Episode 326 of the pilot the Pilot Podcast takes off now.

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Use code Justin for 15% off@flightuniform.com that's code justinlightuniform.com My name is Sean Nilsen.

And I'm the CEO of Cirrus AV Nation.

What is going on?

And welcome back to the Pilot to Pilot podcast.

My name is Justin Seams and I am your host.

Today's episode is with the CEO of Cirrus.

He's a returning guest.

This will be his third time on the podcast which is awesome.

I think he might be the first three time repeat guest.

Maybe Mel Williams.

I've had him on a couple times but it's great to have someone on that is so involved in the industry at a high level that is in the process of investing, that's in the process of building, building the company and coming out with new airplanes or innovation.

And as we talk about they're spending a lot of money in innovation which is really cool.

So who knows if cool things will be coming out.

Definitely pay attention.

The G7 which was recently released, I mean it doesn't get much more kind of cool than that in my eyes in in the GA world what they're able to do with Garmin and what they're able to do to create just an innovative product on already such a great selling model was pretty cool.

It was great having Sean on.

We talk A lot about serious.

We talk about his early days, we talk about where he is now, challenges he's had, and we also talk about what their views are on the used market.

And I selfishly say, hey, I want to buy a series one day as well.

So letting him know that the used market is awesome and there's a lot of great series out there and hopefully one day Pilot to Pilot can be in the series.

We'll see.

But AV Nation, I hope you're having a great day.

This is an awesome episode.

Really thankful for Sean and the Sears team for giving me these opportunity to talk with him.

So without any further ado, here's a serious CEO.

Sean.

Hey Sean, how you doing?

Welcome back to the Pilot to Pilot podcast.

Thank you to be here.

Absolutely.

You know, it's I.

I was thinking about who I've had on and how many repeat guests I've had on and you are a third time guest now and you are probably one of if not the top.

I haven't had any more people on that have been on for more than two times.

So you're one of few right now.

You are entering uncharted territory.

I don't even know if you know what talk about.

All right, well, I appreciate it.

Yeah, it's always great to have you on and obviously such a massive company in the general aviation market like, like serious.

And what you've been able to accomplish is, is pretty incredible.

And I wanted to kind of talk about what it's been like since you started and where you are today.

First question would be has any views that you've had on general aviation evolve over the the five year period?

I want to say.

And also what are some very significant challenges because we already had Covid episode there, but any kind of significant challenges that we had for Cirrus.

Well, I mean, let me sort of start out by saying I still think the GA market is ripe for disruption, if you will, in the sense that what we're trying to solve is something that the regular airlines are not solving.

Right.

Which is the regional travel in the US especially during COVID and post Covid in a lot of those regional routes have been either limited in terms of departures on a day to day basis or closed down altogether.

And what our customers find incredibly useful is that they can go exactly as to where they need to go, when they want to go, bring whoever they want to bring and change their planes at the last minute.

And when the airlines are trying to solve big problems like move 300 people at the same time to the same location at a very set schedule.

Right.

It doesn't really solve what our customer profile or customers are needing.

They're solving a different problem.

So I think for that reason we will continue to have a very bright future ahead because we're solving something that the bigger airlines are simply not trying to address, which is sort of individuals trying to go to very specific places at their own schedule in an affordable way.

Right.

And you mentioned the airlines and one of the questions I ask a little bit later is kind of competition, do you view airlines as kind of competition for, for travelers or do you view kind of competition more on a plane by plane basis in the manufacturers?

No, not, not really.

However, the people that are sitting in sort of the first class seats, so the business class seats.

Right.

Might as well be GAA customers because they're trying to pay for some of that flexibility of changing the tickets, last minute companion seats and those sorts of conveniences that come along with that.

And in many cases they actually paid more than it would cost to fly a Cirrus.

So a simple equation.

So I fly a lot between Chicago and Duluth and a round trip tricket is easily 5 to $600 depending on when you book it.

And oftentimes you have to in the Twin Cities and connect because there's only one or two departures a day.

Now you could fly an SR20 for 250 an hour and you can bring two or three extra, you know, passengers.

Right.

So that round trip you can actually do cheaper than you could do commercial.

Right.

And you can leave when you want to, you can, you can bring whoever you want to and so forth.

So now you have to be a pilot to do it.

You have to have a series right to do it.

But depending on how much you, how much you fly for business or for your, you know, personal enjoyment, it actually can be a very compatible and cost efficient way of doing it.

Now you mentioned them as potential customers.

Is this something that Sirus is kind of actively searching for?

Is that first class passenger?

I know in a previous podcast we talked about a lot of.

I don't know if it's a lot, but there's a good amount of new pilots that come, they see cirrus, they see how cool it is.

Maybe their buddy who's a pilot, as a serious, they're like, oh, I want to buy that.

I'm going to be a serious.

Does that kind of equate to that first class passenger?

You're like, hey, there's a lot of first time pilots that come in, you Know, we start you out in an SR20 and SR22, move you up to the Vision jet.

Kind of talk a little bit about that.

Well, we, we, well I think we, we, we're generating somewhere around 30% new customers per year.

Basically.

They have not been in GA before, they have not owned an airplane.

They're not a pilot or even a student pilot.

So they're, they're new to us and new to ga.

And that's really what this is about for us.

This is not about sort of slicing up the pie with the other players in the market, or I think you refer to them as competitors, but it's really for us about, you know, creating a bigger pie.

Right.

And they have to come from somewhere.

And a very natural place for them, for them to come are people with travel needs and you know, time is their best, most valuable currency.

Right.

And we can, we can provide a solution for that.

Yeah.

And with those new kind of the bigger pie of first time pilots, let's say, as, as a big company, what do you do for, I guess like safety and making sure they're properly trained?

I know in the past we kind of touched on some, some kind of projects and initiatives that Cirrus has for that.

But talk about how you kind of explain the safety and essentially kind of like the sales pitch for them and be like, hey, they're safe, we got parachutes, all that kind of stuff.

Well, the safety piece of it is core to everything that we do.

Right.

It's in our vision and mission and value statements and so forth.

And it's how we think about making airplanes and GA as a whole.

Right.

We have to get past this sort of assumption that GA or smaller airplanes are not safe.

They're incredibly safe.

In fact, the FAA keeps track of, you know, incidents and accidents per 100,000 flight hours for all the OEMs certified and so forth.

And Cirrus is three times more safe essentially than the industry average.

Those are, you know, syndicated public public reports, so you can go look them up if you want.

But, but part of that is not just that the airplane is very safe and reliable.

It's also how we think about, like the introduction into becoming a pilot.

Right.

So for us, training is not just sort of an event, right.

Where you get your pilot's license and you're done.

Like it's for us that we think of training as a lifestyle.

It is something that you do all the time, Right.

Whenever you're flying with somebody else, you're talking about, like how, how do you do this, like, how do you shoot this approach?

Like, what is, you know, how do you program the avionics, all those sorts of things.

And it got to a point where last year we decided to launch our own ppl program.

So basically instead of, you know, the alternatives that are out there, like sporties or, or kings or whatever, they're called these, these online solutions, we wanted our own versions of them, by the way.

They're great, but they're, they're, they are very one size fits, all, right, Meaning you might have one module that are taught in a Piper and the next one in a Diamond and the next one in a Cessna 172 or whatever the case may be.

So while you're getting your license essentially in how to fly, you're not becoming an expert in the airplane that you are flying.

We basically recreated our version of what we think a ppl should look like to make you not just ready for the ground school test and the actual test and test ride and so forth, but actually you become an expert in the airplane.

Right.

So the approach speeds, the gross weight and all those sorts of things are specific to a cirrus.

Right.

So that's another way to make a pilot safer.

So not only the airplane, but also the pilot entrance into how they should be flying an airplane.

Is that something that comes with the purchase of an airplane or is that something that anyone.

You can, you can buy that separately online today.

And you don't have to be a serious, you know, customer or pilot.

You can take it and, and use that as your, as your ppl essentially.

Love it.

Do you guys do that Knoxville, or do you do it up in Minnesota or Duluth?

It's online.

Okay.

So you, it's similar to, you know, your Kings and Sporties and those sorts of solutions, but it's just, it's customized and brand new.

Right.

Whereas some of those modules are rather old.

Yeah, I get exactly.

Say.

And as someone who, I don't want to say didn't have much aviation experience coming into this, but that has been now that has learned a lot about general aviation and kind of how slow things progress and change, whether it's with the FAA or whether it's just certification in general, but how would you say you've adapted to that or taken your previous experience from other job, used it to help you lead Cirrus?

I think so.

I was three places before coming to Cirrus, Bang and Olufsen for 16, 17 years, which is all about design and sort of the man machine interface and craftsmanship and quality and so forth.

And also obviously heavy skew towards the retail world.

We had 1,000 retail stores around the world, either sort of franchisees or licensee type setup or company owned and operated locations.

And then from there over to Tesla for four years, right.

Which was very much around scaling again, direct to consumer, you know, high touch and a quality product and then a brief stint in the building materials industry.

Right.

But there we had 14, sorry, 11 plants around, you know, the world where you really get an appreciation for the input cost.

Right.

So if you have something like building materials, which is high volume and low cost, you get really good at your, the procurement part, the manufacturing part and so forth.

Whereas when you have lower volume, high margins, some companies tend to get a little sloppy as they scale, right.

Because you have essentially the profit in the, in the, in the product to, to be essentially less efficient.

Right.

So those three things really prepared me well for, for Cirrus because we, we have a little bit of all of those things.

Right.

And so, so the, the business of running a business is really what I brought, you know, to the company.

The discipline of, of scaling in a responsible, safe way and finding ways to not do the programs that end up in dead ends, right.

And, and end up taking the company or the resources in the wrong direction.

And then along the way, obviously I've learned to fly and flying every week now with an instructor that is.

But I still, you know, I'm consuming the product, I'm learning every day like everybody is learning, right.

Both in the jet and in the sr.

So those things are things that I'm bringing to the equation.

Now one of the things I've been surprised about is not so much that the regulatory environment has hurdles and those sorts of things that's the same in automotive and in audio, video and so forth.

And I find actually that the FAA are quite reasonable, but you got to involve them at the right times.

Right now they're backed up a lot because there's so many things going on in General Aviation with EVTOLs and a bunch of things that they now have to learn and have an opinion about and so forth.

And they may not, those companies may not fully appreciate how the FAA works and therefore they submit immaterials maybe too soon and sort of consume resources that are not ready to be consumed at the faa, right.

So there's just more players that are slowing the sort of the speed of the funnel down a little bit in that sense.

But really that's not the surprising part to me.

What we're trying to do Aside from make exceptional airplanes that have very high degrees of reliability and quality, it's actually on the more softer side of the business, like the interior fit and finish, those sorts of things.

Where, you know, historically aviation or GA have focused on safety and quality and all those sorts of things, which is absolutely where the focus should be.

But when an airplane is a million dollars, like, you expect it to have a similar sort of fit and finish as your Mercedes or Porsche, whatever you might drive, and we have to continuously get better at that.

Right.

So we offer a great cabin experience also, not just a great flying experience.

So as we, you know, experiment with, with fit and finish and leathers and, you know, all these sorts of things that people have come to expect, you know, there's a learning curve that we have to get through, and I expected us to get through that faster.

But there's a couple of things.

Like that sort of skill set doesn't exist as plentiful in aviation as it does in automotive, as an example.

Gotcha.

And nor does the supply chain.

Right.

Because again, it's small volumes.

Right.

It's not like hundreds of thousands of cars.

Right.

So.

So your supply chain that can supply certified type solutions are somewhat limited too.

Yeah.

So just takes.

That has taken us a little longer and we're getting there.

But.

But there's more work to be done.

Have you found a sweet spot of, you know, there's like a.

You want to make as many planes as possible.

You don't want to overstretch your supply chain any more than you can or the actual man work that you have and the hours that you have of people working.

Have you found the sweet spot of not necessarily pushing, but like getting it right to the.

Not to the max, but, you know, right there where you can make it as many safe airplanes as possible, but also maximizing profits for the company?

Well, we actually are not trying to make as many airplanes as we.

As we can right now.

And that sounds weird, but it's really important to me that we build the, let's call it, welcoming committee, the network at the same time.

Right.

Because we can probably build more airplanes than the market can receive and service and train and do all the things that, you know, hangars and all that kind of stuff that people want to have needs to scale at this at the same pace as we scale manufacturing.

Right.

So we're very focused on not just getting as many airplanes out, to use your words, but actually make sure that we scale sort of three things in tandem, the manufacturing footprint.

Right.

So that we can Essentially introduce more automation, essentially do more with less, right.

Instead of just it's always more people, it's almost more buildings.

But actually we can introduce more automation and so forth.

So that's one piece of it.

The other piece is the network needs to scale, right?

Service centers, training centers, parts fulfillment, all those sorts of things have to follow in tandem.

And then the last bit, I like technology to pace at the same time, right?

Because the type of customers that are buying airplanes today are not necessarily just the enthusiast pilot.

They just love everything about flying and flight planning and, and all the preparation and all the currencies you need to maintain and so forth.

But those are people that, like I mentioned earlier, just want the, the conveniences that, that owning an aircraft provides, right.

And they may not want to fly the airplane themselves.

They might want to sit in the back or sit, you know, sit in the right seat and sort of over time learn how to fly from an instructor or a pilot.

So those services and those technologies also have to scale, right?

So it's really those three things that.

We'Re focused on with.

When I look at Sirius from the outside looking in, you know, it's got the cool factor.

It almost seems like you guys go above and beyond for customers and it seems like there really is the customers stay with Cirrus.

Like once you go serious, it seems like you there start with the SR20, the SR22 and then you have the ability to move to the vision jet.

But how do you keep kind of that cool factor?

How do you keep people from searching for other aircraft or keeping them, keeping the funnel inside of Cirrus?

That makes sense.

Like how do you keep them even as from the used market?

But Starting with a 2003 G1 or old series, then moving on up to the division jet, eventually, how do you keep the cool factor of the company and how do you kind of innovate and also kind of approach people to move on up?

Sure.

So the first thing is it requires investment, right.

To do any sort of meaningful product development in GA is very capital intensive.

So one of the things we've done since I took over in 2019, the year prior, I think we spent roughly $11 million or something like that on capex and intangibles.

Essentially the money you put back into the business.

This year we are trying to spend 100 million, so basically 10 times more in just a five year period, right.

On product development, on infrastructure, on those sorts of things to make sure that we stay at the forefront of technology and innovation, but not sort of gimmicky stuff, but actually things that make flying safer or more enjoyable.

And it could be small things, right?

It's not always about go faster, you know, carry more, you know, go further, higher, all those sorts of things.

Some of it is just conveniences, like, you know, thinking about how you design the airplane from the inside out, you know, maybe acquired a cabin, WI fi, you know, connectivity, a connected aircraft where, you know, you, you get preventative maintenance services, a serious IQ app, you know, things that, that give you additional things that you might not come to expect from ga, at least the entry level of ga.

And that requires a lot of investment.

So what we've done, aside from 10x our budget in R and D, we've also built the Innovation center in Duluth.

So essentially we lifted and shifted at the time about 350 engineers from one side of the Runway over to an innovation center that used to be a, a former 280,000 square foot building that was occupied by somebody else.

And we've converted that into a state of the art innovation center so that not only did we lift and shift those individuals, we also brought them back from essentially working remote, which a lot of engineers did during the COVID years.

That energy of people coming together in a common space, new space, with all their tools, with all their managers, with sort of a rethinking of how you work, which we did in that building, has just put our innovation cycles on steroids, if you will, meaning myself and Pat Waddick and Ken and others that are in the product development world.

We don't have offices.

We sit out in the open with all the engineers.

Same desk as everybody else, right?

So now everybody can A, find us, B, walk up and ask a question rather than schedule a meeting sometime out in the future.

So it's changing how our innovation loops happen.

And again, all of our toys, if you will, all the labs, all the tools, all the machines from an experimental flight test are all in that same building now.

And they were scattered over many locations around the campus and now it's in one building.

So that's, that's huge for us.

We've now increased our PD organization and the functions you know, affiliated with that to I think it's 480 people now.

Oh, wow.

So, so we've essentially 3x'd the amount of people working on innovation in, in the same period that I, that I mentioned that we've 10x the budget.

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So is that innovation, pretty much all what the G7 was, is that innovation planning, you know, five, 10 years down the future EV electric.

Yeah, it's all of the above.

And I can go, I can get back to EV because we're not going to do ev, at least in the future.

But it's all the platform teams.

Right.

So the SR20, 22, 22T and the, the Vision Jet are all in the same building and they're all tasked with coming up with the next G7.

The idea is that platforms never sit still.

They constantly evolve and develop and get better and so forth.

So there's teams that are focused on that and then we have our advanced development group that are trying to look five to 10 years out, like what's the next either technology, we should start looking at the next, you know, airplane platform, all those sorts of things.

Yeah.

So we both.

Yeah.

And talking about the G7.

Was the G7 something that was in the works with you as a, as a CEO or is this kind of before you.

No, it was in the works with me.

Yeah.

So.

So there's lots of reasons why we, we wanted to do the G7 and with a specific focus on the avionics.

Right.

Parts commonality with the jet is, is one.

Excuse me.

You really want to have as few SKUs in your manufacturing setup as possible and also in your service network.

Right.

In your training syllabus and all those sorts of things.

It just simplifies a lot of things.

If there is essentially one set of avionics to learn and inventory manage and repair and all the things that come with that, that's one.

The other bit was the transition from the SR up into the jet could come across as a little bit scary.

Right.

Because you got to have a type rating and so forth.

You got to learn essentially the touchscreen avionics, all those sorts of things by removing that first barrier, which is, oh, I know how to fly this.

Then it's really just the altitude and the 22T can already fly at 25,000ft.

So really there's just pressurization and a different engine to contend with because the, the takeoff and landing speeds and so forth are very, very similar across the two platforms.

So if you can fly one, you can really fly the other.

Yeah, right.

And starting with the avionics is a great place to make the transition easier.

So that was one of the two of the main priorities.

And then the third one was really around safety.

And the features that we could unlock with the new avionics, like the safe taxi feature, the overspeed under speed protection on flaps controls, and those sorts of things just made it even simpler with the G7.

So there's usually multiple reasons why we do some of these things.

Safety is always paramount parts.

Commonality is another.

Right.

And it's a big, I think you've heard me say before that, that to bring more people into general aviation, we have to bring the cost down.

Like the cost of ownership has to come down and obviously new technologies often cost more than the previous ones, but so we have to find ways to simplify what we do so we can take cost out.

Right.

And when you take cost out, you lower the barrier of entry and you invite more people into, into ga.

Right, and everything that it's got to offer.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I mean, as someone personally that would love to buy a Sirius, a brand new one is kind of off the table for me and my current situation, unless they hit the lottery tomorrow.

But I'll give you a call and we'll start that.

But the, the used market too.

How does Sirus view the, the used market?

I, I feel like a lot of the other companies or they have in the past, you know, they kind of neglect them a little bit.

It's kind of, they don't talk about them, it just is what it is.

But how does Sirius view the, the used market, whether it's SR20 or the SR22s?

So it's a good question.

We think it's very important not only for existing owners to know that the residual values of their airplane, you know, holds up well, so they can upgrade later on and get and, and obviously transition that used aircraft to somebody else.

That's, that's either wanting to fly now or want to buy it at a different price point.

That's actually one of the things that really interesting when you have a backlog of more than a year's wait list, it's almost like combined across the two platforms is about a thousand Airplanes, the backlog is deep.

So essentially everything we can produce the next one and a half to two years, depending on item number.

So we want the residual value of their airplanes to stay pretty high or good so that people feel that they are not immediately depreciating a bunch of money when they buy an aircraft.

The other bit is we engage in the used market for, for many reasons.

One, we want to have the fleet fly as much as possible, right?

Because when they fly a lot, they consume services like parts and maintenance and training and financing and insurance and all the things that become part of the ecosystem.

So we want them to fly a lot, but we also want them to be capable and confident pilots.

Right?

And that's where the training piece comes in.

Because when you're capable and confident like you, you fly more, right?

And then you become a safer pilot and all those sort of things, sort of, you know, naturally you, you get the benefits of.

Now we decided years ago to give away something called embark training.

So when you buy an airplane in the used market, basically a transaction we don't benefit from financially because you, you're selling to your neighbor.

Right?

Like, we don't, we're not part of that transaction.

We Give for free 3 days of training away so that the new buyer A will get an instructor, you know, sent, you know, from, from us, one of the 800 instructors that are CSIP.

So Cirrus standardized instructor pilots will come and help or they'll meet up with you somewhere and train you for three days so that you get full enjoyment of, of the aircrafts.

You know, you get, you understand all the capabilities by a competent, you know, instructor that knows that airplane very well so that you A are safe and B, will use the airplane more.

Right.

And in doing that, we basically invite them into the Cirrus life, right into our ecosystem and help them with everything from service to maintenance to, you know, IFR ratings and other things that they might need.

So we care very much about the use market and I'm sure you've heard about coupon and others that we engage in and participate in migration and those sorts of events.

Yeah, and it really seems like, you know, Sirius is almost stepping into a lifestyle brand, I'd say rather than just like an aircraft manufacturer training or even innovating, it just seems like you sell a lifestyle, you sell a type of way to live your life, whether it is to save time and skip the airlines or whether it's someone like Max who can go fly the new, new G7 around and show it off on YouTube and really kind of just like share everything.

Have you kind of wanted to double down on that and make sure you're selling a lifestyle?

Well, first of all, we're sort of product focused.

Right.

It happens to be wrapped in this lifestyle that we refer to as serious life.

And we care very much about it and we think about it in terms of the services that we bring to the market.

And this is why the serious iq, this, this app will over the years continue to grow in its capabilities and its contact points to a point where we'd like eventually that you can schedule your service and your maintenance and your training via the app out to all these hundreds of partners that we have around the world, be it service centers or training partners.

Yeah.

And I know we're up on time, but I'm going to ask you one or two more questions.

You can be quick answers.

I don't want to be too long ones, but how is the overall.

Longer if you need to.

How is the overall perception or how has the G7 been received?

Has it been everything you thought it was going to be?

Has it been even more kind of talk about what your customers said when, when you had the big day, they had the big launch and now you're a couple months or almost a year into it, huh?

Yeah, it's been a year now.

It was very well received and we, we probably had the best, actually.

We, we did have the best first two months of orders on any launch we've ever done.

So customers really were anticipating something new in that sense.

And it's been very well received in the market.

We're working out some of these cosmetic issues that I mentioned early on is a pain point for us.

Right.

And we'll get those addressed in short order here.

But yeah, no, it's been a very successful launch.

Yeah.

And when you say cosmetic, was it you said cosmetic issues that you're having with there, is that like paint or just like finishing or.

Yeah, yeah.

It's sort of, you know, nuisance, fit and finish type things.

We'll make it right by the customers.

I love it.

Yeah, that's, that's great to hear.

You mentioned earlier kind of how technology has to be just right and it really seems like, you know, Garmin and Cirrus kind of are one in the same in their viewings of technology and bringing out the best technology you can possibly do.

What was the kind of.

The development and working with Garmin to make sure you had one, the most beautiful kind of cockpit or avionics suite you could design and Two, the capabilities of the avionics itself.

Did you know, did you go to them at all?

Were you like, hey, we would really like this or like this?

Or were they kind of like, hey, this is what we can do?

And you're like, all right, I love it, let's get it in there.

It's a combination of all of the above.

I mean, we've worked with Garmin for probably more than 20 years.

I mean, there was a very well established relationship before I even joined.

And we have, because we are such a large consumer of their avionics, we have a very good development relationship with them where we give feedback to, hey, this is how we think about it.

And you might want to have these sort of configurations and buttons, which is, you might remember the G6 hat perspective plus.

Right.

Which was our version of Garmin's platform, tailored to us, different buttons, different icon set up and in some cases different features.

So it's not always, I mean, we like to be first with most technologies, but only when we can integrate it, not just implement it.

And I think that's a big, big nuance that people need to understand.

Like putting on some, the latest avionics, you know, from a, you know, ABC provider is not that difficult.

Integrating it, like truly, like making the main machine interface, you know, unique is the hard part.

Right.

I mean, and you'll notice that in the G7, like we did the flaps control, overspeed, underspeed, we did at the same time the fuel selector from wing to wing.

We did a bunch of things that sort of made it integrated rather than just implemented like hanging the avionics is, you know, aftermarket shops can do that, but actually implementing into the backbone of the airplane is, is the hard part.

Yeah.

Has.

What was the biggest kind of roadblock, if there was one with the G7, was it the finishings and was that kind of always kind of been an issue or was it just software development and kind of implementing and integrating like you're talking about?

No, no, the, the integration in terms of, you know, reliability and safety and all those sorts of things was actually not the difficult part.

And we, we have world class people that, that know how to do that really, really well.

It's the fit and finish type stuff.

The new things that we're trying, you know, to, to sort of add on to the equation.

And we did a lot of things right.

Like for instance, we lowered the, the, the display right.

Of the avionics by I think an inch and a half or something like that, giving you more visibility.

Right.

On both sides and out in front of the airplane, which, again, makes, you know, it's safer to fly.

You can see more things.

So we did a lot of things right.

But, but, you know, we have very high standards and we want to, we want to be perfect.

People should have.

And you mentioned you've been flying a lot or you've been flying more if you had your choice.

You don't necessarily your favorite, but you're just going Chicago to Duluth.

You know, what do you, what plane are you going to take?

Do you have a similar plane you want to take?

Do you like, I'll take the 22 today, or I'll take the Vision jet.

I'm going to take.

It all depends on my schedule.

Like, I like to fly the SR if I have time, right, and the jet is a little bit faster and you can clear more weather right at 31,000ft.

So oftentimes it's on Mondays, you know, I would, I favor the jet, so I can get from Chicago to Duluth, you know, on time and start my day.

And on Thursdays, often I hop on a ferry flight, you know, from, from Duluth that usually flies down to Knoxville, and I get to fly the, the srs, where we have a little bit more time right at the end of the day.

I was watching ESPN the other day, and they're talking about SEC football coaches, how they have a group chat.

Is there.

There probably isn't, but was there any feedback from CEOs that you had when you guys released the G7?

It was like, oh, my gosh, you guys are like, out of.

Did you come up with this or is there any kind of like, back and forth between, between CEOs or kind of talk with you guys?

If there was, I wouldn't tell you.

I love it.

Very good relationship to the other OEMs in the industry through something called Gamma that releases all the statistics right, about who's selling what.

And we have a great, you know, network of the other CEOs, but also at all levels, really, to sort of advance the, the, the science of flying.

All right.

And one thing that we did talk about, or one of the questions, I kind of framed, you know, electric or EVtols for, for you, as someone that's in the industry, how do you view EVTOLs?

How do you view them and what do you kind of expect from them?

Well, first of all, I wish them all the best of luck because it's great for the industry to, to have more, more companies investing in innovation, in working with the faa.

So I Want them to succeed.

Now for cirrus, I don't currently see a business opportunity in it.

For us at this moment in time, we're very focused on sort of the regional travel, like the, you're going places when you're helping in a cirrus, Right.

And the evtol sort of business case right now, I don't fully understand it, to be honest, which is also one of the reasons why I'm not, you know, head over heels for it.

Having, you know, spent a lot of years at Tesla and understanding a little bit about the battery technology, I still think the battery technology is at least a decade away, Right.

And I don't have the luxury of spending investor money.

You know, we, we have to run a profitable company, right?

So we have to see the, the, the real business opportunity in it.

And let's take sort of what I think the EV OEMs are trying to, to sell, right, which is this idea that you can skip traffic in Manhattan, right, You know, and get to JFK or LaGuardia or Newark really fast.

And at the price of an Uber, I think they, they have mentioned at different locations or close to.

Right.

Well, in order to have a, a viable business, you have to sell thousands of these EVs, right.

And those little bees with a couple passengers on board, right, have to zip in and out of class B airspace at LaGuardia and Newark and so forth, where they're trying to land passenger airplanes with 300 people on board every 30 seconds.

So I think the likelihood of actually being allowed to land at the airport for thousand of these little EVs, right, that are not that little, actually, they're pretty large.

Right.

And eventually autonomous.

I just, I don't see it in the cards for at least the next 10 years.

Yeah.

The other bit is since you have very little space and real estate is at a premium in places like San Francisco and New York and Chicago and so forth, where are you going to land these?

Like, where are you going to start?

Well, there's no, it's not like Grand Central Station can park a thousand of these on the roof, right?

So you have to go on the other side of the FDR somewhere.

So now you're already hopping in a taxi, which is part of the idea, which is to save the taxi, Right?

Exactly.

So then you're hopping on that to get to a helipad somewhere or some sort of landing part where you have to wait and get in line and wait for your particular aircraft to be charged and ready to go and so forth.

Only to fly to the other side of the river and to the airport and land probably a few miles away from the airport, so you're out of that, you know, airspace.

And then you got to get on another mode of transportation, be it a tunnel or.

Or another cab or whatever, you know, a bus or something like that.

So I don't.

I don't see the time savings, you know, to be honest.

And in sort of a cynical way of thinking about it, you know, the helicopter already exists.

Yeah.

And you can probably buy a helicopter for a couple million dollars rather than.

I think some of these EVs are supposed to be 4 million or more.

And then the other bit is you need thousands of pilots to operate these things.

It's not like an Uber where you can just have somebody with a traditional driver's license.

This is a very busy airspace flying into these big airports.

So the pilot capabilities have to be pretty good.

Right.

And you got to have thousands of them.

Right.

And if.

And if you want to have a sort of a unit economics where it's affordable, they make, you know, a pilot, you know, that can fly into these airspaces.

Right.

Make $100,000, $200,000 a year.

I don't know what.

What airline pilots make.

Right.

But you now have to have that cost component be added to the already expensive, you know, aircraft, which is, you know, I think $4 million or so.

Right.

So I don't see the unit economics, the payback, for lack of a better term.

And I don't see the use case just yet.

And we haven't even gotten to autonomous flight charging infrastructure, all those sorts of things.

So I think there's an enormous amount of hurdles in front that still have to be solved by these companies and the legislators.

And somebody have to build that infrastructure.

Exactly.

And in the.

In my Tesla days, right.

You know, Elon secured the funds to build, you know, the supercharger network and all those sorts of things.

And so somebody has to build that infrastructure, because if you can't land, you have to land somewhere else.

Like, let's be hovering there.

And the last bit is like, we land usually with about 45 minutes of fuel remaining in case there's weather or deviations and those sorts of things.

Well, these aircrafts can, I think, fly for, what, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, fully loaded.

So, you know, in our world, by the time you take off, you're already outside the wrecks.

Right.

So there's just a lot of things that still have to be solved for.

For cirrus to get into that yeah.

Into that space, right?

Yeah.

And I love that answer.

I agree with you.

It's like, I mean, it sounds great on paper, right?

Like, you look at it, you read it, you're like, oh, wow, this could be cool.

But then when you kind of look into it and, and someone with you with, with battery technology, you were very aware of your previous days at Tesla and just kind of where it is today and the time limit and the time frame, and you never go point A to point B in a straight line in New York.

There's always, you're always moving somewhere.

There's always some kind of deviation, speed up, slow down, and figuring it.

That.

And then when you add the infrastructure like you said, which in itself takes 10, 20 years to build up to where it's usable for a lot of consumers.

So I tend to agree with you there.

And I tend to agree with.

I think.

I think United bought a bunch of electric airplanes or said they did too.

And that kind of all confuses me too.

Like, it sounds great, but is the battery technology there?

I want to be clear.

I want them to succeed.

Yeah, right.

I mean, we should all want them to succeed.

These are beautiful, you know, aircrafts that they're, that they're designing.

I think they're learning a lot in the process.

Right.

Where, I mean, you know, gravity is a test you can't cheat on.

Right.

And they're starting to look more and more like airplane with wings or some version of that rather than sort of hovering because that's where you burn all your energy.

Right.

So.

So we want them to succeed.

It's.

If your question was whether or not we.

Cirrus is planning to get into evtol, you know, in the, in the near future.

And the answer to that is no.

But, but I, I mean, an enormous amount of work and an enormous amount of money is going into it and, and it's.

It'll ultimately be good for the industry.

Yeah.

Any kind of innovation in the industry helps something they can learn there, whether if it does or doesn't succeed, may be adaptable to either your side of the business or the airline side of the business.

So there's a lot of cool things coming and it's just cool to see.

It's refreshing to see people come with new ideas.

Kind of like when Cirrus came out with the first version and now with the G7.

And it's cool to see someone just not have the same airplane for 100 years, if that makes sense.

So that's pretty much all I got for you.

Is there anything else you have or wanted to touch on?

No, I think that's good.

Yeah.

It's a pleasure being on today, Sean.

It's awesome to have you on, man.

Like we said, I'll talk to you at Oshkosh sometime.

All right.

All right, John, have a great day.

Thanks.

We'll see you.

Bye.

Bye.

AV Nation that is a wrap on today's episode.

Thank you so much for listening to the episode.

I hope you enjoy this one.

I thought it was really interesting what he had to take on on his take on evs, because it's one that I agree with and I definitely see the skepticism, but also the hope and the wish that they do well.

The hope and the wish that they continue to innovate and build this great industry.

Because what one person is doing is affecting everyone in this industry.

And if they can do something cool, innovate, get it accepted by the faa, then maybe we can adapt it throughout other parts of aviation.

So aviation, I hope you're having a great day and as always, happy flying.

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