Posts Tagged ‘Beech’
Tell Me A Story
This picture was taken in the back of my dad’s Beech Baron 55. From time to time, I’ve also let him sit at the controls of a KC-135, C-17, King Air (C-12), T-38, F-16, and many others.
Robby looks at airplanes with awe and wonder. When one flies over, he looks up and stares at it. Then he will look at me seriously and tell me it’s Southwest–even if it’s a Cessna Skyhawk–because he is trying to act like his big brother Blake (who can identify Southwest).
When Robby is flying in an airplane, he looks down at the world below–everything is so small, yet the world is so much bigger–and he is amazed.
I love to share the wonder of aviation, the joy of flying, with Robby, with each of my children. In turn, they love to hear stories of the superhuman feats that I’ve accomplished in airplanes: Setting a world record by dropping seventy two thousand pounds of NASA solid rocket booster out the back of a C-17 or pulling 6g’s or going straight up in an F-16 at Mach 1.3. (That’s really fast in case you were counting.) Or doing a spin in a T-6A Texan II. Or flying in formation with six other transports–that’s over two million pounds of cargo carrying airplanes–and doing a tactical descent at 20,000 feet per minute. (Okay, it was slightly less than 20,000 fpm, because that descent rate is the max limit.) Or the story about how I greased it on the runway at the end of a twenty six hour day–from Sydney to Honolulu to Detroit–a landing so soft that the baby in the back didn’t even wake after fighting a twenty knot crosswind all the way down the ILS.
You and I know that these are the kinds of things that pilots of all kinds do every day. That doesn’t matter. To Robby, to the unfamiliar, flying is magic.
Robby doesn’t understand the “flight or fight” or “no plane no gain” slogans. He doesn’t understand the bottom line or return on investment or profitability. (Incidentally, I like flying and aviation and those videos put me to sleep.)
He does understand superheroes. That’s why Cessna’s poster series was genius.
We need stories, not stats. We want to be inspired, not lectured. You won’t convince anyone with balance sheets or P&L statements.
But if we can tell a story…
Like that baby in the back that slept through the best landing ever. It was a medevac mission. Mom and Dad may not remember what kind of plane it was or know how much it cost. But they know how it changed their lives when they saw the pediatric heart specialist the next day.
And that executive who was worried about the bottom line when he hopped in the Learjet early that day is probably thinking more about eating dinner with his wife and kids than his discouragement over not getting the big deal.
Or that factory in Alabama and the forty people who get to work tonight, earn a paycheck, because the supplier flew the part in on the company Bonanza.
The lives we touch–the countless multitudes of people who haven’t flown on and don’t fly and will never fly in a business jet or an experimental aircraft or even an SR22–when we touch their lives, that’s what makes us superheroes.
If we can tell those stories about the people whose lives aviation changes…then aviation will change lives.
Hawker Beech Factory Tour: Made in America
This past week I had the privilege of taking a tour of the Hawker Beechcraft factory and corporate headquarters in Wichita Kansas.
The tour started at our home base in Tennessee with a flight to Wichita on a new Hawker 4000. The aircraft is impressive and I will post soon with video and more information on this new generation, state of the art, mid size business jet.
Our company has operated Beechcraft King Airs for over 25 years, and much of my flying time is logged in various Barons and Bonanzas, so I have been a fan of Beechcraft for a long time.
The King Air series aircraft are without argument the most successful turboprop ever built with a production run spanning 5 decades.
The King Air C90GTX / B200GT / 350I series aircraft are still in production for civilian and military applications. All are evolved from the original King Air that first rolled of the line in 1965.
Hawker Beech’s jet aircraft in production include the Hawker 4000, Hawker 900XP, Hawker 750, Hawker 400XP and the Premier 1A/II. The Hawker 750 and 900 series aircraft are evolutions of the original Hawker jets manufactured in the UK and are the best selling series of business jets in the world.
Hawker Beech also manufacturers variations of the military T-6 trainer, which is the primary trainer for both the navy and air force pilot programs.
The Beech Baron G58 twin engine and Bonanza G36 single engine piston aircraft round out the line of aircraft in production.
Arriving to the factory at Hawker Beech’s airport in Wichita, our first stop was the delivery hangar, where new aircraft were in the final stage of delivery to the new owners. There is a large American flag on one wall, prominently displayed as reminder that these aircraft going all over the world are made in America.
Wichita is the number one city for growing exports and Hawker Beech plays a big part. The percentage of aircraft exported now exceeds the percentage staying in the US and this will continue to increase as the demand for business aircraft worldwide grows faster than in the US.
One of the things that interests me most is innovation in our business and Hawker Beechcraft has done that with their new Hawker 4000. The Hawker 4000 has a composite fuselage and uses composites in combination with traditional metal structures in other areas of the airframe. Composites are lighter but stronger than metal structure allowing savings in weight and increases in fuel efficiency and performance, as well as reduced maintenance costs.
Use of composites in aircraft sturctures is here to stay as evidenced by the Boeing 787 having a composite fuselage.
What impressed me most from the whole tour is the sense of pride emanating from the employees, from the senior management to the people on the floor. These people are proud of what they make and should rightly be proud of the 75 plus year legacy of excellence in aircraft manufacturing.
A lot has been said about the competitiveness of the US aircraft manufacturing industry in the global market.
A current issue that Hawker Beech has to deal with is to what degree they move production out of the US to save costs. The unions in Wichita are fighting for the jobs to remain US and the decisions will be difficult. Hawker Beech must remain price competitive and at the same time they cannot afford to lose the skill and aggregated knowledge of the workforce in Wichita.
There is a positive and determined corporate culture that I admire with the leadership and employees at Hawker Beech. That will keep them in the competitive game of aircraft manufacturing well into the future.