Welcome back Paul;
Looks like I beat you back home by about a day or so.....I have to
admit that it felt strange for me not to have to spend a few days
playing catch-up with ACRE :)
It was also quite a pleasing surprise to read Mecanair's Rotary is
alive and well, I had pegged them as: "Another good one Bites the Dust",
due to marketing mis-management.
Francois, it's a pleasure to meet you in writing and will look forward
to meeting you in person God willing, at S-N-F next month....Seems like
you're very excited and eager to dive in, I have to admit that if I had
been younger and not as busy as I was/am, I would have personally picked
up a previous Gauntlet that was dropped years back and would have done
the exact same thing you and your organization are presently doing, and
that is, hit the Experimental market hard by offering Stability,
Quality, Flexibility in Product Offerings, Fair pricing and Customer
Service. There are a couple of engine suppliers offering non FAA
certified experimental engines in kit form as well as complete
assemblies ready to bolt on....For Pete's sake they even give you the
chance to custom assemble your own via WebSite, now that's what I call
clever marketing, which BTW was originated by the Computer
manufacturers. These people are having a hard time keeping up with
demands......
The Rotary is a natural shoe in on the Experimental Aviation market
which is a phenomenally growing business haven for you guys, that is
providing you're prepared to take on the complete spectrum of Builders,
by this I mean, sell complete Bolt-On installations for the $$$
fortunate as well as Bare Components for the not so called $$$
fortunate, struggling to raise a family but yearn to build and fly (A
lot of us oldies been there), but later down the road they do become $$$
fortunate....I don't need to mention that there are hundreds if not
thousands of us on ACRE that can quite easily come up with a very nice
list of things to buy from you guys in a heartbeat :)
In my earlier years, I was fortunate to meet a gentleman whom I still
consider the smartest, most honest and business sense man to date, that
I still miss dearly since his demise 15 years ago. He once told me, "The
World is an Oyster, but it all depends on how you open it".
You seem to be on the right track, we'll talk further in person at
S-N-F.
Francois, on a separate note, I'm doing some R&D for the benefit of
the ACRE subscribers on Mazda Starters and would greatly appreciate if
you could tell me which Mazda Starter is being used on the Mecanair
Rotary pictured bellow ie; Year and car Model, Engine, Manual/Automatic
Xmission and Mazda Part No. This will help us out a lot in narrowing the
field.
BTW,......Air Rotary or Aero Rotary IMO, hits home ;)
Welcome aboard and Good Luck on your exciting undertaking!!
Butch Diaz Sr.
Thanks very much for your input and your support, Butch.
The fact that MRE was off-the-air for quite some time is due to extreme
difficulties we encountered raising significant financing. 2001-2003
were not the best years ever for financing a start-up... especially in
aviation and in Switzerland. It's been tough but we were able to put a
great team back together, better than before, and we are alive and
kicking.
As to marketing, my approach was to say nothing (except maybe to a very
restricted bunch like this group) before we really have SOMETHING REAL
to say... like the announcement of our test plane first successful
flights. I didn't want to beat the drums earlier. A limited marketing
an press campaign will start as soon as we have passed the
above-mentioned milestone... hopefully before SNF.
Now, your letter has convinced me to put together some sort of
"official" announcement, limited to subscribers to the present
newsletter, so that every one of them... the rotary engine fans, experts
and "ambassadors"... know what MRE will stand for.
I am looking forward to meeting you at SNF. Rally point will be the
Embry-Riddle tent. I'll be personally there Friday through Sunday,
maybe more.
Best regards,
Francois Badoux