New 7EC

jerrymjr · Post by **jerrymjr** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 23:46

Well, its the dealer's territory and we offered to flip for some of the expense of getting it there. Hopefully he can make it happen.

The Airplane is still in Market Survey, which is good, but needs a range entension, which might be bad....

I'll keep y'all posted.

Post by **joea** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 23:53

Thought that ACA brought their own airplanes down to Sun and Fun and other fly-in's? Did not know that the dealer had to do everything.

Let us know if we can help. The planes really should be there...

Who is the dealer and should we be contacting them? We went to you guys from the start and this is the first we have heard of possibly having to have someone else involved.

Thanks,

Joe A

Nathan K. Hammond · Post by **Nathan K. Hammond** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 00:10

I'm serious and stand by my offer; I'll eat all the cost and jump any hoop to fly it down if the dealler is a no-go.

nkh

Post by **joea** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 00:55

Will be glad to help as well. Am not very experienced at Champs, but have several thousand hours in a Chief and oh, about 14,000 hours in other "lighter than air machines" and do it for a living, like Nathan and others on this forum.

Post by **joea** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 23:53

Jerry,

You asked how the attendence was? Well, its now Thursday night and we have 43 airplanes on the ground here, and am guessing around 100 people registered.

The "fly-in" starts tomorrow so this means that we are on schedule to have an unbelieveable turnout for the 2006 event. Am not sure but believe that this may be the largest number of airplanes on the ground before the event starts.

Up to you guys, but if you want to sell planes it might be a good idea to have one of them on show here. Our guess right now is that we may have over 300 aircraft and double that number of people in attendence. Almost everyone of them a Champ pilot and potential owner...

Nathan K. Hammond · Post by **Nathan K. Hammond** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 00:23

WOW 43 ALREADY !!!!!

Yer savin me a parkin spot, aren't ya Joe?

nkh

Post by **joea** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 07:24

Nathan,

Get your buns up here. There are more airplanes here as of yesterday than we have had at times on early Saturday, so this will be a big one.

The other thing is that we are seeing lots of cases (8 to 10 that I know of so far) where one person is flying the plane here, and one or even two cars full of family members drives to the meet. That means that we have one plane, one registration form and 4-6 people PER PLANE and this is going to add up and fast.

Just ran into one old friend from Atlanta last night where her Father flew the Champ, and his daughter along with her husband and three other people drove to Middletown.

The turnout will be very good for this one!

Post by **joea** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 23:15

Well everyone, Nathan made it up here fine.

Right now we have almost 100 planes in the parking area for Aeronca's and are expecting lots more tomorrow. We sold the Friday night dinner out, something that has not happened in a long time.

Wag-Aero is here, showing and selling parts. We have entered into an agreement where I am going to loan them a Chief McDowell style nosebowl and they are going to duplicate it. Now all the Chief owners who want to return to the stock style nosebowl and spinner will be able to do so. Bob Carr is here selling his beautiful spinners and said that the minute the new nosebowls are available that he will have spinners for them.

As well Wag-Aero wanted us to get an announcement out to everyone. They want the members of the NAA and other forums/email lists to get together and make a "top ten" list. They want to know what we feel is the top ten list of parts that are not available now and they will look into making them for us! This is for the Chief and Champ.

Also they told us that one reason why they do not have a large number of newer parts for the Chief and Sedan airplanes is that they do not have an airplane to use to for fitting and approval. The NAA is now working with them to assist in this and make new parts available for everyone.

Its been a very very good fly-in so far and we have another 36 hours to go!

jerrymjr · Post by **jerrymjr** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 09:58

Sounds like you guys had a great time.

Its really too bad we could not make it. The prototype 7EC needed a tweak to the fuel system anyway. Silly one tank design, ya know?
It needs a little header tank (about the size of 1.5 soda cans) for those who do uncoordinated turns to the left with not much fuel in the tank. Sounds picky, but how often are these planes slipped?

Post by **joea** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 19:34

No one could believe that the new airplane was not displayed there. Wag-Aero and others who took the time to come were busy all weekend long. The sales and interest was very good in every area.

We had more people and planes in Middletown this past weekend than in any of the events in the past 10 years. ACA missed a very good opportunity to sell some airplanes.

Not sure who is in charge of sales but they sure missed an excellent chance and hope that someone asks them what happened and makes sure that it never occurs again. I was a sales rep for many years and unless your order book is full for the next 3-5 years, this is unbelieveable.

jc pacquin · Post by **jc pacquin** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 22:43

Seems unreal that the new aeronca did not show up at the middletown event. Something must be wrong either in management or in money or.....both...or so rich they don't care, the latter being highly unlikely.

jerrymjr · Post by **jerrymjr** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 00:45

dealers = marketing.
Thats why they get a cut of the pie. We are a low overhead company and frankly, production is more than enough work. I am not particularly pleased that the dealer blew it off to the point of not even saying that he was not coming. Would have been nice to know that we should call a different one. Most of that is not my job.

Oh well, trust me. Those that want the new Champ will find us. In the mean time, my department has their work cut out for us with the FAA and the 7EC.

Oh, and its not the new Aeronca any more than a Decathlon is the new Bellanca.

Post by **joea** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 09:22

jerrymjr wrote: Oh well, trust me. Those that want the new Champ will find us. In the mean time, my department has their work cut out for us with the FAA and the 7EC.

Jerry, not trying to make you mad and know that you are not in sales, but when a company takes a "if they want it, they will find our product" stance, it usually results in another company who has a product about like yours, and a active sales and marketing rep stealing the business and sales from your company! Before getting into flying I was a sales rep and was very successful. I know sales/marketing and am very good at it.

There are other options out there in the LSA market and to miss an event like this is just plain silly, especially when it was so close. I would have made sure that you were on the front row, right next to where everyone was getting together. There were at least 500 people out there who would have loved to see your product, and I bet that ACA would have sold several planes while there.

We really appreciate your input here. Can you please have a talk with the sales team and try to get them going? Someone dropped the ball big time here and it does not matter who, but what does matter that someone in sales is not hungry enough and pushing ahead to try to sell product (planes) which keeps ACA alive. We need to find the people who are not sure which airplane they want and sell them a ACA product. Lets all work together and make it happen!

Jody Wittmeyer · Post by **Jody Wittmeyer** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 11:01

Jerry, the dealer really missed an opportunity. While working registration this weekend, I fielded at least 30 inquiries about where the 7LSA was, or a rep they could speek with. Some people don't mind spending the money for a ground up restoration, but don't want to wait the 2-4000 hours it takes to do it. (No time) Would rather spend the money for an already built plane. (New) Champ market is tight, and they are still a 1946/47. Most of these guys were somewhat dis appointed ACA did not make a showing. I got the impression ACA (dealer) missed about 15 solid orders. I did refer them to ACA to make an order. Figured you guys could direct them to their nearest dealer.
Someone from ACA should have at least sent some sales material and we could have set up a display booth.

Ron Babos · Post by **Ron Babos** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 21:03

Forget the talking and start kicking some a$$. How can a company be serious about sales and not even show up to a major event directly related to it's product?
Ron

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