exist, using people who haven't been identified much less hired, provide aid to building an airplane that hasn't flown a prototype, and doesn't even exist on paper, yet (only 75% complete, I believe you said), is going to set up a program that minimizes the wrench-turning required for as-yet-unidentified clients who will probably spend 99% of their time at your as-yet unbuilt facility on their phones running the businesses that made them the money that let them buy a $1,000,000 airplane kit. And when that billionaire customer says, "install that for me or I'll sue," your shop manager is gonna just boot his Armani-clad butt out of the facility?
Love to see it.
I saw a recent posting from someone who has visited a couple similar centers. He describes the owners showing up to get their pictures taken with a wrench in their hand, and then they're gone. Paperwork floating around somewhere says they're doing 51%.
It's a perversion of what Paul Poberezny and the founders of EAA fought to achieve. They wanted a process that'd let every American who wanted to build and fly his own airplane. Not a scam for millionaires to dodge certification processes for their personal propjets.
And I'll be fair, just this once: It's not your fault, Gabby. But of course, your company is willing to capitalize on it. It's the American way, I guess...if, strictly speaking, it's not illegal, who cares how morally corrupt it is?
But of course, I'm just an old man, howling on the Internet where nothing really ever happens. Ten years from now, your first customer will make his weekly visit to the shop. They'll wipe a dirty rag across his forehead, hand him a wrench, and he'll grimace over a part until the camera flash fires. He'll wipe off the grease (with sanitizer, of course), and call the New York graphic designer and the paint shop in California about the graphic design and schedule. Two months later, he'll have his pilot fly the plane to Oshkosh. Later that week, he'll step onto the stage to accept his Lindy.
In the crowd, perhaps, is a man with scars on his forearms. There's grease embedded under his fingernails, and a burn mark on his leg that he just laughs off and refuses to talk about. Parked way out in south 40 is a homebuilt biplane. Maybe a Hatz, maybe a Kelly D, maybe a Starduster. He took welding courses ten years earlier to get ready for the build. His wife helped shape the tubing, his kids were old enough, eventually, to help rib-stitch the wings. He saved for eight years, to be able to afford a old run-out Lycoming. His EAA buddies helped him rebuild it. But the work is meticulous. There's a pile of scrap parts behind the garage, which didn't meet his standards and what HE wanted to fly with. But he got it done; rigging the garage as a paint booth for the simple but clean design which was all he could afford.
And he'll applaud when your customer takes the Lindy, Gabby. He'll tell his friends what a neat airplane that was. And go home with...perhaps... only a small touch of disappointment.
When it happens, be proud, Gabby. Be proud.
Ron Wanttaja
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