While writing stuff about aviation is fun, I’ve noticed that a lot of my babble is critical, or has some negative twist to it. But since we live in an industry that runs so high on passion, dreams and people that actually like what they do for a living, writing about it is fun - even for a crabby critic.
But critics have a role, and most recently, when reading one of my wife’s sociology papers, it dawned on me: Society (and by extension aviation) suffers from a substantial dichotomy between what we say (and do) privately vs. what we say and do publicly. That is how projects like Dayjet and Eclipse go so far off the rails, so quickly, and with so much money.
Being a critic usually distills down to some flavor of testing the marketing. Testing what is represented vs. what is delivered is where customers and critics become the best extension of your marketing department or your worst nightmare. In the case of Dayjet, we doubted the airplane, the viability of the model, etc., even though they appeared to be the strongest player amongst the air taxi revolutionaries. On the plus side these guys had money, and had plans. They had even tested their plans using computer simulation - but while economic reasons were cited for parking the fleet, the reality is that their problems predated (by years) the woes of Country Wide, AIG, and Lehman Bros. (And the rest that have not fallen yet.)
In fact, Wall Street’s woes have little or nothing to do with their problems. Unless, of course, Wall Street was the gas station where you planned on tanking up w/ another $50 MM. Because, you don’t actually make money. You just spend it.
The scary part about the investment game is the requirement that the public face you wear discourages the private face from being part of your charm… people like it too, since they feel that it tells you what is actually going on. Most smaller Part 135 firms exude this quality. They want you to believe them, and in turn they tell the truth. The problem with the truth, however, is that it is usually a tougher story than an amazing story. Stories are great, just make sure they are true.
What is the lesson from yet another collapse? Honesty. The ability to reconcile what you say publicly with what you are actually doing is a really hard way to grow a business, but it is the only way to do it in a fashion that prevents meltdowns, wasted time, and sudden unemployment to folks who were promised a lot more.
Consider Eclipse: How will folks remember Vern Raburn? The constant pyramid scheme that he pushed eventually caught up with him. Few will have a good opinion of his tenure, and by extension, the little airplane, the industry and the charter world will suffer.
Perhaps the best way to use conferences like these, is to talk about the mistakes we make. Now that the news is public and the fleet has been grounded, it might be an opportune time to share what not to do and how to avoid another run into the wall. We’ve always felt that mistakes are good story telling material, make you stronger and always give you a good take away. The key however, is being able to survive them.
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