Im Concerned ...

[Daveroo]

the Flying magazine email last night said its rumored that Textron will be purchasing Beachcraft,whats going to happen to my beloved KingAir series ?.....will they become Cessna products?..or will they drop them since they are low wing aircraft?....


im upset.......

[stansdds]

The King Air line is still pretty popular and Cessna no longer produces twin piston or twin turboprop aircraft, so I seriously doubt that Textron would drop the King Air or the Baron. A bigger concern would be the Beechjet line. Would Textron build Cessna Citations and Beechjets since they would be competing products?

[normb]

IMHO: The King Airs have such a fine reputation and good sales (both civilian and government) that we may just have to adjust to seeing them listed as "Cessna". Kind of like seeing Aviation Week refer to the DC3/C47's as "Boeing" since they bought Douglas.

[Ickie]

textron, yep know the company, it came to my home town and bought the biggest gray iron factory in the world (Campbell, Whitten, Cannon", 10 years later all that is left is a big open field and massive unemployment.

[TeaSea]

My opinion obviously but I think normb has it right.

One of the reasons you buy a competitor is for its intellectual property and brand name, not neccesarily it's production capacity, although that may also be a motivator.

See Cessna and Corvallis. Cessna took both. Clearly though, someone's jet is going bye-bye.....

Hang in there Daveroo. Beech may have just gone completely under and we'd see a massive fight for the patents......like Indian Motorcycles.

[Skyhawk_310R]

Personally, I never believed Cessna should have discontinued their 310R. At the time it was more than a match for the Baron, but when Cessna barely emerged from bankruptcy in the 1980's they returned as less than a mere shell of itself. They abandoned over half of the previous Cessna lineup!

So, how ironic could it be to see the thing come full circle? Beech has been hanging on by a thread now for a long time, bouncing from one buyer to another like a ping pong ball. Textron may be the best thing that could happen. It isn't the King Air or Baron that I see going away. I think the days of the Bonanza may well be numbered if this buy happens as it would be a direct competitor to the new Cessna 300 series, which was the result of the acquisition of the certified Columbia line once produced by Lanceair.

This places Cessna once again as a supplier of a full range of aircraft. It positions Cessna well against Piper.

Ken

[EasyEd]

Hey All,

I would guess the King Airs are "safe" - isn't there a big contract for them as of August?

Cessna King Air - nice ring to it - you think?

The jets are probably toast - where are they made/assembled? Who is going unemployed?

Yes well positioned against Piper but what about the rest of the world?

My personal favorite aircraft are Pilatus and the Kodiak. And then there are all those composite companies - airplane, ultralight, advanced ultralight..

-Ed-

[Skyhawk_310R]

In terms of supplying a full range of GA aircraft, who is there other than Piper and Cessna if this acquisition of Beech goes through? There are certainly outstanding GA builders other than Cessna and Piper out there, but I am talking about one company that can sell you from their line an economical single engine certified aircraft, a high performance single engine aircraft, a piston twin GA airplane, and a range of high performance turboprop or turbojet aircraft?

If this deal goes through, Piper finally has one other company that can do that. Up until now, Beech lacked the economical single engine GA plane, with only their Bonanza as a single engine piston option, and that is high performance and complex. Beech never had anything that would work well as a primary civilian trainer. On the other hand, Cessna abandoned by choice the piston twin market and never did work a turboprop twin engine type to compete with the King Air series. Now, with this acquisition, Cessna has the full range to offer customers.

Ken

[Daveroo]

the story i read also said that the BeechJet side was being looked at by an un-named company.

[EasyEd]

Hey All,

I'm not sure why it is necessary to supply a full range of aircraft - pride?

Be good if somebody continues their jets - more unemployment is not needed.

-Ed-

[Skyhawk_310R]

Hey All,

I'm not sure why it is necessary to supply a full range of aircraft - pride?

Be good if somebody continues their jets - more unemployment is not needed.

-Ed-

It leverages the market better because you can market a brand loyalty for either a business or a customer as he upgrades his fleet. There are certain advantages when your fleet comes from one supplier. It can simply the parts logistics since one part might be compatible with multiple aircraft types in your fleet. You can start a person in an entry level single engine aircraft, such as a Skyhawk, and then as time passes leverage that customer's satisfaction into upgrade to say a 300 series single engine airplane or now even a twin-engine Baron.

In Piper's sales plan, they make a very big deal of this in telling customers they can handle the full range of their needs.

Now, Cessna is in a position to compete with that.

Ken

[TeaSea]

Much more problematic is the state of the industry as a whole. Ken May have a point, the market may only be able to support two major US manufacturers.

Of course this does not take into account other types of aircraft LSA or O'Seas producers.

[Skyhawk_310R]

Indeed, my concern also is with the shrinking totality of the GA market. In looking at the influence of the FAA, it appears some in that agency are trying to destroy general aviation! The FAA's recent headlong effort to implement a sleep apnea study requirement on GA pilots without even so much as a public hearing makes one wonder what some of these people are willing to destroy to increase their perception of power! Congress watched as the FAA ignored everyone, including their own medical examiners, before passing legislation designed to end that foolish idea!

The FAA has been offered many good ideas to help revitalize the GA industry. The prime issue is shrinking pilot population, which isn't a risk for GA only. As pilots in America reduce, it hurts a lot of allied industries. The military in the US has done an excellent job of stemming the flow of their pilots to the airline industry through long term minimum service contracts. There has to be some attraction and the FAA's extremely expensive certification test process adds great costs to avionics that make them beyond affordable for too many existing customers in the GA market place.

People can drive vehicles that weight three times more than single engine low horsepower aircraft and yet there is no special medical exam administrated by the DOT, nor any other state agency. You just have to demonstrate good vision with or without corrective lenses. Yet, despite agreeing to Congressional requests to adopt the same motor vehicle license medical standard for all VFR flight ops with a single engine airplane of 180 horsepower or less, the FAA recently said it "wasn't a priority of there's to consider it!"

Congress answered that lack of interest with a bill that goes way beyond that to mandate the FAA adopt that relaxed standard for a wide range of GA planes, including piston twins, for VFR operations.

The sense of Congress is anger toward the FAA. The FAA's foot-dragging on RPA's has been another source of frustration, not only in Congress but also within multiple other federal and state agencies! The FAA simply isn't on very many peoples' Christmas card lists anymore!

Ken

[EasyEd]

Hey All,

I get the idea of a full line - but I wonder just how much consumer loyalty there is versus price of a competitor. I'd like to see the numbers. The other point is fewer suppliers usually equals oligopoly and if few enough monopoly - neither of which is good for price.

The point about loss of future pilots - well duh - no wages no middle class no pilots - pretty simple and yeah some of the government regulation is too much and does not help.

-Ed-

[Skyhawk_310R]

A lot more than you might think. For one thing, cockpit layout is a somewhat common thing for a single manufacturer. More examples, Beech used that throw-over yoke, which I hate. Piper's cockpit layouts often slide the primary instruments off centerline of the yoke. Cessna's interior cockpits also tend to feature a more up and down cockpit side while both Beech and Piper tend to curve their's more and that made me always feel cramped in their planes with my left shoulder always riding tight at the window level.

Beech parts also cost more than Cessna parts and often the quantity of parts and spread of parts availability is less for Beech than Cessna.

Ken

[gman5250]

I think Ed hit the nail on the head. The age of the middle class pilot is disappearing and there is no indication that it will be recovering in the near future. Those niche aircraft will go the way of most other products that were the economic backbone of our economy. You can use the recreational boating industry as an example. In the seventies and eighties the market was saturated with manufacturers who made overlapping product lines. The market was fat with cash so there was enough share to go around.

With the first fuel crunch things changed rapidly. The manufacturers had to trim their lines and one by one they began to disappear. The remaining heavy hitters assimilated the tooling and re branded under the condensed product lines. This continued as the market shrank. Towards the end the only market was for high ticket offshore hot rods that only a few could afford. I was in the industry for 10 years building these exotic machines. There were jet skis for the average Joe, and two thousand horsepower, blown 42' H20 missiles for the elite. To be honest, the drug market paid for most of those. The cartels needed to outrun the DEA birds so you saw the likes of Fountain and the others filling the bill.

Harley went down the same path. Folks always said oooh rah, Harley made in America. HD has long purchased a large portion of their parts inventory from China. HD is merely assembled in America, but the aftermarket business is all Chinese manufacture except for companies like S&S and a handful of others. Harley is now looking at moving to China and building mini scooters. End of era.

Textron ran a real bad stretch of management for quite a few years and ended up in a world of hurt. With the new ceo and his GE connections it looks like TEX will be around as long as the government contracts are plentiful. If you are TEX, you do what makes sense and grab up the low hanging fruit. Beech is a prime candidate. TEX will blend the line with their existing lineup and cover the spread.

It seems the aircraft industry is just about the only domestic producer left in this country but without the military sector to cover the operating costs there is really no incentive to develop for the shrinking private sector. This trend shows no indicators of changing over the next decade. TEX will not hesitate to chop of the dead wood when the appropriate time comes.

Ken mentioned the FAA. What happens when the domestic drones begin flying? We're already looking at 30,000 by the year 2020 for DHS and PD across the country. How will this affect private aviation? Certification is going to become completely prohibitive for the private pilot.

I've got to add an IMHO at this point. 30,000 drones? Who is going to fly these things? HR 658 the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act was passed last year and wants certification by 2015 for up to 30K additional drones of various size and application in the skys over the US. What airspace will they occupy? What impact will this have on general aviation?

As a (proxy) developer for LM I recognize that we are looking at a generation of real air pilots that will never see the left seat. I don't care what kind of training you give these kids, this is asking for real trouble and it could have a profound effect on general aviation. This is, of course, conjecture at this point, but the legislation is codified and I develop scenery to train the new kids. There will be no formal introduction to the sky as with traditional flight training, it will be a few months of computer training then off you go little fella. This is insanity. End of IMHO

Fuel is another factor. Fuel surcharges are increasing with no indication of reaching a ceiling and the market is extremely vulnerable to global influence. If your aircraft requires JetA this probably not a factor, yet, but general aviation is becoming ever more cost prohibitive.

All factors considered the TEX move is inevitable. There will eventually be one uber manufactuer and at some point another layer of TARP will fund their exportation offshore. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is already laying those foundations and TEX will follow the rest of the migration once the bottom line demands a move. If the move is funded by the taxpayer it makes the decision automatic.

Everyone on this site has a passion for aviation. Amerian aviation is one of the few remaining honorable traditions left in this country but its ranks are declining. I worked for Bill Lear's daughter for a few years. I know the inside family story. The legendary Bill Lear and men like him were the backbone of this country. It shames me as an American to watch our heritage being sold off piecemeal by multi-national corporate zombies who have little or no regard for anything but profit.

As always IMHO.

[EasyEd]

Hey All,

Well I think we can mostly agree on the problems. The issue is the solutions. From a developed world perspective (it is different for developing or 3rd world countries) the one "solution" that will no longer "work" is competition - the world has decided to accept oligarchies. Who has the money to compete with them? Who can even get a loan to compete (banks don't loan in the face of no demand besides they are free to gamble with "money" for higher returns)? The other solution that will not work is "creativity" in product development. All the "low hanging fruit" has been picked and who has the money to afford "ladders" to pick "fruit" higher up (meaning ability to fund product development costs)? You cant build something in your garage anymore. And then there are all the requirements regarding fundamental safety - who wants to lose those? And then there is all the labour eliminating innovation - in the face of an ever increasing world population. And coming and make no mistake they are coming will be the ecological limitations - the earth has a fixed amount of resources and man is not leaving this planet anytime soon. This is the world in which we now live and we can "discuss" "symptoms" and point fingers of blame all we like but what are the realistic solutions?

Note there is nothing political in what I wrote - there is no right or left wing bashing anywhere in the above - it is simply the way I currently see things.

-Ed-

[N2056]

I can't help but wonder about Textron's position regarding licensing their stuff for the sims. I could see them carry that over to the Beechcraft products.

[srgalahad]

Apparently a 'done deal' at $1.4 billion...
No word on what may get axed or combined but I'm sure there will be changes. If they keep the Beech operation as quasi-independent the ripple will be smaller but I won't bet against some production facilities getting shuffled/closed.

I can't help but wonder about Textron's position regarding licensing their stuff for the sims. I could see them carry that over to the Beechcraft products.

Based on TEX history of hiring lawyers before engineers, this is something to watch. Wonder when the letters will go out to anyone who (other than the default a/c I suppose) DARED to model - and worse, SELL anything remotely resembling any Beech design back to the Staggerwing or beyond. Of course, we don't know what some add-on companies have worked out prior to this with the Cessna division so it may not have any visible impact - or it might.

[rpetty]

According to the New York Times, Beechcraft's CEO will keep the King Air line, which complements Textron/Cessna's Caravan. The Beechcraft name, will also most likely stay as it represents an iconic brand of aircraft, with Beechcraft operating under the parent company of Textron. The NY Times also cited that most of Beechcraft's current employees will stay. However, the Beechjet and Hawker jet lines will likely be sold off with Beechcraft maintaining its infield service centers to support these jets. A good idea as customer loyalty may translate into new aircraft sales under Textron.

[CWOJackson]

Something not being discussed is culture.

There are plenty of people with the means to get into general aviation that have no desire or inclination to do so, and in many instances, when they do get interested they're often interested in the small, higher performance aircraft. Flying just doesn't capture the imagination the way it used to; the heroes, interests and priorities of newer generations are totally different. When most folks around here were kids "a pilot" was probably up at the top of the list of what kids wanted to be when they grew up. It's not like that any more.

Add to that, there is a wealth of used aircraft out there.

[Willy]

One thing's for sure. I doubt they'll bring back my favorite Beech, the Model 18.

[TeaSea]

Nope....Beech 18, airplane from another era...when fuel was cheap and pilots cheaper....and their women....well.......

[stansdds]

I can't help but wonder about Textron's position regarding licensing their stuff for the sims. I could see them carry that over to the Beechcraft products.

I had not thought of that, but yes, Textron has a history of requiring the purchase of licenses before the release of any sort of model or representation of anything made by a company owned by Textron.