Experimental Release Held Up By Certification Effort

When we profiled the AeroAdvantage vacuum pump in our Sun 'N Fun coverage, we reported that the company thought they'd be making deliveries, starting about now. Since everything having to do with outsourcing and certification takes longer than expected, we nagged the David Boldenow, the General Manager, for a progress report -- and we got one! Here 'tis:

We, at Aero Advantage, want to give all of our future customers an update on the status of certification and delivery of our Dual Rotor Vacuum Pumps for both certified and experimental aircraft owners.

As of November 27, 2002, Aero Advantage completed its final test flight for FAA certification. The November 27 flight demonstrated that the Aero Advantage Dual Rotor Vacuum Pump was capable of operating two gyroscopic instruments with only one rotor operating in the Dual Rotor Vacuum Pump. This test was easily passed.

During certification testing we also demonstrated dynamic failures of each rotor while operating at maximum RPM. Performance of the other rotor during these tests was unaffected. Life testing was also completed and both chambers of the Dual Rotor Vacuum Pump exceeded the recommendation for operational life before remanufacturing.

All tests for certification were completed on the first attempt, with no test points having to be repeated due to failure.

At this time, all of the paper work for certification is being organized in its final form, and should be on the FAA's engineer's desk for signature [momentarily]. Then we have to wait for the FAA ACO signature and typing of all of the STCs that will go along with the Dual Rotor Vacuum Pump.

What about deliveries for owners of experimental aircraft?

We had originally planned to begin deliveries of Dual Rotor Vacuum Pumps to owners of experimental aircraft at the end of August 2002. In retrospect, trying to deal with the problems of getting over 20 vendors on line building parts to our quality requirements, along with trying to certify a brand new product, was much more work than we anticipated.

Problems encountered with two separate vendors pushed back delivery of Dual Rotor Vacuum Pumps to experimental aircraft owners by about 4 months. We had enough parts to build up Dual Rotor Vacuum Pumps for certification and limited experimental aircraft testing, but we did not have enough parts to begin any large-scale distribution.

The good news is, with certification testing now completed, we can devote 100% of our efforts towards production and getting Dual Rotor Vacuum Pumps to both certified and experimental aircraft owners.

So, when?

Many people have been asking us, "When will I be able to take delivery of a Dual Rotor Vacuum Pump?" This is not an easy question to answer. We have a very large number of people who have expressed an interest in purchasing a Dual Rotor Vacuum Pump. But, until we can determine the number of actual orders for early delivery, we will be hard pressed to give the exact delivery times. What we can say with confidence is that the initial deliveries of Dual Rotor Vacuum Pumps will begin in early January 2003.
--David A. Boldenow

FMI: www.aeroadvantage.com