AAI Albatross to be upgraded in NSW

[Rotor Work]

From ABC

Amphibian aircraft factory to give NSW Central Coast multi-million-dollar boost - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-27/multi-million-dollar-airplane-factory-takes-off-on-central-coast/7882832)

A $100 million aircraft manufacturing facility that specialises in building amphibious airplanes will bring hundreds of new jobs to the Central Coast, the NSW Premier has announced.

Premier Mike Baird said the company, Amphibian Aerospace Industries (AAI), would relocate its operations from the United States to the Central Coast Airport at Warnervale, where it plans to upgrade its amphibious Albatross aircraft for customers across the world.

[tail wheel]

No Cookies | Daily Telegraph (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/central-coast/amphibian-aerospace-industries-to-create-thousands-of-jobs-with-central-coast-manufacturing-facility/news-story/1e89123f4e222cc8f3f76d8d6aa70c85)

Announcing the airport coup at Warnervale today, Premier Mike Baird said Amphibian Aerospace Industries (AAI) would relocate its offshore manufacturing to the Central Coast and become the first transport category aircraft manufacturer to set up in Australia since the 1940s.

Victa, GAF, de Havilland and a few others started and operated in Australia until they saw the light.......

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/Woomera/PPRuNe/Amphibian_zpsoz6m0gfh.jpg

"Amphibian Aerospace Industries at work on building amphibious aircraft."


A touch of journalistic license I guess............ :}

[thorn bird]

From the picture it appears they intend to put floats on a metro.

I don't expect things to happen any time soon.

Take at least ten years for "Consultations" with "Stakeholders" CAsA and the maritime services board to decide if its a boat or an aircraft.

Someone should enlighten them that aviation is not welcome in Australia, New Zealand would be a much better place to start their venture, only property developers are welcome in Australia.

[Sunfish]

Sounds like one council is prepared to take the risk....

CASA will no doubt place every possible regulatory obstacle to success in their path, starting with stratospheric fees for approvals. I'm told that this is what they did to Gippsland aeronautics.

however should the project succeed, maybe other councils and state governments might think there is a better future for regional airports than mere property development scams - assuming that the albatross project is genuine and not a property scam itself.

[Stanwell]

Sunny,
The last phrase of your above post parallels my cynical thinking on this one.
I smell a rat - a large one .. and it has very little to do with any aviation industry.
Let's see, shall we?

[no_one]

Does anyone know anything about "Amphibian Aerospace Industries"? A google search only turns up references to this announcement.

[onetrack]

Nothing associated with this "trumpeted" deal makes any sense. America is the home of aviation manufacturing, the home of aviation component and accessory suppliers and the home of substantial numbers of educated people with aviation construction skills. In addition, the total population market between Canada and South America is more than 500M people.

If you manufacture Down Under, the vital aviation components and accessories all have to be imported, adding cost in delays, in freight and in adverse exchange rates.
Then the labour market doesn't have the aviation skills and would have to be trained up, at more cost.
Finally, the market for their amphibians in the Pacific region is down to maybe 50M people, not 500M.

And if they think they're going to crack into the Chinese aviation market, well, they just might get a little shock when the Chinese suddenly produce their own, home-grown competent, and competing model of amphibian.

After all, it's not like AAI have a new and radical design of aircraft with simpler and cheaper construction, low cost inputs, low fuel-burn engines, or low purchase price.

Funnily enough, I commented along these line in the DT article yesterday - and today all ability to comment, and all of yesterdays comments, have been completely removed by the DT. Media manipulation?? Never!!

[onetrack]

no one - They have a website, but not an especially enlightening one. They have the rights to build the old Grumman amphibian.

Amphibaircraft.com (http://www.amphibaircraft.com/home/)

[Progressive]

The company was registered in Australia 4 months ago:
https://www.australiacheck.com/business/92612226507/amphibian-aerospace-industries-pty-ltd

And the company president lives in Sydney....

I don't see them moving the whole operation to Aus (for all the reasons discussed above), however setting up a FAA approved center here to provide upgrade services for the south east Asia market is more plausible. With the increasing security concerns in the south china sea and the increased emphasis on border security they may see a market for the patrol versions

[no_one]

Thanks Onetrack. Interesting reading.

[Wunwing]

Onetrack.

I basically agree with you but not about suitable tradesmen. Having recently been involved in very detailed rebuilds of WW2 aircraft, there seems to be a ready pool of ex airline trades, especially fitters, sheet metal workers and avionics and all are capable of a very high standard of work.

I do wonder at the standard of their website.There a lot of re-engined aircraft around to let them get a photo or graphic of a turbo version. I cant imagine that they'd want to stick with the radials on any rebuild or new build?

Wunwing

[Sunfish]

I shouldn't be cynical but……..

Central Coast Council's administrator Ian Reynolds said the facility would be part of a 40-year lease agreement with AAI, which was the first step in making the airport a hub for light to medium commercial general aviation.

There is a type of 'entrepreneur" called a "main chancer". Basically the guy talks a great story and gets a letter of intent agreeing to the sale of of something to himself. He then uses that "ownership" as part of a good story to leverage other promises of asset sales to himself. He has no, or very little money of his own involved and he then takes the "package" of promises to sell to another group of people who have money and spruikes the "opportunity" to them. His idea is that they get 80% and he keeps 20% of the new venture.

To put it another way, the venture is constructed out of thin air, promises and imagination with other peoples money.

I once worked for a software company who spent $2.00 million on a response to tender for a project that didn't exist. The spriuker represented himself as a relative of a minister in the Indonesian Government. We were to build a new car registration system for Indonesia in return for a commission of $1.00 per car registration. The Directors fell for it. The bloke then tried to sell the system to Indonesia as his own. Needless to say he was not related to the Minister.

In another life Austrade organised for me to meet a guy in Los Angeles who wanted HdeH to build weapons systems for him. When we cut through the BS, what he was asking us to do was evade U.S. export controls - and Austrade had fallen for it!

Victoria established an FMEG (financial and management evaluation group) to look at just such proposals before signing anything in the wake of scandals Thirty years ago.

I hope a similar team will look into the bona fides of this mob before any letters , let alone agreements, are signed. The first thing to check is if they actually own what they say they own.

[troppo]

Antilles Turbo Goose...
Mallard Aviation...
AAI Albatross...

I think I'm seeing a trend...

[rutan around]

Perhaps this idea would work given that the following four momentous events have occurred in the same time frame.

1 New 300HP aircraft engines now cost $62,500 AUD or more

2 There is a useless non binding, result-already-known plebiscite about to waste $175,000,000

3 Two days ago the Ford engine factory at Geelong built its last engine.

4 Australia is losing its manufacturing skills

Why can't the government, just this once, do something sensible and brave? Set up an aircraft engine manufacturing facility in the now disused Ford factory using the skills that turned out 4.5 million car engines. Forget the plebiscite and use the money as seed capital to kick start the new industry. If Ford could sell luxury cars for $60,000 including the engine, surely an aircraft engine could be built to sell for somewhat less than that. At first they could simply copy the latest Lycoming or Continental engine down to its last nut and bolt, since the patents probably ran out 40 years ago. Then they can throw in some of Malcolm's Innovation and come up with a clean sheet design. Today: engines for Australia. Tomorrow: the WORLD.

There's never been a more exiting time for building aircraft engines.

[Sunfish]

Rutan, it's not a property development project so it won't get up. Generations of ANU trained economists in Treasury have built their careers on the wisdom that Australia cannot economically manufacture anything, and if someone seems to be succeeding, there must be a hidden subsidy somewhere which must be offset by extra taxation on the enterprise. Nothing manufacturing is allowed to succeed, it is not permitted.

If the Albatross even looks like a going concern, watch Canberra do everything in its power to sabotage it. Then it joins the bones of Victa, Nomad, Wamira, Airvan and goodness knows what else.

[rutan around]

Sunfish,
I know you are correct so now is the time to think outside the box. Declare a war on unemployment. Once war is declared sack every 'can't do ' handbrake in the system like they did in Britain during the war and let the 'can do' people get on with the job that needs doing.

[Hasherucf]

If you manufacture Down Under, the vital aviation components and accessories all have to be imported, adding cost in delays, in freight and in adverse exchange rates.
Then the labour market doesn't have the aviation skills and would have to be trained up, at more cost.

Do you think Boeing factory workers are fully trained A&P's ? They are mostly people off the street who do repetitive tasks. Noticed in the Glasair factory that most workers were very young AME's

Then it joins the bones of Victa, Nomad, Wamira, Airvan

Airvan has gone bust ?

[Stanwell]

Khoa Huang (AAI Group President).
Let's have a look at his qualifications and 'fields of expertise'.. as he's laid them out on LinkedIn.

Qualifications:
Graduated from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2000 with a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) in Construction Management.
Fields of Expertise:
Among these, he claims .. Project Management, Debt Restructuring and, interestingly, Private Sector Development.
He also claims to have expertise in both military and general aviation. Details of both those are strangely elusive.

Make of that what you will.

[gerry111]

"There's never been a more exiting [sic] time for building aircraft engines."

A brilliant Freudian slip? :ok:

[TBM-Legend]

I'm glad to see the PPRUNE expert aviation analysts [who probably have never really built anything] critique this one.

[rutan around]

"There's never been a more exiting [sic] time for building aircraft engines."A brilliant Freudian slip? http://cdn.pprune.org/images/smilies/thumbs.gifI'd love to claim that it was intentional but I'm afraid it wasn't . The sad fact is it's probably more true than than the quote I meant to write.:ugh:

[troppo]

The first one must be due to roll off the production line or...:E

[KRviator]

And they're making another land grab for the airport....From the latest (23OCT17) council minutes (https://www.wyong.nsw.gov.au/getmedia/0d5bb9cf-8eab-472a-a28b-cd6b8128a292/23-October-2017-Business-Paper_1.pdf.aspx):

Background
In 1996, following community concerns about the development of Warnervale Airport (as it was then named), the NSW Parliament passed the Warnervale Airport (Restrictions) Act 1996 (WAR Act) to restrict certain activities and development at the Warnervale Airport. Subsequently, the airport land was included in the Warnervale Economic Zone (WEZ) for industrial development.

The site is at the upper catchment of Porters Creek Wetland, the largest freshwater wetland on the Central Coast. Much of Porters Creek wetland is identified as a SEPP14 wetland with the north east areas (including much of the location of WEZ) described as a “Wetland Management Area” in Chapter 3.10 of Wyong Shire Development Control Plan 2013.

In early 2015, Wyong Council started planning for a Regional Airport at Warnervale, despite the site being subject to the WAR Act. In May 2015 the former Wyong Council applied to the then NSW Minister for Planning to have the WAR Act repealed. That Minister initiated a review of the WAR Act. In August 2017 the current Minister for Planning refused that request On 28 October 2015 the former Wyong Council resolved to proceed with the
Warnervale Airport development on the 28 October 2015, and adopted a masterplan. That 2015 masterplan has never been out on public exhibition
This Council has continued to spend funds to clear native vegetation and build assets such as roads, runways, buildings, a flood levee, fencing and security cameras in and around the Airport. In addition, an Airport Manager was employed and expressions of interest called to develop the airport. There are also substantial other expenses such as planning, advertising, staff time and legal and planning consultants.

Key Planning documents do not provide for an airport including:
1) Central Coast Regional Plan 2016 prepared by the NSW Government, excluded an airport of any description and;
2) The NSW Government advised in August 2017, that the WAR Act would be retained.

Given that the proposed regional airport is not included in key planning documents and the State government’s recent decision to retain the WAR Act, it is appropriate for Council to reconsider the future direction of this site in consultation with the community.

Item No: 2.1 Title: Mayoral Minute - Proposed Central Coast Airport
Department: Councillor
23 October 2017 Ordinary Council Meeting
2.1 Mayoral Minute - Proposed Central Coast Airport (contd)
I formally move:
That Council request the Chief Executive Officer do each of the following:
1 Make an ‘authorised proactive release’ of information relating to the future development of the Wyong Economic Zone (including the Warnervale Airport/Central Coast Airport) under s. 7 of the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009, with such information to be made available on the Council website.
2 Provide a report to Council in respect to any documents that the Chief Executive Officer determines should not be disclosed, including the reasons for coming to that decision.
3 Provide a report to the ordinary meeting of the Council on 27 November 2017 on the draft Masterplan for the Central Coast Airport.
4 Provide a briefing on the proposed strategic development of the Wyong Economic Zone prior to 27 November 2017.
5 Suspend all works on the Central Coast Airport until the 27 November 2017 meeting of the Council, except where those works are required by law or the suspension of those works would put Council in breach of existing contractual obligations and/or expose Council to claims for damages or variation under any such contract.

[Andy_RR]

Surely in the days of foiling America's cup yachts and surfboards, a planing hull on an amphibious aircraft is obsolete?

[Sunfish]

I smell a land grab.

[Global Aviator]

One can only dream..... imagine the cost ��!

[Heathrow Harry]

"I'm glad to see the PPRuNe expert aviation analysts [who probably have never really built anything] critique this one. "

no but they probably haven't gone bust wasting millions of taxpayers money either..............