Aviation entrepreneur Rick Adam built his new company on the strength of two disparate aircraft, the centerline-thrust piston-twin A500 and the A700 Very Light Jet. Photo by Dave Higdon

A key word this year at the Adam Aircraft exhibit is "productionizing;" working hard to ensure the company and its two products—the A500 push me/pull you piston twin and the A700 very light jet (VLJ)—are the very best they can be once delivered to their customers. Chairman and Founder Rick Adam is convinced his company’s efforts to modernize, streamline and perfect its manufacturing process will pay huge dividends as it gears up to fill the nearly 400 orders it has in hand for both types.

Adam briefed reporters Thursday on Adam Aircraft’s efforts to achieve full FAA certification of its A500 piston twin and usher its VLJ through the same process. To date, according to Adam, the company has delivered seven A500s with another, serial number 11, scheduled to land in its new owner’s hands "in a couple of weeks." By the end of 2007, Adam expects his company will have achieved full certification of the A500, including for flight in known icing, and will be able to ramp up production at the same time.

All of which highlights and reinforces for even casual observers that the idea of creating a new company to design, certify, and sell a new airplane is not for the faint of heart. Since last year’s AirVenture, the company has brought in four new employees, all with many years’ experience in producing high-tech airplanes for companies like Boeing/McDonnell-Douglas, Bombardier, Fairchild-Dornier, and Raytheon, tasking them with the idea of ensuring its production capabilities is equal to the airplanes. It might not be as exciting as test flying, but it’s an integral part of the puzzle for any company planning to be in this business for the long run.

At the same time, the company’s A700 certification efforts are receiving more and more attention. For example, A700 serial number 3 is flying three times a day, undergoing an increasingly complex series of flight tests. It will be joined "any day now" by serial number 4, and by siblings 5 and 6, by the end of 2007. All airframes will be used to help meet the company’s goal of seeing the FAA bestow an A700 type certificate on the company by mid-2008. Adam and his staff went to great pains Thursday to point out there will not be a provisional type certificate for the A700, as the company accomplished with the A500.

Company staff Thursday referred to the A500’s still-unfinished journey across the FAA’s certification hurdles as a "painful process" from which the entire company has learned a great deal. Building on the lessons learned, Adam brought to AirVenture a steely determination to use those lessons on the A700.

This year at AirVenture, it appears Adam Aircraft’s education in the many twists and turns it takes to navigate the treacherous new-airplane-certification waters is complete. Its staff knows they have a pair of solid, well-performing airplanes and is hard at work ensuring each aircraft leaving its factory is the best it can be.