Hello, just like to give everyone a quick update regarding AeroCad status and thank everyone that has been supportive during this transitional time. I assure you that we are aggressively working hard and making every possible effort to get AeroCad going. We are committed to continue manufacturing high quality aircraft kits and parts and continued builder support as well. (It sounds pretty easy if you say it fast)!
In the past six months since the purchase and transition of AeroCad we have made some substantial progress! In addition to the initial purchase of the AeroCad company assets we had to make some major improvements and investment in our airport building facility to initially move AeroCad into. We had also put a lot of effort into carefully moving and transporting all of the Aerocad tools, molds and equipment in place here. Jeff Russell has also been very supportive during this transition providing training and technical support for us.
One of our main initial goals in purchasing AeroCad was to help resolve all of the negative disagreement issues and disputes regarding Cozy and AeroCanard aircraft and I think we have made major progress in this area. We are in fact now working with Aircraft Spruce on a new distributor agreement and expect to be marketing both AeroCanard kits and Cozy aircraft parts with Aircraft Spruce soon! Additionally we are working with other aircraft distributor worldwide however we do plan to manufacture Cozy parts exclusively for Aircraft Spruce.
From the very start of purchasing AeroCad we were faced with many problems to overcome including the plans rights issue and public disagreements that made it very difficult to even get started! Several new potential customers considering purchasing a new AeroCanard kit from us were discouraged and scared away by all of the legal battles and disputing online.
We had initially only purchased the AeroCad kit aircraft assets while Jeff Russell retained the “plans rights” business and made available as free shareware online which added even more to the ongoing dispute (If that is possible) and was also causing some confusion with having the new AeroCad (us) and AeroCad2 (Jeff). So, finally in order to resolve this confusion and put and end to the disagreements and disputes, we had agreed to purchase the remaining AeroCad plans rights and assets from Jeff and discontinue the free shareware!
We have just recently completed all financial transactions of the remaining AeroCad assets and plans rights and now own 100 percent of the AeroCad business and things are starting to come together. We do already have several orders for complete kits now and focusing our attention back to manufacturing and production work! Also, as part of our agreement and for those concerned they may not receive the same quality parts as before, Jeff Russell will continue to provide us with ongoing technical support for the next few years.
A few additional things AeroCad is working on:
AeroCad was recently awarded a military design contract for a new small UCAV aircraft retractable landing gear system in which we completely designed, engineered and successfully delivered a full size prototype unit on schedule!
We have recently put a lot of effort into converting the AeroCanard construction training videos into DVD format. We did have some problems with the duplication company that had made some printing errors but are looking pretty good now.
We are also in the process of updating our website, AeroCanard plans and developing a new AeroCanard kit information package.
Also, for those of you that might be interested in who is Al Aldrich anyway? In addition to being the new owner of AeroCad, Inc. I am a Unigraphics CAD design engineer most recently working at Boeing STL on F-15K structures design team also worked on the F-18 E/F Super Hornet, Bell Helicopter, Eclipse Aviation, Visionaire and few other places as a contract engineer. I received my pilot license at 16 and have been flying Long-Ez's for over 20 years and also fly helicopters. In addition I own and operate the Bowling Green Municp-AL Airport the new home of AeroCad!
We still have a long way to go but, I believe that AeroCad has a lot to offer in the future of new aircraft design. We plan to continue improving our aircraft designs and manufacturing capabilities and over time I see AeroCad becoming the largest aircraft company in the world “I have a dream”.
Best Regards,
Al Aldrich
AeroCad, Inc.
P.S. As we are still in the process of getting organized here, it is possible occasionally that we may unintentionally misplace or overlook getting an order out. Please don’t take this personally or panic just give us a call and we will take care of it!