Factory visit (1)

This is it, the date is set!
Satuday, August 25th, 7 of us set course to the Aquila factory in Schönhagen. Tim Drubbel reserved a DA-40, and Rik Douwes (Air Waterland, Aquila importer) reserved a Piper Archer. Now, we are all heavily mailing back and forth to come to a distribution of people over the planes, and making hotel reservations.  Peter Eier is making a week out of it, to see Berlin. He has already booked a flight and hotel, so now the rest is trying to book into the same hotel, so that we get to hang out for the entire Saturday. Maybe a good deal of the Sunday as well. In any case, this way, we don't need to make a three hour international flight after a doubtlessly very tyring Saturday. And it will make us enjoy the journey itself all the more :)
Now let's hope the summer weather kicks in finally ...

The plane is ordered!

Somewhere mid-June, the Aquila has been ordered from the factory in Schönhagen (EDAZ, just South of Berlin)!
Link to the site of the factory
Expected delivery dat is the 22nd of October. Slightly more that the 3 months delivery time that was given before, due to closure of the factory during the summer holidays.
That's not so much of a problem for me, since I will need even more time to fill my savings reservoir to a level that will allow me to continue taking lessons on a regular basis. I expect that to take at least until fall next year, maybe even later...

F-HARN, Aquila A210 demonstrator for during the wait for the delivery

Corporation Vuelo U.A. officially founded

Yesterday, the 24th of May, the board, and a notary, signed the constitution, which officially founded the corporation "coöperatie Vuelo U.A.".
Today, the corporation will be registered with the Chamber of Commerce, and that it's all official.
This marks the first important step of the process that will eventually lead towards actually ordering the plane.
The next step will be for the tax authorities to declare the corporation VAT liable, which would result in the corporation not having to pay VAT over the purchase price of the aircraft. As VAT is 21%, this is a potential show-stopper for this entire endeavour...
Also, some candidates still need to be persuaded to actually pay up the money they agreed to, before the actual purchase order can be placed.


During the last members meeting, as they are called as of now, the board introduced themselves:
Patrick Tediek (president)
Ernesto Lopez Vega (treasurer)
Piet de Hondt (Secretary)
and proposed the name Vuelo. That name is obviously inspired by the Spanish background of our treasurer ;) The U.A. stands for "No Liability". That means that the largest risk for participants is the initial fee. All other risks must be covered by insurances. In the eventual case of bankruptcy of the corporation, if there is still a debt after selling the inventory, and paying off all creditors, the participants won't be held liable for that. That all won't happen, of course, but it's a comforting thought.

During that same meeting, all the topics regarding the plane and it's equipment I mentioned in the previous post were mentioned again, but this time as dicisions instead of proposals. We also talked a bit more in depth on the agreement between the corporation and kLM Aeroclub.In practice, KLM Aeroclub will be responsible for the operation of the aircraft, where the corporation will be responsible for providing, maintaining, and insuring the aircraft. The pilot won't notice the corporation exists. KLM Aeroclub will bill the pilot directly for the wet-lease tariff,and the corporation will bill KLM Aeroclub once a month for the dry lease fee. That way, the corporation benefits from the operational discounts of KLM Aeroclub, and the pilot has only one, well equipped, point of contact. The member administration of the corporation will be synchronised with the KLM Aeroclub administration once a month, to ensure that the participants get billed according to the lower rate ;)

There has been a new development regarding the flight deck equipment: besides the fact that the stand-by altimeter and speedometer are standard instruments that come togetjer with the G500, Garrecht is in the process of getting a new gadget certified. That would comprise of a FLARM unit with ADSB-In, which uses the MFD of the G500 as an output in overlay mode. Which means as much as that the right hand computer display on the panel, which usually displays the map with the planes current position and heading, will then also display symbols for all the detected traffic in the vicinity of the air plane. That will, of course, greatly enhance the safety, especially in the neighbourhood of airports and glider sites. The meeting decided to wait for the certification to come through, before putting up a vote to go purchase the equipment (and therewith not to include the stand-alone instrument at this time).

Besides the VAT liability, the actual payment of the remaining participants is another potential show-stopper that has to be dealt with soon. In the meeting we agreed to put the deadline on June the first. If at that moment not all payments are in, a members meeting will be called with the subject the liquidation of the corporation... Let's just hope it does not come to that!

By the way: the first of June is therewith also determined as the final date for new entries, so if you want to participate, there is still a small window of opportunity ...

Dotting some "i"s

On Thursday, the 11th of April, KLM Aeroclub had organised the first "shareholders meeting" for the Aquila A210 share holders. Now that the minimum number of share holders is reached, it is time to set up the cooperation, and that takes some formalities. There needs to be a board, and a constitution. The corporation will order the plane, so it must be decided exactly what to order (colour, equipment, registration, etc.)

It giet ôan

"It goes on", as they say in Friesland
Yesss!

The minimum number of 40 shareholders was reached, so now the corporation can be officially founded, and the Aquila can be ordered!

This winglet is mine!

On April 1st (the end date of the initial agreement), pretty precisely 40 shares were sold. That leaves about 10 more shares to be potentially available, as the maximum is set to 50. Now, with 40 shares, there is enough money to place the order for the airplane. Until the final payment is due, there is still some time for up to 10 new shareholders to join. But even if it stays at 40 shareholders, the deal is on. More shareholders would mean a lower share price, (with a proportionally lower profit).
Founding the corporation, drawing up agreements, ordering the plane, it will all take a little time. With a delivery time of the airplane of about three months, somewhere around the end of July, beginning of August, the KLM Aeorclub fleet will grow by ine two-seater. An I will "co-own" 2 to 2.5% of that one! :)

Demo Day

Saturday the 10th of March, KLM Aeroclub held an Aquila demo day for which a couple of FIs provided their services for free. So at a couple of tenners per hour less cost, it was extra interesting to come and try out the A210, this weekend.
I went too, despite the fact that  already signed the agreement, and did the downpayment. For me, this day was more about socialising, and of course about the progress in finding the necessary participants. Also, I wanted to have some pictures of the already third demonstrator for the club. After the D-EWTF, another one has come and gone already. Now it was F-HARN's turn to complete the club's fleet.

The Aquilla also a very interesting business investment...

I am a technician, so I usually don't endeavour on the economical path. But this is an open door I would like to kick in anyway:

The shared ownership construction with the Aquila of KLM Aeroclub is also very interesting as a business investment opportunity. Even if the business does not appoint a pilot that can fly at a reduced rate. The expected ROI is 10%!