It is AIN’s normal approach to report the news without comment. However, it has often disturbed me, as well as other editors at AIN, that information sometimes told to us by new aircraft developers is not always the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and that in our reporting of this information we unintentionally bestow upon it the appearance of “fact.” Having covered numerous aircraft development programs in the years preceding and after the introduction of “In the Works” in March 1997, I have observed certain recurring patterns. This special analysis, therefore, blends both company information and my own opinions, based on experience. As publicly traded companies write on the bottom of their press releases, this report “may contain forward-looking statements and assumptions that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. [A] company’s actual results could differ materially from those indicated.” This statement applies in particular to the chart on page 58, “AIN’s Crystal Ball.”
As the general economy bumps along the runway looking for that tenuous “soft landing”–the expectation of which was made even more tenuous by the horrific events of September 11–startup airplane manufacturers are beginning to fold their wings or stretch their development programs for lack of financial resources.
