On the Record with "RICK" ADAM, CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, ADAM AIRCRAFT INDUSTRIES
Adam Aircraft Industries is moving fast. Working literally
around the clock the company was "a couple of months away"
from certification of the A500 tandem-twin-piston, six-place aircraft
at the beginning of August, according to founder and CEO George
F. "Rick" Adam. The company expects to receive its production
certificate at the same time. By the end of the year, Adam tells
Show News, the company expects to be delivering A500s and taking
orders for the jet-powered A700.
In 2004, Adam's company will deliver "40-50" A500s-and
will be close to making money. "We've done this program in
a very economical fashion, and we can be profitable at four to
five airplanes a month. We're not trying to build 1,000 airplanes
a month or something nutty like that," Adam says. In 2005
the company should deliver 100 airplanes, including the jet-powered
A700.
Price and pilot insurability distinguish the A500 from the A700.
The jet costs about twice as much ($1.9 million versus $900,000)
and, Adam observes, "there are about ten times as many pilots
qualified to fly the A500-although the A700 is really easier to
fly." But the A500 is still much more pilot-friendly than
a traditional twin, and this is a key to its success.
"It's surprised us that 80% of A500 customers are single-engine
pilots-people who had enough money to buy a twin, but who were
reluctant to step up for safety reasons." A500 customers,
says Adam, include wealthy retired people with vacation homes
and individual business owners. AirShares Elite, an Atlanta company
that has introduced fractional ownership to the owner-flown market,
is preparing to offer one-eighth shares in the A500 for $140,000.
Rick Adam traces the project to his first flying lessons in a
"decrepit" Cessna 172, in 1990. "'Can't we get
a new airplane?' I asked, and my instructor told me that there
were no new airplanes. I spent the next eight years being a nuisance,
asking every pilot I met why there wasn't any development going
on. It didn't make any sense." His first idea was to build
a new single, "but Cirrus and Lancair had a head start-so
I went to Burt (Rutan) with the ideas of a carbon-fiber, in-line
twin. Burt designed this airplane-and some weird stuff you'd never
sell." The project was launched in 1998: "last to start,
first to finish," he says.
Rick Adam expects the company to recover its investment quickly.
The A500 has stayed close to the original schedule and the total
development bill "has been significantly south of $100 million,"
he told Show News. Apart from round-the-clock working, Adam points
out that the company was "careful to do things that we knew
would work-like the old piston engines."
"The public is skeptical about new projects, and rightfully so,"
says Adam. "We make mistakes, like anyone does-but we like
to surprise people on the up-side."
