The year; 1993. It was a cool, cloudy fall day as I
flew my Quicksilver Sport11 into Green Bay’s Austin Straubel Airport. I
flew there to show my Quicksilver to an old
college friend who was the president of Jet Air Corporation. The usual
snide remarks were made....”Do you have a death wish flying that thing”
, or “what’s an airline pilot doing flying a thing like that” The
weather turned suddenly bad and I had to leave my plane in their jet
hangar.
After
several days I returned to fly my Quick back home. I was met by my
friend and several other corporate officers, along with several of their
mechanics. Turns out that they were very impressed. “Hey this has all
aircraft
grade hardware”,”look at the attention to detail”, “The design looks
great”. And after giving several flights they were almost speechless. A
few weeks latter, after a trip to Temecula, California Jet Air became a
Quicksilver Distributor.
Why
is all this history important? Because Quicksilver Aircraft is on the
verge of having their two place Quicksilver Sport 2S certified LSA. What
does that mean to me and other pilots? It means a huge stamp of
approval. It means that the design philosophy; the quality control, the
engineering standards that Quicksilver has steadfastly adhered too will
finally be rewarded. It will put an end to the death wish questions. It
will
give legitimacy to a product that thousands already knew was a well
engineered product. It will prove correct what the folks at Jet Air
already knew some twenty years earlier..
How
does all this happen? You have to have the “Right Stuff” First the the
right kind of people have to be in place. Then one must have the right
product. Quicksilver had both, and continues to have the right mix.
Going way back to Dick Eipper Bob Lovejoy, and Bill Bennett with
Eipper-Formance and then the name change to Quicksilver with Lyle
Byrum the right people were in place. A lot of the original people have
moved or passed on, but the commitment to a quality product continued.
People like Dave Gronk, Tom Price,John Lasko, Paul Mather, Chuck
Whitlesy, Gene Borne, Todd Ellefson Carl Von Hirsch, and his sons, and
the many dealers that gave so much,that made Quicksilver the company it
is today deserve a lot of credit.
Today
under the capable hands of Chief Operations Officer Daniel Perez and
Quicksilver Aeronautics President Will Escutia the Sport 2S will become a
true accomplishment. The Sport 2S will prove itself in the market place
by giving present and future pilots a choice. One will be able to
purchase the aircraft from the factory already built and test flown.
Flight schools will be able to charge for the lessons. And the cost for
doing this will be a lot more manageable. The “death wish” baloney
will disappear. After all, The Sport 2S is and will be a real and
proven Aircraft.
