Thread: Flight Design marketing and sales stats?

Greetings,
Sometime in the future I along with a partner(s) will be purchasing a CTLS. It was an easy choice in doing due dilligence when compared to the S........r and the R...s. However, everywhere I look from AOPA to AvWeb all I see are free giveaways and advertisements for R...s. What gives with Flight Design? I know times are tough, but has their marketing campaign evaporated? Did they ever have one? Aside from Sebring and the major airshows, I've only seen one ad recently in AOPA Pilot. How could they have missed all the high visibility that AOPA could bring to their company by throwing a free CTLS at them for the great exposure the opportunity would provide? I have even been approached by a few pilots who are favoring the competition to buy in as a partner. Product, place, price and promotion is the name of the game. Anyone aware of recent stats available as to their U.S. sales compared to R...s? How about cumulative sales comparison in the U.S? I'm trying to gather some info to present to the pilots who are considering the competition. Any help you can provide is much appreciated.
Ron

R.e.m.o.s finances are in the toilet. It may be because they banked on sales with a exorbitant spending for advertising, but that didn't work. I had a business and know exactly what those big page ads run for. They may be broke because of the big advertising or it could be because they are 2 mil in debt and have 4 mil in lawsuits. Who knows for sure. There are a ton of them sitting and have been sitting for a long time at the US R.e.m.o.s distributor. As they take their last few breaths someone is going to have to dump these at a major discount, but there won't be any support or parts, especially those made just for a R.e.m.o.s If advertising was so great why aren't there only a few CT's and 320+ R.e.m.o.s's. in the owner's hands instead of the other way around.

Roger,
Thanks for this perspective. I'll pass this along to those interested. They should ask some tough questions based on this information. Hopefully they will change their minds and perhaps consider a CTLS light.
Ron

Hi Ron,

You should be able to sell them on the performance specs of the CT alone. Its a fantastic airplane. Flight Design also has great support for their products and that becomes really important when you need a part.

Regards
Eric Swisher
Copper City Aviation Services

Ron, I'm writing this on my iPad so it will be short until I get home from Sun n Fun. FD gave a plane away last year. The bottom line is simple. There isn't the margin in these planes nor the volume to sustain a large advertising campaign. FD instead has taken a different path and that's to make the best product and a company that will last into the future.

It's simple why they've sold more then anyone else... Most pilots have done their shopping and figured it out. More when get home.

Roger H

Ron, if they haven't done this already, talk those friends who are in the pre-buy stage to fly both the R.emos and the CTLS a few hours to fully understand the differences between the two. They will need a few hours and take a short x-country trip. I trained in a CTSW but then rented and flew a R.emos GX after getting my Sport certificate. The R.emos was a nice plane and flew well but here's the things I feel make the CT preferrable over R.emos:

Visability. The CT's have excellent visability, especially side visability, compared to the R.emos
Comfort - CT's cabin is about 3" wider and the seats have more back angle. Good for long trips.
Storage - great cargo room on both sides behind the seats on CT's. R.emos has a fuel tank here.
Speed. CT's are faster.
Range - CT has 33 gal. R.emos has 21 gal.

My feeling is that a lot of people may initially be interested in the R.emos due to the huge amount of advertising that they do. Flight Design seems to be selling aircraft by word of mouth. My take on this is once both aircraft are actually flown, "real world" wins out over "perception".

Ok, I give up and yes, I know this is slightly off topic. Why do we spell R.emos and ***** and etc? Are we afraid of a lawsuit? Am I just slow to pick up on this? What gives? Maybe I missed a thread warning somewhere. We don't do it for Allegros, Flycatchers, Lightnings, etc. Why are the ***** so special? Is it because of the warning on another sport pilot site about a threatened lawsuit if you say any bad about them? Please let me know and you can PM if you are afraid to say in public. I'd just like to know for my own curiosity.

Thanks, in advance, for enlightening me.

John

Eric, Roger, Dick,
I'm grateful for your responses and thoughts! I'm with you. I just don't believe that there is a better option out there than a CTLS......and now the lite. I flew the R...s last year in Sebring along with the CTLS and feel there is just no comparison. I'd like to use it for both local expensive hamburgers and long cross countries....so it's perfect. I'm going to forward the link to this page to one of the pilots who is considering the competition. He's got about 20+ hours in that bird. Perhaps I can convince him to fly a CTLS at the dealer that's approximately 200 miles from where we live. I've even been on the lookout for a used CTLS for quite a while and haven't been successful. I guess that says a lot. Roger Lee said there were 320+ F.D.s in the U.S. I wonder how that compares to R...s? I'd like to explore partnering with them, but it's got to be a win for all of us or it just won't work. If they won't reconsider, I'll just keep looking for another partner.
Many thanks,
Ron

Originally Posted by Roger Lee

R.e.m.o.s finances are in the toilet. It may be because they banked on sales with a exorbitant spending for advertising, but that didn't work. I had a business and know exactly what those big page ads run for. They may be broke because of the big advertising or it could be because they are 2 mil in debt and have 4 mil in lawsuits. Who knows for sure. There are a ton of them sitting and have been sitting for a long time at the US R.e.m.o.s distributor. As they take their last few breaths someone is going to have to dump these at a major discount, but there won't be any support or parts, especially those made just for a R.e.m.o.s If advertising was so great why aren't there only a few CT's and 320+ R.e.m.o.s's. in the owner's hands instead of the other way around.

I hadn't heard any of this. I thought they just got a bunch more financing? Where is the info on lawsuits; I can't see any when I google. I almost bought one before I decided instead on my CTSW

I just traded a great CTLS in to AirTime Aviation in Tulsa last week for a new one. I commute to work in mine so needing a few rite-offs before tax day I traded N785K in for a new one. Its a great bird with black leather and a 696 and Zaon traffic hard wired into the 696. If you get interested in it call me with any questions at 608-778-0328