The biggest problem is that all we can tell is you're an anonymous person with an idea and a proposed price. That's the synopsis of what you've shared here and over at the HBA forum.Originally Posted by gabbett1
Regardless of intent, that approach triggers too many images of snake oil salesmen and fly by night operators. In other words, your proclamations fit a pattern that usually has a bad ending, so you're getting a double barreled dose of skepticism.
Gabbett1,
Your failure on this forum is that you are "fishing with the wrong bait". You should be done here for no better reason that your reputation is shot. Most of the people on this forum have been around this arena for many many years. Most have seen the hundreds of start up's who promised to "save aviation" with their better idea. Many people on this forum, I would bet, have lost some amount of money to concepts like yours. Let me count the ways in which I have personally seen things go bad for experimental start up's:
1: Poor concept
2: No market research
3: Woefully under capatilized
4: One person acting as engineer, manufacturer, marketing agent etc...
5: vast underestimation of work involved and time required
6: Counting on customer builds to provide data for writing manuals and validating parts fit and finish
7: Counting on customer deposits to prop company bank account up
8: Depending on out sourced services to come through on time, every time
9: Delivering products without sufficient flight testing to validate safety and airworthiness
10: Over estimation of performance numbers and willingness to lie to keep sales going
11: Failure to estimate the time and cost involved in providing customer build support. (this is a big one)
12: The gestation period for customer aircraft to be finished and start flying is always long and without flying aircraft your not likely to keep sales going.
13: Cost and time involved in providing customer eval flights
14: Underestimation of facility needed and equipment costs (especially for the size of aircraft you are proposing)
15: Failure to understand your break even point when considering profit ie: how many kits need to go out the door to pay back your investors and start making a profit.
16: What to do when your 3D CAD modeled whiz bang ends up flying like a wet stinky turd? Don't think that happens? It's happend far more times than not.
17: How is the business plan configured to handle the first one of your whiz bangs that pile in and the widow sues the living shit out of you? That happens frequently and you can have a good product. Pilot error does not save you from being sued and having to pay for defense.
I could go on but no need. All of the things above are common issues in aviation start ups. Many people have lost many dollars in this industry and you, simply, are using the "wrong bait".
All of these things are very understandable. But I don't see how my inability to share intimate details on the internet automatically labels me as having a bad rap or a snake oil salesmen? What happened to people of similar interest being able to discuss such idea's without jumping to conclusions? That in essence is all I was looking for. I made the comment about investors for the off chance someone might be interested, but the point was to discuss the idea and see if there need to be tweaks, such as, we don't need 6 seats, or we need 8 seats, or whatever it is that people are looking for. I guess that is the naive part of me to think that I would actually find someone interested in investing. But to be honest, that is one of my weak points. I try to be as honest and straight forward as I can. I dislike dishonest and deceptive people. It isn't in my nature to be either of those and I often think that most everyone else is the same.
BTW, my experience in life and business is to never make a judgement on someone based off of first impressions. They often are wrong.
Last edited by gabbett1; 02-15-2014 at 08:29 PM.
The problem is that you aren't discussing your ideas. "I can't share this, that, or the other thing." makes for a bad discussion.
Specifics and technical data, no. But what is in my OP is an idea.
Maybe I just need to be more clear.
I want to discuss:
The size of the plane
The speed of the plane
The range of the plane
The number of seats of the plane
etc
We aren't dead set on our design, so I want to get opinions and input from people as to what they believe it should be. We have some work done on my original proposed idea, but it isn't set in stone.
Last edited by gabbett1; 02-15-2014 at 08:41 PM.
You haven't seen anyone state who the designer is, because the guy who figured it out is a decent human being who didn't want to publicize someone who apparently does not want publicity.
If he's wrong about the company, there are a lot of incredible coincidences...
Ron Wanttaja
Excellent, well thought out, comprehensive outline that should be mandatory reading for all wannabe Kit and certified producers. You should turn this into a detailed published curriculum available for sale.
I would add one more caution: Failure to meet with Vans to pick his brain on how to do things right and create a highly successful aviation enterprise.
Unstructured discussion like this is difficult for folks to answer, and difficult for the person looking for data to collate the results. Everybody wants more; more range, more speed, more seats. If someone says, "I'll give up 200 nm of range to be able to carry 2 extra people" and someone ELSE says, "I want 2' shorter wingspan and 20 knots more in cruise," how do you reconcile that?
What I suggest, instead, is to present notional configurations and invite people to express a preference between different design points. "1200 lb pax and baggage with full fuel, 1000 nm range, 250 kt cruise, and 6 seats," vs. "900 lb pax/baggage, 1500 nm range, 275 knots" vs. "Pressurized to 35,000 feet, four seats, 300 knot cruise for 2000 miles." Might get a bit more discussion going on it.
BTW, I'd drop "size" from the conversation. No one buying a $1,000,000 airplane is going to be concerned about fitting it into an old open T-hangar because the rent is cheaper.
Ron Wanttaja
And of course, this startup protype proposal will compete with a proven profitable (read: credible) company's products.
http://www.compairinc.com/
The size is important for a few reasons.
1. It will allow us to hit our performance numbers much easier. The goal is 300+ KTAS at ~42gph. We believe that this can be done it a -42 PT6 with the size we are considering. If you go much bigger then you suddenly find yourself in a much larger engine and you sacrifice your travel efficiency we are shooting for.
2. With carbon fiber, we can maintain larger internal spaces while having not as large external structure like an aluminum airplane.
3. A large portion of the customer base we are shooting for already uses such T-hangars for their Bonanza or Cirrus. Thus they wouldn't have to search for a new place to store their airplane.
We believe that #1 and #3 are very important to making this product that much more interesting to our potential customers, #1 especially because it would keep their cost of flying the airplane relatively close to what it costs them to fly their Bonanza or Cirrus.
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