Van's Air Force
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Engine Deposit info
- Thread starter FlyGuy65
- Start date
Carl Froehlich
Well Known Member
FM-150C and a new snorkel
You will love the AFP FM150C on this engine!
I have the old snorkel on my recently new FM-150C. I did a lot of flight testing between the new snorkel and the original (Van’s used my data at Oshkosh when they discussed all this). For a parallel valve 180hp engine the new snorkel does provide a small, but measurable increase in MP.
But - after I sent the new prototype snorkel back to Van’s with a request for a copy once they got into production, no response. I suspect with all the stuff going on they had bigger fish to fry.
Carl
You will love the AFP FM150C on this engine!
I have the old snorkel on my recently new FM-150C. I did a lot of flight testing between the new snorkel and the original (Van’s used my data at Oshkosh when they discussed all this). For a parallel valve 180hp engine the new snorkel does provide a small, but measurable increase in MP.
But - after I sent the new prototype snorkel back to Van’s with a request for a copy once they got into production, no response. I suspect with all the stuff going on they had bigger fish to fry.
Carl
This line seems to have disappeared on the new budget filed yesterday
zubbyz
I'm New Here
Yeah, I saw that also. There is a "new" expense line with the rather vague label of "Contingency" that totals 2.1 million for a 120 day period or about 115k per week. Very hard to say what that represents.
Huge value add, they don't have to deal with individual customers. There's a small markup witch it baked into the price (paid for by the customer) which is taken by the distributor who is better set up to deal with the public.
Going through Van's, I'm guessing that small markup is about to get much, much larger.
BigBadBob
Member
That was my point. If Van's doesn't honor the deposit, it's gone. They can try to negotiate pricing with Lycoming, but how much will Lycoming be willing to bend? There are a lot of engines involved, so that remains to be seen. Ultimately I'll be re-paying the deposit amount for an item I could theoretically buy from another distributor, say Spruce. There is no value add to the customer in that transaction.
That is quite different from repaying the deposit amount on an item I can only get from Van's, like a kit.
BTW, thanks Avansa for the correction regarding Distributors. I was thinking from the point of view of an airframer.
Lycoming sets the price of the engine. Lycoming set the price I agreed upon 2 years ago. Lycoming is not in bankruptcy. How is Vans able to charge me a new price for something I essentially agreed upon with Lycoming. Lycoming knows the price I agreed upon, because I was contacted by them.. This doesn’t smell right in any way.. I will wait, but it seems like it could be a money grab.
It's one thing to lose my deposit, but I should still be in line and have my price locked in with Lycoming... Which is still cheaper than what the current Thunderbolt prices are..
It's one thing to lose my deposit, but I should still be in line and have my price locked in with Lycoming... Which is still cheaper than what the current Thunderbolt prices are..
There's so much here to correct. This is Chapter 11, Van's doesn't get to skip out on debts. It's not their call. There is still money coming in, now at a profit and the court will cause profits to go toward paying off debts. Hopefully in full, possibly over time. But it's up to you to file a claim.
Van's is Lycoming's NUMBER ONE customer. WIlling to bend? Making money is not bending and Lycoming does not sell direct. Apparently they don't need to or want to.
BigBadBob
Member
I don't know what you're correcting. I'm simply saying that, given the current state of affairs, if I have a choice of getting the engine from someplace else like a different distributor, why would I use Van's?
For it to be financially advantageous to purchase through Van's they would have to honor most of the deposit, which seems doubtful. Or Lycoming would have to reduce the price of their engines, which seems likewise doubtful.
What Van's does is up to them and the court. I'm not asking them or Lycoming to do anything.
Lots of conjecture and the fact is we don't know what's going to happen. One strategy might be to allow customers who want quicker delivery to pay more now (in addition to their deposits) to get delivery sooner, while those willing to wait a little longer may be able to get their engine at the agreed upon price with full deposit applied. This would allow Van's to fully honor all the deposits over a longer time period. I'd probably be willing to wait another 9-12 months at this point.
cactusman
Well Known Member
I asked Lycoming that exact question, will they honor their agreed to pricing when they acknowledged our orders through Vans. I got nothing but crickets.
I don’t think this is on Lycoming to answer. Their deal is with Vans. I DO expect them to honor those prices (to Vans). The question is can Van’s afford to honor the prices they quoted us? I actually expect Van’s to be asking Lycoming to help them out by accepting less for those orders. No idea if they will agree, but since Van’s is apparently Lycoming largest single customer they (Van’s) may have some leverage.
Exactly. Lycoming knows the airframes are still out there needing engines. They don't care which distributor sells them.
cactusman
Well Known Member
I think it is a critical question for Lycoming to answer. Lycoming acknowledged a confirmation of our engine order at a specific price and date. Lycoming called and scheduled folks for estimated delivery dates. All of who placed orders for Lycoming engines with sizable deposits either paid interest or forwent interest payments on those moneys in our accounts for almost 2 years now.
Where our $$,$$$ went is a question that is separate from the question of whether Lycoming intends to honor its original pricing or not when they confirmed our orders.
Lycoming is being specifically quiet on this because I think they are hoping to re-price these engines and clear an obvious backlog that they either couldn't or wouldn't staff for or gets supplies for.
IMHO, these are two distinct questions that need to be asked at the hearing:
1. Judge can Textron Lycoming use VA ch 11 to eradicate pricing contracts that they were a party of, and communicated directly with the customer?
2. Judge, how much of our deposits are salvageable in this process to proceed with the engine purchase transaction?
I'm no lawyer, but as someone who has unfortunately had to write checks to them on occasion, I know the importance of having proper representation in this case.
I’ll point out that the post that future profits will pay off old debts is not true. In a bankruptcy all pre filing debts are discharged. Any compromise you reach with Vans is a a compromise to settle the debt. Your recourse is severely limited. However your goodwill is important so the offers are made to be as fair as possible. The alternative is to simply close and none of us want that.
As to the engines time will tell. Goodwill suggests that a deposit for a third party product should be honored as taken. But their other debtors and the court may not permit it. Legally every single dollar is at the discretion of the court.
I always wondered why Vans played the middle man on the engines. I suppose it made a little money for them since they could simply have validated the customer to Lycoming and backed out.
As for me, my engine officially was purchased from vans aircraft so I would have no direct standing with Lycoming other than their warranty support.
As to the engines time will tell. Goodwill suggests that a deposit for a third party product should be honored as taken. But their other debtors and the court may not permit it. Legally every single dollar is at the discretion of the court.
I always wondered why Vans played the middle man on the engines. I suppose it made a little money for them since they could simply have validated the customer to Lycoming and backed out.
As for me, my engine officially was purchased from vans aircraft so I would have no direct standing with Lycoming other than their warranty support.
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Paul Thomas
Well Known Member
Van's customers did not have a contract with Lycoming; it was a contract with Van's. Van's had a separate contract with Lycoming.
cactusman
Well Known Member
Lycoming acted like we had an implied contract with them. They sent us emails confirming our orders and Lycoming called and emailed us to confirm said orders and set delivery dates.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/... implied contract is a,by two or more parties.
I strongly disagree. I would have thought more than twice about this endeavor if engines weren't available through -- and at the price offered by -- Van's.
Lycoming obviously sells (sold?) engines to Van's at a lower price than to other distributors because of the volume. Van's passes that lower price (w/ a reasonable markup) to us. That makes builders more likely to buy a Van's kit which in turn makes Van's more likely to buy more Lycs. Win-win-win.
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I agree with this. People here act like my $65,000 engine order is burdensome to Lycoming. Unlike Van's, Lycoming is answering to a huge corporation. Selling Van's/us an engine at the price agreed to at the time I'm sure was financially well monitored (as opposed to Van's predicament.)
Having too many orders is (almost always) an extremely good problem to have.
Lycoming acted like they are fulfilling a drop ship order for Van as done in many wholesale arrangements. I don’t think full filling a drop ship order constitutes an implied contract in particular as you never made any payments to Lycoming..
As said there are two contracts one between you and vans and one between vans and Lycoming. Now Vans can cancel either or both of those contracts as part of the bankruptcy.
Lycoming on the other hand can not cancel the contract as long as Vans performs under the contract ( assuming typical contractual language). Now one problem here is that Vans is not performing. They defaulted at least on one Lycoming payment. Depending on the contract language this might allow Lycoming to cancel their contract. Since we don’t have a copy of that contract hard to say. Obviously if Lycoming can and does cancel the contract there is no way for Vans to honor the contract with their customer at agreed upon prices…. .
All things we can’t know for certain without the contract to review.
Oliver
cactusman
Well Known Member
We may need to take Professor Kingsfield's contract law class to sort it all out.
I was not aware of that - just that Lycoming is listed as a creditor. Is there a source in the Ch11 documents?
mackd
Active Member
I wonder if this is the new snorkel: https://store.vansaircraft.com/va-132-3.html? I have an e-mail to Van's to ask about it. My VA-132-2 that came with the firewall forward kit has a big warning sticker explicitly saying not to use it with an FM-150C.
mackd
Active Member
Tech support at VA confirmed this is a new snorkel compatible with the AFP system.
You didn't get the request to pay the additional 12% back in January? A number of us have been getting production info and requests for final payment, so indeed things are happening.
I didn’t see anything. I’ll call thanks.
It was a request to agree or not to a 12% increase in price, There was no request to "pay".
