On the Record with
JIM RICE, PRESIDENT & CEO, VISIONAIRE CORP.

VisionAire Looking for Investment Help

VisionAire president and CEO Jim Rice.

Embattled but still standing, with its Ames, IA, production plant leased for storage to a local company, and with newer projects snapping at its heels, Jim Rice's VisionAire Vantage project needs another infusion of money to continue through the flight-test stage.

"It's hard to look back," says Rice, when asked if he would have started the project had he known how long it would take. "I probably wouldn't. But we knew that there hadn't been a successful start-up in this market since Lear Jet. Ed Swearingen will be the first, but we'll be the second."

With around 20 people employed, VisionAire has continued to refine the Vantage design, following the major changes that the company made in early 1999, when it reduced the forward sweep on the wing and moved the landing gear from the body to a lowered wing. The company has finished a two-dimensional wind-tunnel test of a new Fowler flap system, and has revised the flight control arrangement in the cockpit.
The rear fuselage has been stretched to accommodate shallower curves in the inlet ducts. After switching to a flat-panel display and autopilot system with components from Meggitt, Garmin and S-Tec, the VisionAire designers were able to reroute controls behind the panel and eliminate the pedestal. The proof-of-concept aircraft flew again last April, in a series of tests to determine the location for a pitot-static system in the production aircraft.

The first flight of the redesigned VisionAire Vantage single could take place late in 2001

It would take about 18 to 20 months to complete the program, says Rice. VisionAire plans to build two conforming prototypes and fly late in 2001 or early in 2002, conduct a 12-month, 1,500-hour flight-test program and be ready to deliver the first half-dozen aircraft at the end of that time. "We know that there is a market for an aircraft of this size and performance at this price point," says Rice. Compared with the new small jets, he says, the Vantage has a larger cabin and excellent take-off and landing performance. Speaking from experience, Rice notes that there are "enough problems anyway" with a new aircraft, without adding a new engine.

But Rice still has not found the big money that he was looking for a year ago, when he told Show News that he hoped to find $150 million in debt and equity finance before the end of 1999. Unlike Sino Swearingen or AASI, VisionAire did not start with the aid of deep-pocket investors, but with 450 individuals recruited by Rice, many of them also customers. The state of the company's finances "depends on what day it is," he jokes. "We have adequate funds to continue at our present level, but we will need to add more funds to accelerate to a faster pace."

So far, Rice has been able to renegotiate $14 million of debt into preferred stock and long-term debts. "We are negotiating for a sizable transaction to propel us into the rest of the money," he says. "$15 to 20 million would give us confidence to ramp up" into flight test, he says. At the same time, the company continues to talk with suppliers, including Scaled Technology Works (STW) of Montrose, CO. STW, a sister company to Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites and a subsidiary of Precision Castparts, would build major airframe components for the Vantage.

In total, Rice estimates that VisionAire needs another $70 million to get through flight test. But, he says, "we raised that much already. It looks easier than it did ten years ago."