REFLECTOR: The new Franklin people

[Donald Royer]

I am sure that most of you fellow Franklin drivers are aware that a new Polish company has taken over from PZL and they are saying that they plan to produce parts and resume production of new engines. They had a booth at Oshkosh and I checked it out. Frankly, I was not impressed. While I am not an expert in these things and there was a severe communication problem, all of the people that were at the booth when I was there spoke very poor English, I came away with the impression these people don't have a clue. 

The first thing that I noticed as I walked up to the booth was that they had several engines on display and they had Corvair fuel pumps on them. Nobody seemed to know that there is an AD on those pumps, and for that matter they didn't seem to know what an AD was. On closer examination the engines on display looked like something that had been bolted together out of the spare parts bin. They talked about the improvements that they planned to make in the engine and the different models that they planned to produce, but they seemed to have no idea of the rectification and STC's that  would be required before their "improved"  engines could be put in your Cessna which their signs were touting.

I wish that I could be more optimistic, but frankly, I don't expect them to get off of the ground. I don't think that it was just a matter of the people in the booth just being pr type salesmen, because on of the guys that I talked to claimed to be the president on the company.

Donald Royer
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