A short recapitulation about our last ten years of manufacturing process.. After a strong period of tests and pre-production process (performed in Italy where the plane was originally designed) in December 1999 the whole production of the Savage planes moved to Czech Republic. In February 2000, finally started officially the Savage’s regular production in Czech Republic. Ten years later (February 2010) we can start to create some statistics about this first ten years of manufacturing process. The first 3 years of production were spent expecially to promote the plane. Only since late 2003 we seriously increased our production capacity and penetration inside several markets (for example in Germany where we sold almost 40 Savage planes or Italy with more than 50 planes sold).
HERE SOME NUMBERS :
Planes sold at February 2010 : 220.
Available models: 03 Models available (Classic-Cruiser-Cub).
Last model introduced : The “Savage Cub”. 30 Cubs were sold since the first introduction in the market (April 2009).
High level of safety : almost 100.000 flying hours flown in more than 30 Countries . Many planes are well over the 1.000 logged operative hours and are still flying worldwide (few planes are looged over the 1.500 operative hours). Just few days ago our American dealer reported us the 950th logged hour on their Cruiser (mostly used for flight training in Winsconsin-Usa).
No one serious accident has never been caused by any technical or structural deficiency of our planes.
FUTURE PLANS:
*new manufacturing facility in 2010 to increase the production capacity ( 1.600 sq/m ).
*new model (4th) planned for the end of 2010.
*Improvements of the actual models introducing (end 2010/early 2011) a new High Performance Metal Wing (with the possibility to retrofit it on all the delivered planes) .
*Introduction of the Savage Cub into the American Market (Oshkosh 2010) under progress.
Let say that 2009 was the most successful year in our history. Despite of the general financial crisis, we sold 41 planes. For sure the introduction of the last Savage Cub helped a lot the selling process and has shown that we have probably created a good name and reputation in the last ten years. The plans are to enlarge our production capacity since we were able to survive to the global crisis when many other Companies were not so lucky. We sure can offer a very specific product (nich market) for all those pilots that love Classical and strong Design (think to the Bushflying optionals we are offering and you will understand what we mean) . A new wing , full metal wing this time, is under development. The goal will be to offer a still lower stall speed (also if difficult, because our wings already equipped with vortex generators , are very efficient and their stall speed sounds really spectacular) togheter with a 200km/h cruise speed .
To offer a better delivery time (since we sold already several 2010 months in front) we are planning and working on a new manufacturing building that could be ready for winter 2010). The fourth model will be introduced at Aero Friedrichshafen 2011.
We enjoy to be able to offer you some details about our first 10 years of official production (not counting the pre-production period) and we are looking for a new positive and fruitful future, showing you that we are not only sitting and looking at our past.
We apologise for our basic English but we are sure you will understand the sense of this official comunication…
best regards
Zlin Aviation s.r.o.
Note:
picture by Arturo Polo Ena-Spain.
