Plans To Deliver Two This Year, 40 Next Year

Adam Aircraft says it's produced the first customer aircraft from the company's assembly facility at Centennial Airport in Englewood (CO).

"Although this is our sixth rollout, it is really special because it's the first customer airplane," said Rick Adam, CEO of Adam Aircraft.

Having recently received Type Inspection Authorization (TIA) by the FAA on September 30, 2004, Adam Aircraft is beginning full-scale production of A500 aircraft. Before year-end 2004, two customer aircraft will be delivered and production will be ramped to 40 aircraft in 2005. "Rollout of the first customer A500 is a very exciting event," said Joe Walker, President of Adam Aircraft. "The company has shifted its A500 development activities to production and support of customer aircraft."

During A500 development, a large percentage of Adam Aircraft's engineering efforts were spent on optimizing the A500 for production. Modular designs for all major airframe components, engines, and systems, allow the aircraft to be efficiently assembled. Use of high performance carbon fiber material, reduces the part count of each aircraft, resulting in a higher quality construction. These, and other modern design features on the A500, directly benefit the manufacturing process.

Adam Aircraft has also come up with what it says is an industry-leading process for building each aircraft. Its proprietary software system plans all production steps, tracks parts and assemblies as they are completed, and records all quality assurance information throughout the process. Coupled with in-house tooling capability and use of industry leading carbon fiber fabrication methods, Adam Aircraft precisely manages all aspects of quality in manufacturing.

"The rollout of the first customer A500, confirms the effectiveness of our manufacturing process and its ability to produce an aircraft of the highest standards," said Kevin Gould, Senior Vice President of Operations for Adam Aircraft. "Our successful completion of this aircraft gives us confidence that we will meet or exceed our production ramp-up plan of 40 aircraft in 2005."

FMI: www.adamaircraft.com