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Flight Design Future?


JonR

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I was not aware that Flight Design is out of business. All their intellectual property, etc. is owned by AeroJones Aviation in Taiwan. AeroJones acquired these assets in October 2017 from LIFT Holdings GmbH,  a German company who purchased these assets earlier that year via bankruptcy when Flight Design collapsed financially due to a large vendor defaulting on payment to Flight Design.

According to the AeroJones website their focus seems to be the aviation market in China. No mention of a world focus.

So what does this mean down the road for parts availably in the US (and I assume around the world) for the existing Flight Design aircraft, letter of Authorization, etc., etc. and any other "factory" support?

Such a beautiful airplane. Not sure what this means for the F2 effort.

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Jon,

That is the problem with the internet. There is so much information out there, and not all of it is current or accurate. I think you may have picked up on an old press release that didn't come to fruition. You might want to check out flightdesign.com and also flightdesignusa.com . Aero Jones has been involved with Flight Design since before the financial trouble. I don't know all of the details, but if they are still involved I think they are just a licensed manufacture of the airplane serving the Asian market. Flight Design general aviation GmbH is the manufacture as far as I know.

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Tom thanks for the clarification. Here is the bankruptcy info which appears to be real since the US website has the name of the acquirer at the top of the masthead …. “Lift Air”. See attachment from "Australian Flying" in 2017.

 As to AeroJones their website says “Ever since the acquisition of the intellectual property rights of the CT series from Flight Design, a German aircraft design company, in October 2017, AeroJones Aviation has been working on maintaining and taking over all data before it officially filed application for AeroJones CTLS type certificate to the Civil Aviation Administration of China in September”.  You are probably correct that this is a license for the Asian market only.

However, I was concerned when I noticed that Flight Design registered only ONE new aircraft in all of 2020 per Dan Johnson’s analysis. This was quite surprising to me since I view FD as one of the perennial leaders in the LSA marketplace having sold 7 aircraft three years ago, then 5 two and only 1 last year. Did not look like a good trend.

 Flight Design under New Ownership - Australian Flying.pdf

Tom, I appreciate your clarity and I am glad to see things may be better than they appeared, 2020 notwithstanding.

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4 hours ago, JonR said:

I was not aware that Flight Design is out of business. All their intellectual property, etc. is owned by AeroJones Aviation in Taiwan. AeroJones acquired these assets in October 2017 from LIFT Holdings GmbH,  a German company who purchased these assets earlier that year via bankruptcy when Flight Design collapsed financially due to a large vendor defaulting on payment to Flight Design.

According to the AeroJones website their focus seems to be the aviation market in China. No mention of a world focus.

So what does this mean down the road for parts availably in the US (and I assume around the world) for the existing Flight Design aircraft, letter of Authorization, etc., etc. and any other "factory" support?

Such a beautiful airplane. Not sure what this means for the F2 effort.

FD is not out of business. Those are old post when the economy tanked a few years back and FD top folks overseas made some bad choices, but all is moving along now.

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German parent is healthy.  Scads of new investment in the F2 which has received A+ reviews.  And I hear lots of sales in hand.  FD will get back on the leaderboard again this year.

FD, like every plane maker out there, except Cirrus and CubCrafters, sucks at marketing.  The marketing department in Germany has made a ton of mistakes.  They didn’t survey their existing customers (I don’t want to pay for the airbags and electric seats in terms of weight and cost thank you), and they Pre announced the new product before it was ready for delivery.  
FD shines at engineering and design and to their credit, they are coming out with a damned good airplane, all the while supporting the existing fleet.  Not many plane makers in the LSA weight space can say that after 16+ years.

I am glad FD has contractural links to Asia.  It’s the next big GA growth area.  Asia sales will assist in creating more scale and will enhance the demand for greater support.  
I would buy another FD.

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On 2/6/2021 at 6:21 AM, AGLyme said:

German parent is healthy.  Scads of new investment in the F2 which has received A+ reviews.  And I hear lots of sales in hand.  FD will get back on the leaderboard again this year.

FD, like every plane maker out there, except Cirrus and CubCrafters, sucks at marketing.  The marketing department in Germany has made a ton of mistakes.  They didn’t survey their existing customers (I don’t want to pay for the airbags and electric seats in terms of weight and cost thank you), and they Pre announced the new product before it was ready for delivery.  
FD shines at engineering and design and to their credit, they are coming out with a damned good airplane, all the while supporting the existing fleet.  Not many plane makers in the LSA weight space can say that after 16+ years.

I am glad FD has contractural links to Asia.  It’s the next big GA growth area.  Asia sales will assist in creating more scale and will enhance the demand for greater support.  
I would buy another FD.

Agreed with everything you said!

Marketing wise, I think Icon is up there with the best of them, They really know who their target market is.

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 Icon is an interesting biz study on what not to do from a manufacturing and customer care (the infamous purchase contract) perspective.  Agreed on the target marketing comment - Bullseye.  One well healed guy at my home field is on his 2nd.

FYI, find Icon on Wikipedia, I just looked as I forgot how many rounds of venture capital they blew through... I thought the total was a about 40 or 50 mil... it is more like $100 mil !!  Take a look at their Directors and Advisory Board, a who’s who in aero and making lots of high end plastic products (Mastercraft boat guy).  And review their initial order book figure vs how many they actually delivered to date.  Bottom line, very very few general aircraft manufacturers make enough money to survive and/or innovate.  Icon had the best chance to do so.  If plane makers thrive (kitfox for ex) or survive, the owners are pretty much only making a salary.  Tough industry God bless ‘em.

All of us who invested in FD planes can take a bow, at least our company owners are out there swinging for the tech fence and supporting the fleet.

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