On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:30:30 -0500, Gig 601Xl Builder
wrote:

The problem is they seem to have bought a perfectly good kit company.

http://kitplanesmag.blogspot.com/200...-schedule.html

Rocket Racing League Announces Schedule, Velocity Aircraft Sold
[....]

No doubt to ensure an adequate supply of airframes, RRL's subsidiary,
Rocket Racing Composite Corporation, has purchased Velocity Aircraft. It
is expected that Velocity will continue selling and servicing the
Velocity as an Experimental/Amateur-Built aircraft.

One has to wonder why having an "adequate supply of airframes" was in doubt.
Assuming RRL was already paying for all the racer development costs, it seems
strange that they felt they had to buy the company itself.

The only obvious answer is that Velocity had be ready to go out of business, and
the only way RRL could protect its source of airframes was to buy the company.

I took a look at my set of Aircraft Registration databases. Here's the change
in the number of Velocities registered per year since 2001:

Year Net Increase
---- --
2001 29
2002 18
2003 22
2004 11
2005 9
2006 10
2007 7

Note that this is the *net* increase in the number of aircraft registered as
Velocities...and that in most cases, this reflected a kit that had probably been
purchased three or more years earlier. (Note that the actual number of completed
aircraft per year is generally higher...for instance, I show 12 Velocities with
new airworthiness certificates in 2007).

Obviously, Velocity sales had peaked in the late '90s. Not too farfetched to
think that the owners were considering shutting the line down. Contrast that to
the RV juggernaut:

Year Net Increase
---- --
2001 308
2002 328
2003 373
2004 424
2005 360
2006 429
2007 445

Ron Wanttaja