John, Good luck with the new venture, it sounds like a win-win.
I have to admit, when I first starting reading the post, I was afraid you were telling the group that you we getting out of the business, I was scared to death! In my home town, Santa Cruz, CA, the Harley-Davidson dealer just abruptly closed his doors and left everyone in the county hanging. It was a BIG dealership. The economy is scary. Thanks for your continued commitment to Coupes. I wish I was closer. Chris 99674 in restoration previous owner of 99701 in 1972. [email protected] wrote: There is 1 message in this issue. Topics in this digest: 1. Please don't call until Monday.... From: John Cooper Message ________________________________________________________________________ 1. Please don't call until Monday.... Posted by: "John Cooper" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri Nov 14, 2008 1:56 pm ((PST)) Customers and friends: It is hard to believe that it has been five years since I set the wheels in motion to acquire Skyport. In the past, the Skyport parts business had always been part of a larger enterprise. Originally, in 1946, Skyport was an Ercoupe sales and service organization. When it was sold to me, all that was being sold was the parts inventory and the STCs and tooling for the modifications that had been developed over the years. There was no physical plant, no shop tools and no service business. Over the ensuing 5 years I have wrestled with what exactly Skyport should be. Should we provide a maintenance shop for fly-in traffic? Should we acquire planes and restore them? Should we do restoration work for others? What about manufacturing? Should we be making wheel pants or 30 gallon fuel systems? In our current location we are limited to off-airport activities only. In addition, it has been difficult to get and keep qualified personnel to support a manufacturing effort. This has sort of doomed us to a dead end street. Over the years I have spoken with a number of interested parties about how we might break the ice jam, but nothing ever came from any of these discussions, until now. One of our customers has been involved in repairing and restoring a number of Ercoupes and has access to a large maintenance facility, as well as qualified employees. Recently, the owner expressed an interest in getting involved with Skyport. The name of the outfit is Safe Flight Aviation, LLC. They are located at Hook Field in Middletown, Ohio, the long-time home of Aeronca. The principals have been in aviation maintenance since 1997. While the final details have yet to be worked out, we have decided to move the day-to-day operations to Middletown effective November 17, 2008. The business will continue to operate under the Skyport Services name and the 800 number will remain the same. I will continue to be involved, although I will no longer be the front man, as it were. This will result in a number of immediate improvements for Skyport and our customers. We will be able to stay open more hours. We will have more personnel to expedite shipping and reduce delays due to backorders. Shipping time to many parts of the country, especially the West Coast, will be reduced due to the more central location. Also, a new, updated catalog will be printed and distributed. Maintenance and restoration work will also be available through Safe Flight Aviation, LLC. On a slightly longer time frame, we will be looking at returning some of the other STCs to production, including wheel pants and the 30 gallon fuel system. We will also be looking at updated replacements of some other critical parts, like fuel valves. All in all, I think this move will solve a lot of the issues Skyport has been faced with over the last 5 years as well as allow us to expand the business to encompass more of the things people have asked for, and allow us to provide overall better service to our customers. Thank you for your continued support, John Cooper Messages in this topic (1) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --o-O-o--
