Plane Conversations

It has been a couple weeks since I last posted on Plane Conversations.

I usually don’t go this long without checking in but the past few weeks of travel to China, and then being part of a conference back in TN, have kept me running with little time to slow down and write.

This week I was part of a conference hosted by Middle Tennessee State University and sponsored by our company and FedEx.

The purpose of the conference was to get people together from China and the US who work in the government and private sectors of aviation to dialogue and exchange knowledge on the developments and trends in General Aviation in China.

From China we had a delegation that consisted of officials from CAAC (China’s FAA), legal scholars from the Beihang University of Aerospace and Aeronautics, industry executives from Flying Dragon Aviation China, the largest general aviation company in China, as well as China’s official news agency Xinhua. Erick Wang, CFM’s VP of our newly formed CFM China Company, was also in attendance. Erick is from Harbin, in Heilongjiang Province, Northern China.

From the US side, attendees included senior level FAA/ATC, AOPA’s International Affairs Director, representatives from FedEx’s international legal affairs and international feeder operations, MTSU aerospace professors, Chuck Howell, CEO of Great Lakes Airlines, executives from BAE Systems and Cirrus Design.

Mike Vaughn who is President of CFM China and Director of Government Sales for CFM here in the US was the conference moderator.  

This is my first experience with co-hosting and sponsoring a conference of this magnitude and I now have a new found respect for those who organize these type events. Hundreds of hours and months of planning and preparation go into an event like this, especially when trying to coordinate schedules, logistics and visas for delegates coming from the other side of the world.

Many thanks to the Aerospace Department at MTSU for hosting this conference at their facilities at the Murfreesboro Airport, and thanks to FedEx for being the major sponsor.  

My post conference impressions about what was learned and gained center around relationship building.

Nothing replaces face to face dialogue and some of the more important interactions happened, not at the speaker’s podium, but at the dinners and social times when conversations between the Chinese and US delegates was relaxed and informal in nature.

Our new aviation friends from China are no different than aviators here in the US. They are passionate and knowledgeable about their profession and have a sincere desire to learn. Aviators around the world share a common bond that trumps any cultural or political differences.  

The Chinese are very intent on growing their industry in China. They have been restrained by restrictions on use of airspace by the PLA, but nonetheless they know what they are doing.

The Chinese recognize that they need to open up their airspace for commercial activity including GA. Their government now recognizes that a healthy general aviation industry is good for economic development and prosperity in China. The country and the government are massive and opening the skies will not happen overnight, but it will happen. Before laws are enacted, policies and procedures will be put into place to allow more GA operations in the skies.  

The Chinese also recognize that the US has one of the most developed and successful aviation systems in the world and there is much to be gained by learning from both the successes and mistakes of our long history in aviation. They have a unique opportunity to leapfrog many of the inefficient systems we have and go straight to the best practices and advanced technology of today and the future.

GA in China today is small relative to the country’s economy, geography and population, so it will not take much to steer the industry quickly into a world class player.

China has done it in many other areas of their economy, first in manufacturing, now in technology and communications, and in the past two decades in the airline industry. Once the ball gets rolling in general aviation it will be fascinating to see how it develops. In my lifetime I may get to see China surpass the US in GA activity.  

The US, Brazil and Europe, with advanced GA aircraft design and manufacturing capability, expertise in operating and maintaining GA aircraft, and capabilities in training pilots, mechanics, and operations management, stand to gain in a big way as China’s GA takes off.

I believe those in the US who are willing to look at the long term, and develop relationships now, will see the payoff in 5-10 years when the door opens wider.

One of the senior delegates from China conveyed to me words of wisdom that relationships, trust and friendships must be developed first and business will naturally follow. That sounds very much like the way the US used to do business before we got in a hurry to make a quick dollar. I personally enjoy this way of doing business because it is more than just today’s profit that counts. The personal relationships come first.  

I have new found friends from China that I believe will be friends for life.   

We will write more about this conference in future blogs and an official press release.    

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An October 14 article in the Wichita Eagle by Molly McMillin says the aviation manufacturing industry in Wichita is waiting on the rebound of the economy and the business aviation market.

If you are leading you don’t sit around and wait on anything or anybody. You blaze a trail and create your own economic recovery.

The true innovators in the history of modern economies did not wait on rebound, they created it.

In business aviation will we allow our fates to be tied to decisions made by the government, by economic down turns and up turns, by someone else’s innovation and prosperity? If so we are in trouble.

A recent post by Dan Robles  of the Ingenesist Project stated the following:

The invention of the wheel, wedge, and pulley came long before the invention of credit scores, CDO’s, and International Trade Agreements.

Technological Change must always precede economic growth – economic growth cannot sustainably precede technological change. If you throw money at a problem, you are not guaranteed technological change.  If you throw technological change at a problem, you are guaranteed money.

We are going about the process of globalization as if economic growth can precede technological change.  This is the tiny flaw of market capitalism and it is unsustainable.  In short, we’ve gotten it backwards and continuing on this course prevents us from seeing the future.

Sadly to me it seems that our industry is stuck in a mindset that we will be in a “no growth mode” to “slow growth mode” for the next few years. That means no new jobs, maybe even a few more layoffs,  and those of us who are here today will be fighting for a piece of the pie that is not going to get any bigger anytime soon.

A good example of innovation driving a market is the personal computing industry.  The market has grown because price went down at the same time computing power went up. The growth has been exponential, not in small increments. And because of that growth, billions of people have the power in their hands to communicate and connect that we could not have imagined 20 years ago.

What about the growth of social media as a way for people to connect? Facebook surpassed 500 million users this summer. Who could have predicted the adoption rate of social media 5 years ago? Did any of us have social media in our marketing plans in 2005?

So if we want our industry to grow, and the manufacturers of  business aircraft can’t innovate fast enough to deliver a faster less expensive machine like the personal computing industry, then what do the rest of us to do?

Can we innovate, through the use of social technology, to offer travelers a new solution?

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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.

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