I thought for sure, given a few more pages, I could have talked Brian and the "New" Beechcraft (bean counter) management into bringing back the Duke with PT6's. I really hope he's not in "hot" H2O!

Sooooo,

Does this new Beechcraft company want to know anything about what Beechcraft fans like and want? How do we get that info to them? We are, after all, a huge group of aviation-minded people who likely represent the bulk of their future customers.

This thread makes me sick. Here is a friendly guy who shows up and wants to talk airplanes and his job. We want to talk to him because his job is making the planes we fly. How cool is that? We shoot the bull, make some suggestions, offer an opinion or two on both sides - all worth the $0.00 you paid for it.

Then some lawyer or PR puke (or his fear of the wrath of such) slams the door.

The organizations that survive in the World of Tomorrow, Lord willing, will be the ones that can figure out how to have an honest conversation with the people use their products - and tell the knuckleheads who fear free expression where to stick it.

I knew that was coming, I have heard that Beechcraft employees posting on BT and the like is seriously frowned upon.... The disconnect from the mothership continues.

Hence the reason the next V-tail in the market will be from Cirrus!!! Makes me sick to watch BeechCraft lose it's flagship. From a marketing perspective, I'd do everything I could to engage a forum, like BeechTalk, to help generate a new generation aircraft. Brian should be promoted not silenced...

Arlen,

Perhaps we are crediting ourselves with too much influence. While there are around 20,000 registered BeechTalk members I suspect that only a few hundred are active users of this forum and out of those maybe half post.

I would echo your sentiment that there is a lot of aviation experience and passion represented here and like you I hope our beloved Beechcraft Corp. is successful.
I am sure that many of our BT brothers/sisters would gladly take the time to respond to any Corporate outreach, survey or study and give an honest appraisal of what we think is needed/desired in a future Beechcraft. The problem is that while our imput is well intentioned the vast majority of us are not going to be in "their" future base of customers. Beechcraft is interested in selling new aircraft and while I believe that they do care about the legacy fleet it's not at the top of their "to-do" list.

Unless you're willing and able to trade $700-6500AMU to Beechcraft they really aren't that interested in what motivates you. That's why their surveys always end in "would you pay xxx,xxx to x,xxx,xxx for such an aircraft.". Kind of separates the comers from the goers.

Best,

Chris

Someone (I thin Dino or Arlen) posted recently a count of G model Bonanza and Barons listed in the profiles of BT members and number sold. Well over 50% of Beech recent aircraft are probably registered members on BT.

So Beechcraft could reach out and get some valuable information. Further, on BT there are also many others who bought new competing aircraft. Beechcraft could ask them why they lost the deal.
Is this everything, nope. But it would be a very good data point for them.

Tim

[quote="CK Lee"]Then some lawyer or PR puke (or his fear of the wrath of such) slams the door.quote]

We dont really know that.
There are other Beech people here. The thread took off and ran wild.
It has to be kept to a dull roar.
For sure, BT is read.

Tim,

Beechcraft has only sold about 360 G model Bonaza's and I have no idea how many BT members took new delivery of these but relative to this forums' membership it's a small number. As for other new aircraft purchases by members I'm sure their are some but I don't see many.

I am sure that there is a lot of wisdom to be mined here and Beechcraft could benefit from that as well as the goodwill it would build with it's legacy owners. But the future of Beechcraft Corp isn't lynch pinned to the BT universe where maybe 1% of the membership will actually be new aircraft purchasers.

Best,

Well that was embarrassing.

Me too. I was hopeful about the new financing, but we still have the old mindset, I reckon. What a lost opportunity for Beechcraft. Any smart and confident CEO would have been all over Brian with a "You did what?" Followed by "You got fifty replies is 48hours? What did they say? Were they supportive or just bitching? Did they have good ideas? Can I read them?..." ... Then "how do we build on this powerful response while honoring our need for caution as to future promises, etc?"

Maybe...just maybe...someone is actually thinking. Suppose we were to read next week from "Hello, I'm the Chief of Customer, or Chief Marketing, or Chief Engineer, or CEO at Beechcraft. Just wanted to say hello as Brian did. Sure, maybe three of us jerks would blast him out the gate, but 99% would applaud in welcome, with hugely valuable, and free, ideas

Fred,

I totally agree. Perhaps it's time to send the BT diplomats to Kansas on a mission to set up a fly in like was done at TCM last year? We all have a vested interest in the survival of this company and while they need to get a serious handle on their labor issues, the product and engineering people should be revamping for the new challenge.

Tim,

Beechcraft has only sold about 360 G model Bonaza's and I have no idea how many BT members took new delivery of these but relative to this forums' membership it's a small number. As for other new aircraft purchases by members I'm sure their are some but I don't see many.

I am sure that there is a lot of wisdom to be mined here and Beechcraft could benefit from that as well as the goodwill it would build with it's legacy owners. But the future of Beechcraft Corp isn't lynch pinned to the BT universe where maybe 1% of the membership will actually be new aircraft purchasers.

Best,

Well that was embarrassing.

1). We have NO idea why Brian edited the title/posts. He may have just (wisely) thought better of it. There is no need to vilify Beech management without cause. In either case, those of us that quoted him should go back an edit his words out of our posts in order to respect his wishes.

2). Yeah, there's a lot of good info on BT, but, like any Internet forum, there's a lot of BS masquerading as good info, too. BT is a valuable resource, and, with the proper methodology, it could be used to improve Beech products... But a 5-year engineer is not the guy for that job. Furthermore, if Beech employees informally show up here soliciting the good-idea-fairy, and then nothing ever comes of it, it breeds resentment on our part because "Beech didn't listen to our good ideas..." Never mind that Beech didn't ask in the first place... A junior engineer did.

3). The question of BT purchasing power is not, "how many BTers can buy a new G36?" The question is, "how many of the 360 G36s sold last year were bought by BTers?"

A large percentage of the second question would still represent a tiny percentage of the first, but the second question is the one that matters to Beech if you want them to see the value of BT.