------------snip------------
Escrows are VERY, VERY, VERY black and white!

------------snip------------

I'm not so sure of that--especially 30 plus years ago.

There may well have been a difference between escrow
held by a third party (broker) and escrow held directly
by a vendor. Add the fact of many partial deliveries to
the equation and you just get more questions.

Add to all of that, the engine development issues cited
in the Contact! article mentioned earlier in this thread
http://www.prime-mover.org/Engines/T.../contact1.html
(thanks to Bob Kuykendall for posting) and you have
the recipe for pretty much what we remember.

It's really a shame--it was such a neat little airplane!

Remember also, as an example, the debacle of deposits
on new real estate (especially condominiums) just a few
years later ...

Peter

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and don't play one on TV.