Hi lads,
I'm not apologising for the Guimbal factory team, but just to say that when I visited them at Aix en Provence in February, they had moved into a spanking new factory a couple of weeks earlier, the wall paint was barely dry! ... so they won't have been able to settle in yet and I know my air test published in LOOP has generated too many enquiries for them.
Their current
PR person is Mrs Guimbal who has two small youngsters to look after.
But .. the plans are in hand. Staff recruiting, component suppliers, production workers etc. While I was with them no assembly line existed and I doubt if that has happened even now. And just to make one point clear. The Guimbal factory IS NOT controlled by Eurocopter in any areas other than a future deal on production ... perhaps five years or more away. It is entirely a Bruno Guimbal personal show.
I guess the LOOP publicity really was a little premature. Bruno Guimbal was indicating to me that first production ship was probably two years away, so he is not looking at any sales programme for now. (still doesn't excuse a non reply situation to phones/e-mails tho. But he speaks particularly good English.
Of course the currency is now working against him. The US dollar is available for tuppence, while the Euro is at its strongest ever. Perhaps we should scrap the pound and take on the Euro!!
Take care all,
Dennis Kenyon.