On Monday, February 24, 2014 6:44:02 PM UTC-8, wrote:

For those of us who don't know the back-story on AMS and the LS-4, can someone enlighten us.

I'd kinda like to know more of the whole story myself. But only in a popcorny-munchy deconstructing-a-train-wreck kind of way.

What I do know is a bunch of semi-random connect-the-dots factoids:

* AMS Flight was a contractor for DG Flugzeugbau, making large assemblies for DG gliders. It appears that they built entire DG500 and DG505 for DG.

* AMS Flight was apparently not involved in the whole DG300 "Got Ondulation?" fiasco. That was ELAN, but not verve:

http://www.hpaircraft.com/misc/dg300spars.htm

* There was an episode in which a DG500 or DG505 imported into the US was denied an airworthiness certificate because of lack of traceability between the type certificate and production certificate owner (DG Flugzeugbau) and the actual manufacturer (AMS Flight):

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...ng/2g3Rs4terrQ

* Apparently, in the transactions that resulted in DG Flugzeugbau owning the rights and responsibilities for the Wolf Lemke-designed LS series sailplanes, the LS-4 was separated out and DG did not get either the rights or the tooling. It seems pretty clear that AMS Flight ended up with the tooling (they might have had it all along as a contract manufacturer for LS, but that is speculation).

* Searching r.a.s on the term "Cebavs" (no, not "Kebabs" as Google attempts to autocorrect) reveals some reports of puzzling business practices on the part of Ales Cebavs, who is apparently the proprietor of AMS Flight. I have no information as to the veracity of those reports.

* As this thread attests, Cebavs was trying to sell the LS4 tooling a while back. Based on what I've heard, I think a deal did eventually go through and the tooling was sold.

Thanks, Bob K.