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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 |
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