I have many friends who run businesses in the US. They offer technical services to the aerospace development just like we do. Because they are US based businesses staffed by US citizens they can (in theory) carryout out defense related work.

We have technical input into many aircraft development programs that are flying or intending to fly prototypes of new aircraft or major modifications of existing aircraft.

It is important for an engineer to understand that things do go wrong. Not often, but they do. Understanding the root cause of failure is the only way to consciously avoid the same situation.

A version of this article first appeared in the October 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here For our sons sixteenth birthday, we paid a visit to the Houston Space Center. None of us had ever been to any of the NASA sites before so we were really looking forward to it. The […]

A version of this article first appeared in the August 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here I always thought the concept of freedom of speech was non political. I thought it was essential for a healthy society in the same way it is essential for a healthy organization. It is my assessment […]

We are working with several companies and organizations on regulatory compliance for both designing and operating unmanned aerial vehicles, both above and below the 55lb weight limit. There are several things that immediately become apparent

A version of this article first appeared in the July 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here In the last couple of years there have been a number of new aircraft projects in the UK. I Have been involved with some of them and it has been interesting to see the progress and […]

A version of this article first appeared in the July 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here One of my favourite aircraft is the Saab 35 Draken which was a groundbreaking Swedish aircraft manufactured in the 1950’s and 60’s. It remained in service until the late 90’s with the Danish and Swedish air […]

A version of this article first appeared in the July 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here We have formally established our scholarship fund with the University College of the Cayman Islands. The fund is targeted at students who have not qualified for any other award, who have enthusiasm and ability but may struggle […]

A version of this article first appeared in the July 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here I was asked this question this month “Where would you certify an aircraft if you had a choice?”. My answer was instinctively “Brazil”. We have done studies to determine what factors make aircraft programs successful. In […]

A version of this article first appeared in the January 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here I have been working with a company just getting to the end of their prototype design phase. They have yet to fly one of the prototypes and their engineering team is working very hard to release […]

A version of this article first appeared in the February 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here On one of our projects we have been analysing the major sub assemblies using sub assembly finite element models. Once the general design is frozen we will bring all these models together to create the […]

A version of this article first appeared in the May 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here So you have engineered, built and flown your prototype aircraft. It has provided the metrics that you see looking for and the investors are happy. You now have to take all of the lessons learned […]

This article first appeared in the May 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here As part of the white paper I wrote on the aerial urban mobility market I had the chance to review over 60 concepts. Most of which rely on lift rotors, or vectored thrust, for some of their flight envelope. In […]

This article first appeared in the November 2017 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here We have had the good fortune to work on many programs when they are in the early stages of development. This involves working on the prototype design and build. I have touched on this subject in previous articles but […]

This article first appeared in the December 2017 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here So we flew back from Canada to Cayman after Christmas. I travel a lot; to and from the US, Canada, Europe and the Caribbean. Airports suffer from greater and lesser degrees of design and operational competence in their layout […]

Since the relaunch of our website last year, we have clocked half a million downloads from the technical library. We are especially happy because from the time we relaunched the website we had to ‘start from scratch’ and establish all of our search engine rankings and external links. We now have typical mid-week downloads of […]

This article first appeared in the September 2017 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here In the last months, I have spoken to 3 programs concerning investment and investor relations for the prototype phase of their aircraft program. We have been involved with prototype development for startup companies since we formed Abbott Aerospace in […]

As some of you may know by now, one of my focus areas is program cost – especially on composite aircraft programs. We see many programs and while many aspects and details are project specific, there are some universal rules. This is one – this is my wording but I am sure that the sentiment […]

This post originally appeared in the Abbott Aerospace March 2017 Newsletter. Click here to Subscribe I rarely engage in public debate on social media platforms. There is usually little point as it is not a good forum to make people change their mind. It usually ends up as a name calling exercise and you end […]