The Arlington Fly-In (July 7-10) was fun. While the vendor area shrunk from prior years, the show line appeared about 95+% full of show planes on Saturday. A nice number of beautiful aircraft (see some uploaded to Twitter and Facebook). As I walked about on Saturday, I met and spoke with a great many people.
Jeff Mayernik, Sales Manager of Flightcom relayed some recent exciting changes. The company hired Reed Stager as executive vice president. Stager’s nearly three decades of experience with “high-technology marketing, business development, and strategic planning” has already stirred the pot. Mayernik told me Flightcom is investing in their previously stagnant GA headset line and he looks forward to debuting new, and value-priced, product in the near future.
John McBean from Kitfox Aircraft told me they sold two more aircraft last week. That expands the KitFox delivery backlog to October for the kit version and June 2012 for the S-LSA. They must be doing something right.
Austin Hennessey from American Avionics and I had an interesting, and rambling conversation. Austin spends roughly half the year in China working sales for American Avionics. He’s quite proud of the fact that he can now sell direct to one of AVICs many aviation subsidiaries.
Stewart Aircraft Finishing Systems held both forums and workshops at the fly-in. Marjie Stewart told me the forums were standing room only and the workshops we simply “full”. Further, sales for their aircraft covering and finishing products has continued to grow.
While not necessarily representative of the broader market, it is heartening to hear of success from a handful of some in the general aviation marketplace. Onward.
