Waco Aircraft to shut down

It is sad for the workers - sounds like they were treated craptastic. The airplanes were neat and I thought bringing back the Great Lakes was a neat move. That said, $500k+ for a "Waco" is kind of limited in terms of market. I have a friend that has an original F-5 and from all accounts the restored original machine is a significantly better flying airplane (on top of being more aestheticly pleasing - doesn't have that goofy raised type tail wheel). These Waco Classics are apparently pretty heavy - they get larded up with options like avionics and interior appointments - and weight being the eternal enemy of anything that moves does its thing. For some reason people are driving up the cost of cabin Wacos (a switch from 20-30 years ago). There is not much that flies better than a light Waco UPF-7 - just a delight. You can pick up nice UPF's for $150-$200k all day and have a nicer flying airplane than a new YMF-5. It is always sad to see skilled craftsman treated like crap and it sounds like they were.

If you are going to spend significant sums on an antique, this shop with a Waco focus is the place to have do your restoration.
rareaircraft.com

RARE Aircraft Ltd.

Aircraft restoration, maintenance and sales.
rareaircraft.com rareaircraft.com
 
It is sad, but WACO, as the original company, died a long time ago. Folks do this with airplanes, they believe they can force their passion to make business sense and it seems to fail most of the time. As @WacoFan mentioned if this sort of thing lights your fire find the shop doing the best restorations. When has this business model ever worked? Unless it's on a very small scale with exorbitant costs building exact replicas of important machines it always fails. There's the other side of the coin, VW buys the Bugatti name and builds the Veyron. Bruce McLaren wanted to build a car too. Would you rather own a Veyron or a McLaren F1? Sometimes little companies have brilliant ideas.
 
You can buy like 4, really nice Stearman examples for the price of a 2026 YMF. These companies, like Aviat, American Champion, and Waco/Great Lakes, are good examples of making the same thing for long periods of time, and expecting the market to support it. I loved flying the YMF-5; they are great airplanes, but 600k for a wood and fabric airplane that goes 115mph is a hard sell. Great ride, airplanes, as you can stick two people in the front, but again it's just a hard sell.
 
As I understand it, a new European owner came in a few years ago and tried to drive the company into a new “ultra-premium” direction. Spent a lot of money on things not quite in the best interest of the overall result.

I could bore you all with a pages of textual effluent on what I think has gone wrong to the environment around GA, as well as GA itself, but this is just one tiny slice.

Suffice to say it makes me sad to see this happen with good folks.
 
Richman said:
As I understand it, a new European owner came in a few years ago and tried to drive the company into a new “ultra-premium” direction. Spent a lot of money on things not quite in the best interest of the overall result.

I could bore you all with a pages of textual effluent on what I think has gone wrong to the environment around GA, as well as GA itself, but this is just one tiny slice.

Suffice to say it makes me sad to see this happen with good folks.
Click to expand...
I mean, all due respect - to even include the vintage nut/unique airplane freak that wants a Waco or Stinson or Great Lakes or something is such a small subset of "general aviation " so as to be practically unmeasurable. To scale a business designed on the idea you're going to serve people that don't already exist at those prices is insane. And anybody who doesn't want to do a restoration themselves, is a Waco freak, and has $500-$600k laying around is going to have Rare Aircraft build exactly what they want, and maybe a different model (F-2, QDC/UEC, or Taperwing - I would personally crap out half a nut for an ATO or CTO done by Rare). Anyway - they were doing fine as a low volume manufacturer/FBO/Restoration shop but thinking you're going to create a mass market for a Waco today is maybe not coherent.
 
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