On Dec 31, 7:56*am, "Tim Mara" wrote:
"tommytoyz" wrote in message

...

I don't own any of these gliders, but after reading Herr Weber's
reasoning, it makes sense. He is not responsible to support those
aircraft. The alternative would be for him to just drop all support.
Would that be better? Maybe it would.

But it is his responsibility ! What he and many readers are not
acknowledging is the simple fact that he bought these companies out of
bankruptsy FOR the name and the legacy , the legacy is the assets, the
company names and along with their following and name recognition is this
liability, which he assumed would also and I'm sure has brought his company
many profitable sales and profits from support. He could have just as well
started a new company, created a name, even used the design rights since he
bought these out of bankruptsy and began anew, but without the name
recognition would have had to struggle along with every other company to
create a product and name that would be associated with the history he would
have created. He does have a right to charge what he wants for the parts and
even the manuals he produces and he could have turned away any
responsibility for supporting old designs if he had not already claimed he
IS the old company.



Interesting would be to compare how the old Glasfluegel, Grob, and
other owners cope with the issue of their manufacturers being out of
business. Would it be better if nobody supported the aircraft, so long
as no serious problems arise?

The original Glasflugel gliders are still very well supported, probably
better than many other old models from their respective manufacturers by
Glasfaser-Flugzeug-Service GmbH, Hansjörg Streifeneder, After the bankruptcy
of Glasflügel, Hansjörg Streifeneder felt committed to the work of Eugen
Hänle and continued with the maintenance and certification of all Glasflügel
gliders. He founded the Glasflügel Aircraft Service GmbH.http://www.streifly.de/glasfluegel-e.htmHe also has the right to sell these
parts and services for whatever he deems is fair and profitable.

Grob has ceased production of gliders for many years and still offers
support for most of their products. They too have the option to charge
whatever they see as needed.
But neither of these companies have come to all of the owners of their old
and long out of production aircraft and demanded a royalty from the owners
for something they don't even promise to support or supply parts for.
tim

It might be a moral obligation to support the installed base, but it
isn't clear to me that it is a legal obligation in this case. It may
depend on how the bankruptcy sale was structured. Generally in
bankruptcy you have the right to restructure, or in the case of a
liquidation or asset sale, abandon entirely the old company's
liabilities. I suspect the support for the installed base of gliders
is helpful to the sale of new gliders by giving new customers some
confidence that their gilders will be supported too. Market image is
the real reason to keep up support if it's not in itself profitable.

I wonder what the Glasflügel and Grob support business models look
like. Do they have to deal with all the same regulatory paperwork and
engineering support, or are they just parts businesses? Perhaps paring
down support for older DG models to parts only plus maybe engineering
for an hourly fee would be a more viable way to go economically. If
Grob can turn a profit on support DG might be able to adopt the same
model. This presupposes, a) that Grob does in fact turn a profit on
support, b) that DG has as a practical option to adopt the same
business model (legally and in terms of what customers demand from a
going concern glider manufacturer versus a defunct one) and, c) that
DG would be willing to go in that direction. That's a lot of supposing
I think.

Seems like most owners would rather roll the dice on expensive support
on a pay-as-you go basis than commit to an annual fee, even if the
former works out to be more expensive over time.

Happy New Year!

9B