Chapter 57

Steve

Now that Chuck was back from hiding out in the Gulf, life around home seemed to be getting back to normal. He was busy with a bunch of federal people and his prisoners were all transported to DC where they would be held or given an option to be bailed out. I told Chuck that I didn't care what happened, as long as they left me and my company alone.

Tiny told me that a major military supplier was negotiating to have us produce bodies for their equipment. That is what we wanted in the first place. We didn't necessarily want to be a sole supplier, only to augment what other vendors were supplying. If we did this right, we not only could use our entire existing workforce, but possibly expand it by hundreds.

When I had the chance, I spoke with Ben to see if he wanted to begin a search for an existing local structure that could house a very large fiberglass forming factory. Ben said he would initiate the search and have one of his young lawyers work up a presentation on it.

While I was in my office, Ruth came in and gave me the latest personnel results in Nevada. Our staff in Las Vegas and Reno had increased by almost a third with the additional customer service people, outside sales and tech support people, and the additional delivery people the additional sales required. She also reported that we had made progress in correcting the illegal alien problems in both locations.

Chance came in with his new brochures for local and state governments. The brochures displayed the vehicle we had considered as similar to a wheeled armored personnel carrier but was now displayed as a SWAT support vehicle. He said, "Abe and a couple of the mechanics have made the inside into a very comfortable transport, complete with air conditioning, and with plenty of our special transparent shields so the people riding inside are aware of what is going on outside."

I asked, "Is it cost effective for cities and states? With all of their budget problems, a vehicle like that could now be well out of reach for most communities."

Chance answered, "We're about twenty-five percent of what most vehicle manufacturers list theirs for. I'm putting together a rolling display of a couple of vehicles to take on a traveling tour of all state purchasing groups. We should be able to get the states, counties, and cities considering vehicles to see our products as well. We have a two man sales group; we have a new truck the men can stay in if necessary, and we have a new trailer that our vehicles can ride in. We may not get the military business of the vehicles, but I think we can get a major portion of the civilian demand."

I looked at Chance and asked, "Sounds like we're heavily invested in this. Who made up your budget?"

With a smile, Chance said, "Tiny and Henry figured it out with the help of the new guy, Moleson, who works with the clothing company military garment sales. Phil thinks we need to market the product person to person, and that's why he's convinced Tiny to budget as heavily as he has."

"Looks good, Chance. We're forging ahead while others are contracting. Good job on the vehicles, Chance. You have created an entire new division within the company. Good job on the brochures too."

As the morning wound down, I spent some time with Tiny, as he wanted to go over all of our various divisions' P&Ls. When he had finished showing me numbers that he was happy with, I asked, "You didn't show me anything having to do with the airpark, the charter services, or our LSA company?"

Tiny pulled a file and said, "The LSA group is actually showing a profit, but I want to wait until all of our costs are in. All of the insurance and special bonding isn't complete yet. Ben's group is working on it right now. I also don't want to try to display numbers when we have so many orders on hand but only a few deliveries. In another month, we may be in the black for the year or since start up. Let's wait and see."

I said, "Good. What about the airpark and the charter services?"

Tiny smiled, "I'll go over those with both you and Chuck. Since he's the majority owner now, he should be around to go over them with you, don't you think?"

"How did he become majority owner?" I asked, trying to remember what had transpired to make him an owner anyway.

Pulling some papers from another file, Tiny showed me, "See, when you said to make him a half-owner, you didn't consider that the S&S 401K plan was also an owner at the time. So S&S and the S&S 401K each now own 25% and Chuck became the majority owner with 50%. Did you want to buy out part of his share? I'm sure he wouldn't care. Either way, he doesn't need the money at this point."

I thought of the problem, or what I considered to be a problem, for a few moments. "You know what? This may be good for Chuck. I'm sure he doesn't realize what's happened, but I will let him know in time. Since the management structure out there is good, and the place is running smoothly, there is no reason to upset the apple cart right now. How is that group as far as cash reserve?"

Tiny dug out some more papers and said, "Their revenues are great, they have no real debt right now, and the charter companies lease costs are covered. If you had a problem out there it would be with maintenance. You only have eight mechanics out there now and could use at least four more. You are receiving a lot of helicopter maintenance work since you've taken on the Bell training school. Since Jimmy has finished the advanced Cessna Citation school, you have a waiting list for maintenance. Right now, leasing companies are getting aircraft back and want them brought up to date before selling or re-leasing them."

Tiny continued, "We need to send another man to the Citation school, and we really need a second man certified with Bombardier. Now that we have the 737, we need to consider hiring an experienced certified man or men for it. And, of course, you know we need to have at least one more person go through the Bell school and that takes a long time. We might get lucky and find someone out of work since the economy is down."

"Jimmy and Tank think we need our own coachman shop for interiors, but I think we can use our people from the RV and truck shops to do the work. The charter service can sub the coachman and both companies can make out."

With a smile, I said, "Nice to have these problems, Tiny. I guess we'll have to get Chuck in on some of these decisions. I'll find out when he has time and you can prepare."

"Good idea, Steve," Tiny said. "I do think Chuck will make a good partner out there as he has such an avid interest in flying. We'll have to see whether it is a bigger interest than his deputy's duties."

"Thanks, Tiny, I'm going to lunch. If I get a chance, I'll talk to Chuck about a time to present all this to him."

While driving home, I thought of how I might have deceived Chuck about the airpark and the charter services. I couldn't make up my mind whether it was the right thing to have done, or whether I should correct the inequity. If Chuck wanted, he could have a full time job just trying to run the airpark and charter companies. But then, why mess with something that was working. DeDe and Betty were working well together and had added another girl to work exclusively with Jimmy and Tank to keep track of maintenance records. All of the billing was going back through our central billing for S&S, and I'd bet Tiny was charging the charter and maintenance division for the service.

Well, Chuck needs to be made aware of his position and he does need to be involved in decisions.

At the patio, I ate with all of the regulars then went to the gym with my ladies. Even Juanita joined us, as her energy level seems to have increased now that her newly discovered diabetes problem is under control. When we returned from the gym, I didn't want to spend a lot of time in the sun but wanted to visit with the R&D people for a while.

When I entered the R&D shop, I was surprised at the remodeling. There was an entrance area with a reception desk. I recognized a young lady from the park who had recently finished high school. She said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Sharp. Who do you want to see today?"

"Cindy, how about I see Dennis to find out what he's working on lately?"

Cindy got up from her desk and opened the door leading into the main open area of benches where projects were put together before testing. Dennis and Mark were working on something large and bulky when Cindy hollered that they had a guest.

Mark raised his head and smiled, "Hey, Steve. Come look at this a minute. You might see something we're not."

At the bench, Mark showed me what looked like the internal windings of a generator. He said, "We've re-laid the windings so they are in groups instead of a single strand at a time. I know in my heart the generator can develop more current this way, but we've fallen off a full third. What do you see?"

It looked like a generator to me. What do I know? "Mark, I wouldn't know what to look for. I understand what generators do and how they work, but I don't know the exact manner of how windings can affect the generator."

As I was looking at the pieces, I asked, "If you have a broader field of windings to produce current wouldn't you need a broader or wider magnetic field to pick up the current?"

Mark and Dennis looked at each other. Dennis closed his eyes and smacked himself on the forehead, "Dummy, we make something fancy and don't think it through. Let's widen the pickup and see what happens."

Mark looked at me and said, "Hang around, Steve. We have a few more glitches for you to solve."

Abe walked in the door and saw me, "Hey, Steve, come look at the new diesel engine we're testing. This thing is really special. It's a design with combustion chambers that should produce more power with smaller combustion areas. It's like the domed pistons or the ported heads, just a minor tweak that could save a lot of fuel and create more power."

Abe showed me a window to a test room where an engine was running. It showed a digital clock that read three, thirty-four, twenty-three. Abe said, "That's the equivalent of operating about seventy thousand miles non-stop. We have the motor under a fifty- percent load to simulate what a farm tractor or highway tractor would work at. All of the gauges and measuring equipment says the motor is running just like new. I want to run it at least a thousand hours non-stop, then tear it down. The other unit, next door, has run about the same amount of time, but we're going to keep it running at sixty to seventy percent power with a heavier load rating until it quits, or runs for ten thousand hours, whichever comes first. That's over a year. I doubt it will last that long under the load, but we'll see."

When we came back to the central room, Mark and Dennis were high fiving each other. Dennis said, "Thanks, Uncle Steve, that was the answer. Sometimes we miss the obvious when we're too close to something."

I asked, "Where's Hans? He's usually good at common sense stuff."

Dennis frowned, "He decided he needed a long vacation and has been in Austria and northern Italy for a couple of months. He's bought one of our biplane kits and is putting it together over there so he can fly around the countryside and see it from the air. The man is nuts, as usual."

I suggested, "Perhaps you need more help. Another research assistant."

It was Mark that said, "Gerry comes in at least three days a week and helps with PMs on the test machines, and Ben comes in every afternoon after classes if he doesn't have to do too much studying. I suppose we could use some more help to work on some of our projects. We're really working extensively on wind generators. You know what I'm saying, how to make them smaller, but to be able to generate more power. The new batteries we're using seem to help with storage, but we still need to generate more power from small inexpensive units."

While we were on the subject, I asked Mark, "How are you coming on your green car? Made it perpetual motion yet?"

"You'll never have true perpetual motion, but we can do some wind generation for charging batteries while in motion. If done right, we should be able to extend the range by at least half. That would be a great improvement. We're not there yet, but it's coming."

When I said I was leaving, Dennis said, "Come back in a couple of days. We have a couple of items we're working on that should be of value for Star. She's brought us some of the tools to make to be sure they are cost effective to manufacture. We should have them ready by next week."

At home, I found Sue and asked her if she had anything she might want me to do. She didn't, so I decided to just bum around a little. I put on jeans and a T-shirt, got out the bike, and took off for Jonah's. As is typical in the late afternoon, a lot of the early workers stop in for a beer and to ogle Double D.

There were a lot of the guys that I knew, so I did enjoy chatting with them. Jonah came out from the back and glad-handed me, then went back and brought Millie out. The monster woman gave me a big hug and asked about Chuck. We chatted for a long while, until I decided it was time to wander some more.

I rode out to the airpark to see what Wes was up to, as Tiny had said he wanted to wait to see how the new orders would shake out.

There was a big surprise. In the primary hangar that Wes was using, were six of our aircoupe LSAs under construction. Wes wasn't there, so I was surprised again when I asked for him. He was across the tarmac in the one of the two new hangars that had just been built.

When I walked into the hangar on the right, there were ten high wing LSAs in various stages of being built, but still no Wes. There were two men on each aircraft, the same as in the other hangar. When I asked, one of the men said I would probably find Wes next door.

In the hangar on the left, I found Wes among four larger aircoupes that were under construction. He was measuring where fittings were supposed to go on the tail section with a micrometer. He looked up and smiled, "What do you think, Steve? This is going to be our first four and six place aircoupe. I'm getting it certified as a six place so it can hold the average family with two point three kids."

Wes grabbed my arm and dragged me toward a pile of parts. He took me to a large table with a blueprint on it, and I could instantly see what he was going to tell me. "This is a twin I'm going to experiment with. I think Abe's engines will be perfect, but I'm engineering the mounts to hold both conventional, and if need be, turbines. I want to stay with the conventional engines right now until we can get this put together and tested. It's going to be a little raw at first, but this is a learning experience. I'm going to try a few ideas I have along with some newer technology that's available. First things first, though. I'm going to make it fly with retractable gear just like the single engine aircoupes we're making. Hopefully, Tiny's cost estimates are good so we can build really nice aircraft at ridiculous prices."

I waved my hand at the hangar and asked, "Do you have enough room? Did you need more hangar and manufacturing space?"

Wes blushed and said, "I guess we did spread out fast. I didn't think it would hurt to use the available space, as long as it was empty. By this time next month, we will have most of the LSAs in progress delivered and we should also have several of the biplane kits delivered, as well. We sold our camper, so Jeff's people are molding another one for us. Tiny has been very generous as far as people have been concerned. Some of these folks are from the RV store, some are from the cart plant, a few from the truck body plant, and a couple are from the main shop. The few that I've hired from outside are quality people that were available. All of them know that everything must fit perfect. We're building quality here."

"This is amazing, Wes. I had no idea you were building so much right now. Don't try to build more than can be built with the quality and safety we want and have to have. Let's keep that foremost in our minds. I want us to build aircraft, not experimentals."

Wes laughed and said, "I agree. I want our safety record to be perfect. So far, our little experimental trainers have logged a ton of training hours without any mechanical or structural incidents. We go over the aircraft constantly to make sure they aren't developing any stress fractures and are operating at the same efficiency. So far so good, Steve, I have to brag a little. Our aircraft are really good so far."

I shook Wes' hand and made my way out of there to go back to the charter office. DeDe and Betty were discussing the coming weekend, as there were a lot of charters for Friday through Sunday. Betty said, "All of the small choppers are going to busy with lessons and two bigger Bells have charters. I'm not booked solid, but it wouldn't take much to make us that way."

DeDe smiled, "We've booked all of the small aircraft for lessons. Even the biplanes are booked for people wanting to fly them for fun. We even have the 737 booked, using the luxury seating, through Sunday, so that aircraft is already paying its lease costs. We're going to have to get another crew, as those two guys are going to need a day off soon. Hey, Steve, want to fly a charter in a King Air or small jet this weekend? We have plenty of work if you want to."

I shook my head and said, "I think I'll stick around home this weekend. Somehow I think it is going to be busy there too. I'll talk to Sue and Mercy to see if they might want to do something. If they do, I'll go. How about Chuck or Brandy. Brandy is rated through the little Citation now, isn't she?"

DeDe said, "She's flying right seat on a G5 with Tiani working as flight attendant. Brandy's really trying to get in hours to get her transport license. I even have Wes flying a King Air up to Atlanta this weekend. I'm going with him, so it isn't all lost. We're staying overnight Friday and coming back Saturday evening."

Betty said, "I'm glad I don't know how to fly or they would have me out there. Cindy, our new office helper, wants to begin lessons, so another pilot is born out here. It's fun here, Steve, always something happening."

I was about to leave when DeDe said, "If you see Chuck, he has to be out here at eight Monday morning for his indoctrination and check out on the Citation X. I'm sure he'll be here early. They just called and said it was arranged."

"Oh yeah, DeDe," I remembered, "Did you ask John about registration and ownership of the new Citation?"

"Funny you should ask. See this," DeDe said as she pulled a piece a paper from a file, "This is the title and ownership papers for the Citation from the former owners. The receipt says paid in full by a company out west that I've never heard of. I checked the corporate registry and they are a real company, but it doesn't show assets or anything. It's just a privately held company. Chuck sure has some strange dealings. Good dealings, but strange."