February 2012
Piper, once synonymous with the Cub that most non-aviators think is the archetypical little airplane, hasn’t made that aircraft or any of its variants since 1981.
The company left Lock Haven in 1984 for Vero Beach in Florida, although the Piper Aviation Museum still makes its home in Pennsylvania, and each June since 1985 Pipers and their pilots descend on William T. Piper Memorial Airport (KLHV) for the “Sentimental Journey” fly-in there.
Aficionados even intensely discuss the firm’s early history in order to establish the birthday to celebrate for the company that built, and continues to build, the airplanes we choose to own and fly.
Where shall we begin to count? Do we start with the Taylor Brothers’ founding in September 1927, or the day William T. Piper bought out C.G. Taylor in 1935, or in November of 1937, when for the first time it was called Piper Aircraft Corporation?
What aviation historians will make of more recent occurrences only time will tell.
Fly in to Vero Beach Municipal Airport today and you’ll find Piper Aircraft and its 750-or-so employees still headquartered there, building airplanes the hand-crafted way they always have, and shipping them around the globe.
Piper is under new ownership and has a new president/CEO in the left seat, and appears to be enduring and thriving at KVRB, a 1,707-acre towered airfield on the coast some 50 miles south of Cape Canaveral. The airport is also home to FlightSafety International’s FlightSafety Academy, where people come from all over the world to learn to fly. practiced next to the airport for
The ruler of the Southeast Asian kingdom of Brunei took direct ownership of Piper Aircraft in mid-December of 2011 from an investment company called Imprimis owned by his government, and members of the royal family look out from their elegantly framed photograph in the company’s conference room table at Vero Beach headquarters.
The man who runs the company is Simon Caldecott, Piper’s new president and CEO since October. Caldecott is a smiling and likable fellow with a British accent who pronounces pasta—Italian food is his favorite—with a short “a,” like the first vowel in “canasta.” He grew up in Wales, and like many of us, built model airplanes as a kid: “the control line ones as well as the radio controlled.”
Caldecott started his aviation career at home in the UK in a five-year engineering apprenticeship with what was then Hawker Siddeley Aviation, which became part of British Aerospace in the late 1970s when the British government nationalized the aviation industry. He also studied at the London School of Business & Finance and the Chicago Graduate School of Business.
But he started at the bottom. His engineering apprenticeship program consisted of both college and hands-on work. “You were in the training department, it was like a mini-factory; it had everything in there, it had a drawing office, it had an electrical shop, it had sheet-metal sections, it had machine shops… we actually had two old de Havillands, one was a Vixen… we’d take them apart and put them back together,” he says.
He recalls that it was a really good training experience. When not in his college classes, “you worked in the factory… and they moved you around so you weren’t just working in one department, you might get to work on a fuselage build, wing build, the final sanding line, flight test. … then you moved to the actual engineering type departments, production engineering, maybe into quality assurance or design engineering.”
Caldecott always wanted to design things and spent about eight years as an airframe designer before moving into management as a design manager and eventually headed up manufacturing for British Aerospace’s executive jet, the Hawker.
When BAE Systems sold that portion of its business to Raytheon, Caldecott went with it to set up production in Wichita, which is how he came to the United States in 1995 with his wife and two then-teenage daughters. “Probably a bit of a culture shock,” he says, laughing, but “we enjoyed living in Wichita… and I eventually worked my way up in the organization there to VP of assembly and operations,” reporting to the CEO.
As part of the senior leadership, Caldecott was part of the team that sold Raytheon to the investment company that eventually became Beechcraft. He then moved out of engineering into operations, managing everything from direct manufacturing in the shops to supply chain and quality. “There isn’t a part of the business that I haven’t really touched,” he says.
In the fall of 2009, Caldecott came to Piper as chief of production on what was then the PiperJet, and 51 weeks later, was asked to take over as vice president of operations. In that role he ran everything “from all the manufacturing, the assembly to the completion, flight test, quality, supply chain, production planning, control; so pretty much everything on the operations side.”
The week-short-of-one-year reoccurred again, he says, laughing, because “just about a week short of a year later, I ended up in the role of president and CEO.”
Asked if the fellow who wanted to design airplanes back then considered saying no to the to the top job at Piper, he answered slowly, picking up speed as if rolling toward takeoff.
“A long time ago I wanted to design airplanes, but I must admit I’ve enjoyed the last 25-plus years running operations.” Then he thought a bit. “Every day is different, the challenges are different, and it’s not that I don’t use my engineering background today— very much so. That has actually been one of the significant advantages in running the operations side of the house is when people have technical problems, you’ve got some ideas as to the solutions,” he continued.
“So I enjoy manufacturing, I enjoy operations, and when they asked me about running the whole company, I sort of thought about it for a few minutes and decided, ‘Why not?’ Piper has a lot of good people… and I thought if nothing else, I owe it to them to give them some positive leadership to start moving the company forward,” he says.
Against the backdrop of Piper’s cancellation of the Altaire personal jet project only a few weeks ago, and only weeks into his new post as president/CEO, Caldecott, who became a U.S. citizen a few years ago, sat down for an exclusive conversation with Piper Flyer and talked about his vision for the company, including a commitment to its legacy of aircraft, a new commitment to training aircraft and his view of light-sport aircraft.
Piper Flyer: What can you tell us about your vision for the company?
Caldecott:Well, for one thing, we are working our way… baby steps to start with, but my vision for this company is that we’re going to start producing more and more trainers as we move forward, and get back into the school market.
When Piper decided to get out of the training market, I think that was a mistake. The majority of people, when they buy a product, typically stay with the product if they have a good experience. It’s no different than buying an automobile: if you start out in a Toyota Corolla or something and have a good experience with it, you move your way up, get a Camry, an Avalon, eventually you might go to a Lexus. I believe it’s the same in the aircraft business.
If you learn in a Piper, chances are, if you learn in a Piper, you might buy a Piper. You’re familiar with the product. I think it’s important that we have a presence in flight training… We’re looking at particularly the Archers, the Warriors and the Seminoles to make sure that they’re what the flight schools need… making sure that Piper continues to be a brand name that’s popular.
Piper Flyer: Other than the marketing, how are you approaching that?
Caldecott: The good thing, and I hear this from the flight schools, is the durability and the ruggedness of the aircraft. You know some flight schools out there still fly 30-year-old Seminoles and Warriors and Archers… now that’s good in some respects, and it’s bad. I’d really like them to come in and buy new ones… and that’s why I want to look at the products and see what we can do to freshen them up and look at operating costs.
You know if I could drive down operating costs on a new one, then that provides an advantage to the flight training schools to maybe come and replace some of their fleet… it should be less on maintenance, and if we can come up with some way of lowering direct operating cost, then it’ll help.
Piper Flyer: About a year ago, the Czech/PiperSport relationship went away after about 70 were sold. Are you looking into a new LSA project? Is that something that you’re interested in? And is Piper still a sponsor of the LSA show in Sebring, Fla.?
Caldecott:We were a sponsor in 2011; we will not be in 2012. We are not looking at LSA. I think when Piper first got into it, they thought it was going to be an entry-level market, and in fact, if anything, it became an ‘exit-level’ market. What we found is that people going into those were people that weren’t sure if they were going to be able to renew their medical certificates and hence this might be their last aircraft rather than their first aircraft.
Piper Flyer: I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone come right out and say that LSA was about medicals before. I mean, out loud, on the record.
Caldecott: Well, I mean, you know, LSA is not a market we’re in now, and we don’t have any plans to get back into it. You know you’ve got to look at the whole product line and our models and where you want to be.
If I want to be in the training business, I want to be selling Warriors or Archers, those planes. They cost a little bit more, but they’re probably a much more rugged trainer than the LSAs. If you take any of them—the PiperSport, pick any of them—those two-seat… small trainers out there, they are not going to be as durable as a Piper Warrior… you know they take frequent hard landings and things like that with student pilots in them. Some of those Light Sport Aircraft are not going to stand up to that.
A lot of people thought it was going to be an entry-level aircraft. As it happens, we didn’t really see that with the number sold.
Piper Flyer: One of the wonderful things that emerged on our tour of the plant was learning about Piper’s staff and the training processes that so many of the people that work here learn to do what they do here. In some ways that’s similar to your early background. Has that entered into your mind at all that there’s a commonality there?
Caldecott: Absolutely. One of the things you’ll find, I’m a big communicator. I also spend a lot of time on the shop floor, and part of that’s because of my roots; I grew up on the shop floor as an apprentice, so I believe in going back down there and seeing what’s going on and talking to the people. We talk the same language. A lot of mine was on-the job-training, and I respect that.
When you’ve been around building aircraft for so long, you get a good feel for how it is. It’s not like, how can I put it, it’s not like the auto industry, people think it’s, like, all machines and robots. This product is hand-crafted, there’re a lot of skills, you know?
And I’ll tell anybody down there, if ever they want to challenge me to do their job, I’ll go down there. I’m not afraid to pick up a rivet gun and buck rivets. I will troubleshoot if there are problems with electrical systems, hydraulics, pneumatics. I’m not afraid to roll up my sleeves and go and help them.
Piper Flyer: Here you are running—depending on how you count, from Mr. Taylor, or Mr. Piper—a 75-year-old-at-least company, and your management team only has about two years or less experience with Piper. What challenges does that create for you?
Caldecott: Well, I mean you just mentioned one: O.K., I’ve only been here two years, but I believe I connect well with the people here, I believe they respect the fact that I actually have an aircraft background. That was one of the advantages I found when I took over operations here, there were so many people that were relieved because some of the prior leadership had zero aircraft experience. The fact that I am an aircraft guy I think got them over that first hurdle.
A lot of people don’t like change, but you need to change, you’ve got to be better than the competition at all times, so you have to be thinking about change, and making improvement. So… the idea I want is to be consistent across the board, get them all on the same page, and as long as we’re all going in the same direction, we’ll get there a lot faster.
Piper Flyer: You have launched a new product called Piper Aircraft Services. Could explain to our readers what that is, and if there’s any ongoing projects that are using those new resources that you’re providing?
Caldecott: Absolutely… we’re going to be offering both manufacturing and engineering technical services to third parties. And really we’re going to utilize the capability and the capacity that we generated for the Altaire business jet.
We had hired a lot of very talented engineers, we’ve bought new equipment… we’ve got a 3-D prototyping machine, we added two five-axis CNC machines, a lot of CMM measuring equipment, a lot of high-tech equipment… Now, we will be able to use it on our existing products, but at the same time, we’re going to have sufficient capacity that we can actually offer services to other OEMs and/or aircraft-type manufacturers.
We’re actually actively out there right now; in fact, I just held a review this morning, and we had something like 20 leads that we are working, in fact, we’ve already invoiced one already for somebody.
Piper Flyer: Does it have to be aircraft, or can it be anything?
Caldecott: It could be any type of manufacturing; we’d be willing to look at it, but primarily our focus is mainly in aerospace, and that’s where we’re starting. We have a lot of connections, and we haven’t had to go after all of them—that’s the interesting thing. We made it known when we were suspending the Altaire jet that we were going to offer these services, and we’ve had a lot of inquiries from people.
I’ve had people that used to work for me 20 years ago call me up from some of the other OEMs and say, “Oh is that right? You’re going to offer your services and do manufacturing and engineering work?” I said, “Yes,” and they said, “Can you get us the information? We’re interested.”
So the work is there in the industry, and as an OEM having all the equipment and facilities we’ve got, people realize that we’re capable of doing aerospace-type manufacturing and engineering work.
Piper Flyer: Piper recently announced a new dealer for all of Russia, and seven Seminoles sold in China, and 18 Warriors sold in Indonesia, and government flight training programs elsewhere. How big is the international sales effort? And is it subcontractors, or is it employees?
Caldecott: We primarily distribute through a dealer network. Our biggest dealer network is here in North America. We do have dealers in most European countries; we have fewer in the Asian-Pacific countries.
However, one of the things that we did this past year was actually appoint a sales director to each of four continents, so that we have someone who covers the Americas, somebody who covers Europe, the Middle East and South Africa, and a sales director who’s covering Asia, Australia, India, that sort of Far East. And then we have a global fleet sale director who covers really, the whole world. So we’ve actually got those people in place.
Now the regional ones, the Asian, Europeans and the Americas, they’re really about setting up dealerships and or agents, making sure we’ve got enough dealers and we’re getting enough penetration into the local markets.
On the other hand, the flying schools are typically fleet deals. We deal direct with those. So we’re penetrating it every which way we can.
Piper Flyer: What percentage of Piper’s sales now goes overseas? (Note: Piper delivered 135 aircraft in 2012—that’s 15 percent of the General Aviation market. In the first three quarters of 2011, it delivered 93 aircraft, according the General Aviation Manufacturers Association.)
Caldecott: For 2010, 53 percent of our aircraft were exported. This year , it’s going to be about nearly 53 percent—52.47—right in that neighborhood. It’s very close.
Piper Flyer: You were quoted recently in several places that something like 28 percent of pilots learned in Pipers, and that fact was an untapped market opportunity. Can you tell us what you’re doing to go to that market opportunity? And is there a new Piper aircraft on the horizon to entice us?
Caldecott:That’s a loaded question.
Piper Flyer: That’s why I made it two parts.
Caldecott: The first part is right, that 28 percent of all pilots learned in a Piper. It comes back to what I said earlier about, you know, you buy an automobile… a Toyota Corolla, and maybe I should have started with a GM Avion or something, but you start at the bottom of the product range, you have a good experience, and you typically work your way up. You typically stay with that family… because you become a believer in them.
I believe it’s no different in aviation. You start in a Warrior, you might eventually move up to an Arrow or something if you want retractable, or you might get into a twin, you can move up to a Matrix, a Mirage, a Meridian. That just happens to be the end of our product range, but there’s a lot of people who do actually do that, they work their way up.
So, to your next question of what are we offering? Really, we don’t have anything there between the Archer and the Matrix in term of the single-engine. We used to have the Saratoga in there; we’ve debated whether we should put the Saratoga back in, but those are some of the things that we’re thinking.
I’m very much a strategic person. I’m not so much worried about the immediate six to 12 months. Our production plans are in place… and with supply and demand, the production is based on what we see the demand is, so we can plan out, we can put it in place. I’ve got a team of people who are very competent who are going to manage that. What I’m more interested in is looking farther out, what’s the market going to do, and what do we need to be doing in the long-term?
So, we are actually taking a hard look at the Piper product family right now to say, “Do we need something there in order to fill some of those holes in the market?”
Piper Flyer: Would it be more likely to see you look at a traditional airframe that’s no longer currently manufactured and refresh it, than to go build something entirely new or separate?
Caldecott: Um, I won’t commit either way. I’ll let my engineering team come back, and at the end of the day, if I leave the engineers loose with it, they’ll take a clean sheet of paper and they’ll come back with a brand-new airplane for me. If I give it to my finance guy, he’s going to have a different view on it. Because at the end of the day, it has to have some sort of financial business case. Piper is there to obviously return , so that’s what we’re going to be focused on is making sure that whatever we put in there has a good business case and makes sense.
Piper Flyer: Every year when I do my annual on my 1967 Cherokee, I love that moment where I’m sitting and I’m looking at the main spar box, where back in 1967, three separate human beings who worked here in this building signed their names: two initials and one full name. Now, I don’t want to ask you about getting employees in trouble or anything, but that denotes a certain pride in the hands-on craftsmanship that happened. Are they still signing the airplanes, to your knowledge? Are they doing that kind of thing?
Caldecott: I don’t know, there probably are some individuals down there who still do that—people do take a pride in what they do. It’s a funny industry, and it’s no different here than it was at Hawker or Beechcraft or Raytheon aircraft, or even at British Aerospace. People become very passionate about what they do, and they put a lot into it and they take a lot of pride in it.
I think if you went down on the shop floor, every individual employee down there feels a certain amount of pride when a plane goes out the door; they know they had a part in that product. And I mean, even seeing them flying for the first time, I still get a kick out of it—and I’ve been in this business almost 38 years.Piper Marketing Director Jacqueline Carlon: But what we do do, and I think it’s an important point because it has kind of evolved over time, is now, we have all these digital cameras throughout the factory, and as the craftspeople are building the aircraft, they take pictures of their work, and then we do it every serial number and we compile those on our server.
And then, when the plane is done, we take a final beautiful picture, and we compile what we call a “Baby Book”—or if we’re talking to a customer, we call it a “Delivery Book”—that basically shows the airplane being built all the way from fabrication to final delivery with the craftspeople working on the plane. And that in and of itself is like their signature. And it’s a gift to the customer, showing the love and the care that went into the creation of their product.
Caldecott: And this “Baby Book” concept, we use Shutterfly—my daughter uses it with our granddaughter, she puts little books together and sends it to my wife, that’s why we call it a “Baby Book” and it’s great, you take delivery of a new airplane and you’ve got this book, and it’s personalized for you, it’s got the owner’s name and his N-number on the front, and it’s a very nice little touch.
Piper Flyer: To wrap up, what do you specifically want to say to Piper Flyer members? You’ve got a straight conduit right now—every one of them owns or flies a Piper, some of them newer, some of them older planes…
Caldecott: At the end of the day, we’re here to support them. We obviously want to make sure they keep coming back, whether it’s for parts or aftermarket, or ideally I would like them to come back and buy new Pipers, so we want to look after them. They’re an important part of our business.
Piper Flyer: So Piper Flyer members could get a discount on a brand-new aircraft?
Caldecott: (laughing) I wouldn’t say that! But let’s put it this way, they could probably get a pretty good deal … of course they’re an important part of this business, the customer is what it’s about at the end of the day, and looking out for the customer.
Piper Flyer: A friend of mine asked me to ask you why airplanes are so expensive?
Caldecott: Really? I think they’re underpriced! When you look what’s in there… I would actually say they’re underpriced in a lot of ways for what you get .
That’s the other thing, people don’t think about it. You look at the competition that’s out there to some of our products, you look at the Archers and the Warriors and the Seminoles, you’ve got flight schools out there that have got them that are over 30 years old. I mean, yours is that old.
Piper Flyer: Yeah, mine, it’s a ’67.
Caldecott: 1967… 44 years old, you know? There won’t be much competition out there that is flying around when they’re 44 years old. So, that’s what it is, if you’re going to invest in it, look at it for the long-term.
Piper Flyer: Specifically for our members, we’d love to do something like a quarterly report from the factory—and I don’t live that far away—where we could visit and do a page with you that says “What’s New From Piper.” Because you’re speaking directly to Piper owners, what do you think?
Caldecott: I would love to do that. I’d love to. I’d be more than happy to do that.
David Hipschman is a private pilot and aircraft owner. He writes the Heading Bug column here, edits the National Association of Flight Instructors’ Mentor magazine, and also teaches journalism at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Fla. Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
