Hi,

I have been a Cambridge Aero Instruments customer for many years. I've been
a Cambridge dealer since March, 2003, so I don't have a complete history of
all the ownership issues. Everything I've heard is second or third hand.

It is a tangled web. Many sources seem to indicate that the tangle comes
from one person. I don't know that person and can't say anything about
that. Below is what I have been told. It is all public knowledge.

Cambridge was owned by David Ellis for many years. I don't think he started
the company. I've always been impressed with David. He was the technical
person who drove the development of new products and used customer input to
help improve the products. The L-NAV, S-NAV, GPS-NAV, 302 and 303 are his
babies. They are great products.

In 2001/2002 Roy Ridgeway bought the company from David. I don't know much
about how involved David was in the company after that. It is my
understanding that both David and Roy have law suits targeted at each other.
I don't know enough about it to say who is in the right. I think it is safe
to say that I hope David Ellis wins. I say that for many reasons.

In 2002 Craig Rogers and Mike Nixon worked out an arrangement with Roy
Ridgeway to run the Cambridge Aero Instruments part of the company. From my
vantage point, they (Craig and Mike) and their team worked extremely hard to
get the company up and running again. I have been impressed with them. I
trust them. They got to the point where they were shipping all the products.
Their team also supported the products and made minor improvements to them.
They also worked toward bringing the "CFR" (simple, low cost GPS/flight
recorder only based on the 302) to market. Roy's new team of people now have
some claims against Craig and Mike's company. His claims are stated on the
current CAI web site homepage. Roy's team has canceled the agreement with
Craig Rogers and Mike Nixon.

I think that CAI technical support is still available from Peter Rogers and
others on Craig and Mike's team. I'm sure the other Cambridge dealers and
myself can also help with some technical support issues. There are one or
two dealers in Europe who are capable of doing repairs and calibrations to
CAI products.

I don't know Roy or his new team. I can't say anything bad about them. I
will not make any recommendations to anyone in regard to him or his team.
However, I think I can say that I don't plan to buy anything from him or his
new team. I don't have any interest in being a dealer for him.

The 302, 303, CFR, and other CAI products are great products that I hope
will be produced again by someone. I don't imagine that anyone will be able
to buy new 302s for 6 months or more. That is my personal guess. It is not
based on any data from any source. I am optimistic that they will be
produced and supported by someone at some point, because they are great
products.

I think everything stated above is common knowledge. I thought it was a good
idea to summarize it here because not everyone knows the history. Please let
me know if I got any of the history wrong.

Good Soaring,

Paul Remde

"Randy Lervold" wrote in message
om...
Paul and Uli,

As the resident dealers would you mind providing an overview of the
history of this tangled web? As an owner of CAI equipment I'm
confused. Who started the company, who was it sold to, how many times,
and who's running it now? I would think many members of this community
would appreciate some perspective on this.

Thanks,
Randy Lervold
Vancouver, Wa