What of Vickers?
Our Elaine Kauh suffered the ultimate indignity for a journalist on Sunday: no free lunch. As I mentioned in Monday’s blog, Vickers Aircraft was supposed to sponsor a media lunch on Sunday to talk about their new Wave amphibian. Except, they weren’t.
Company owner Paul Vickers dropped me an email on Monday.”We are only planning to publically present any information about the Wave once we have actually delivered aircraft. We don’t want to fall into the same traps as others by coming out full swing way too soon. I had a brief discussion with the EAA people last year about what they can offer as a show package; part of this was a media lunch. As we were not going to be ready for this Oshkosh the discussion with them didn’t go any further nor did we confirm anything for the show. The first I knew about this lunch was in your blog today.”
I don’t know which is more tragic. Elaine’s missed lunch or somebody actually learning of something through my blog. I’m sending Elaine a coupon for a free funnel cake. We’ll have to wait until next year to learn more about the Wave.–Paul Bertorelli
Flying for fun
The main reason thousands of pilots fly their annual pilgrimage here is arguably one of the best indicators of GA’s health. How? This category of flying is truly discretionary; you can spend money flying, owning and upgrading your airplane, but you don’t have to. The key word here is upgrading, which is really the marker for whether pilots are feeling good about the GA economy. And this week, they seem to be demanding more ways to enhance their fun, because the aircraft makers who cater to them have been busy improving their offerings to faster, stronger and more powerful.
Take CubCrafters’ XCub, Bearhawk Aircraft’s Bravo and the new Remos GXiS, just to name a few of the light-plane vendors who are out showing new takes on their popular models. They point to customer demand driving things like improved engines, landing performance, new avionics and more useful load. It’s good to see these companies actively working to give pilots what they’re willing to buy. That should keep this corner of GA growing after its recent struggles. Hopefully, the next couple of years will see enough new innovations, no matter how small, to attract future pilots. They’re the ones who can benefit from this new stuff becoming more common, more affordable and, of course, more fun. –Elaine Kauh
My World for a Hat
Something that’s never in short supply at AirVenture is souvenir hats. If an OEM is introducing a new product or just hyping an old one just about anyone who wants one can have one. So what’s Jeppesen’s secret sauce? The company sells tickets to its chart seminars and those who buy online can get a free hat, but it obviously doesn’t bring enough for everyone so patrons are lined up around the block on Knapp Street to get their “free” hat. We don’t get it. That many people standing in the blazing sun for a hat? But Jeppesen has clearly figured it out.–Russ Niles
