TCM Diesel just got more cash

[Sig600]

Interesting chain of events, China is buying the world.

Article says 2-5 years to finish. We'll shall see, but they def have the cash now.

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news..._203788-1.html

[Michael White]

Interesting article. I wonder what effect (if any) this sale will have on the folks at Mattituck (also owned by Teledyne).

Any idea, Mahlon?

[snowbird]

Will we be able to buy TCM parts at Wal-Mart?

[rv6ejguy]

Originally Posted by Sig600

Interesting chain of events, China is buying the world.

Article says 2-5 years to finish. We'll shall see, but they def have the cash now.

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news..._203788-1.html

Teledyne had the money to finish the job before this but perhaps not the will. I see this as a way for the parent to divest themselves of a division which was barely profitable and with minimal future prospects. Let's hope the the diesel and indeed the whole product line does not just disappear. I hope the new buyers understand this market and do the right things.

The economics don't look promising to me however, buy out SMA, spend millions more fixing and improving the design then spend more trying to market and sell enough examples to bring the unit cost down to reasonable levels. That is a steep slope.

[GAHco]

A Chinese Company bought Teledyne Continental

A good link to Avweb.com

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news..._203788-1.html

My thoughts are

It sure does look like they want our products but not at American dollar prices.

I don't know what they paid, but with a little time they will be able to run it for much less than we would in the good old USA.
The cost of doing business is not going down here, but it may go down once they get set up and organized over their.

We are used to (but not happy) to pay big $$ for aircraft products.
For them, they stand to eventually bring in a larger profit margin and possibly NOT lower the costs to US.

It will be a wait and see thing.

[scsmith]

And with their demonstrated ability to adhere to specifications and standards, I'm sure the reliability and quality of the engines will be fine, too.

When I find a SAE grade 8 bolt that I can round the flats off the head with a wrench, I don't wonder where it came from.

[David Paule]

Here's the press release:

http://www.teledyne.com/news/tdy_12142010.asp

Got to say that as a Cessna 180 owner, with a Continental O-470, this is not the best news of the day.

Dave

[flyvans.com]

guys, give the chinese some slack please...

with this attitude by "the incumbents", no wonder china is overtaking everybody on the right lane...

china is a huge GA market in itself, just about to be tapped. also china is maturing from just learning to copy everything to actually coming up with innovations by themselves. yuneec and others come to mind. and more and more they have the economic power to purchase whatever technology they do not yet master. that's capitalism at its best, so no double standards please.
it may make more sense for them vs. the saturated market in the u.s. and greedy investment culture where a product behind counts less than vapour of double digit growth.
and they are busy developing a new engine and not suing each others butt over some kind of duh patent...

i see it as an encouraging sign that somebody believes in progress and a future of GA! they certainly didn't buy to let it go bust.
don't get me wrong, i'm not a cheerleader nor a fan of chinese policies, but fear and denial is not the answer.

rgds bernie
(from the high cost / high quality nation of switzerland ;-)

[bhassel]

Well said...we should be wondering how we can tap that market with our talent and innovation or at least if nothing else ship our lawyers (non RV brothers and sisters) over there so that both of our systems are equally degraded (just kidding)

Ouch I can hear the torches already...

Bob