General Aviation: TCM Powers Up For 2008 and Beyond

Teledyne Continental Motors (TCM) has been one of the "big two" piston aircraft engine manufacturers for as long as most of us can remember. The company introduced its first engine developed specifically to power an airplane in 1906. And since then, Continental engines have gone on to power many legendary general aviation aircraft including the Piper Cub, Taylorcraft, Bonanza, Cessna 150 and many more.

Continental engines were also the power that allowed the Rutan Voyager to become the first piston-powered airplane to fly around the world non-stop. But in our "what have you done for me lately" world, TCM’s lack of recent headlines has led many to believe the company is resting on its laurels. Nothing, dear readers, could be further from the truth.

Aviation Maintenance wanted to get a real handle on what’s going on at TCM’s headquarters in Mobile, Alabama, so I contacted the company’s new President Rhett Ross (at left) for a little "60 Minutes" style interview.

( Rhett Ross became TCM’s president on November 5, 2007. Prior to that he had been with Teledyne Technologies as president of its Energy Systems division. Considering Ross had only been at the helm of TCM for 40 days when we conducted the telephone interview, Aviation Maintenance truly appreciates his participation and honest insights into his goals for TCM in 2008 and beyond. — Ed.)

AM: Please start by telling our readers a bit about yourself. What’s your background?

Ross: The disadvantage that I’ve heard from some folks is that I’m neither a pilot nor a historic general aviation person. I tend to view that as an advantage. I come out of the nuclear industry. I was in the U.S. Navy submarine service. So when you look at it I understand operating in a 3-D environment, we were just going a hell of a lot slower than fliers did. But, fundamentally, the industries are just about identical — quality, safety and service are paramount. So when I walk in here, I walk in with a background that plays very strongly to what we want to do.

I think it’s going back to the simple things. We are going to focus on the basics of blocking and tackling to make sure we satisfy the customer base. It’s what I did successfully in my last business: focus on the customers. You follow that up with innovative technology and everything else takes care of itself. That’s the exciting thing. We do believe we are going to have some really neat offerings and opportunities out there relative to the public, but we are not ready to fully voice those — it will be the second half of 2008 when we are really confident that we are going to meet expectations that we will start pumping that stuff out.

AM: What’s new at TCM?

Ross: Well, you know on some respects it’s an old industry. Something that all my customers keep telling me is that innovation is necessary. So, pretty much it’s going to be electronic engine controls and a real focus on alternative to Avgas. That’s on the technology side.

What’s going to be new in the New Year is a renewed focus on customer service for our general business side. It’s a case where as clichéd as it sounds, "customers are the most important thing for us." Without them we don’t have a business. We want to make sure that our customers, beginning with the actual aircraft manufacturers and aircraft maintainers, receive the service they deserve and should get. And we want to take that all the way to the aircraft owner and make sure that they feel that they have a place to call and ask questions if they can’t get to their local maintainer.

That’s a tall order for us. We’ve established things like the engine training school, which I think, is being well received. I sat in briefly on one of the classes and I think they had 15 or 20 students in there. That’s definitely something we are going to continue and continue to expand. We also really want to get our Web services up and running effectively. We’re going to revamp our call center and call responsiveness to improve that capability as our customer base continues to expand.

AM: This isn’t a fair question for you since you’ve only been president of TCM for a little more than a month, but how has the piston engine business changed in the past five years? Has there been any event that has been a starting block for some of these new things you mentioned?

Ross: Well, unfortunately I am really new here, but I’m going to give you my impressions from having been in this for 40 days — if you don’t hold that against me. The interesting thing when I look at the engines from 30, 40 or 50 years ago and you look at the technology that is being flown today, it’s pretty much the same.

If you look at the automotive sector and you look a the engine from when I was a growing up — I am old enough to remember my father playing with the choke and tweaking the gas peddle and hitting the brake twice because for some reason would make the car start easier — we’re still doing that in the aviation industry today, at least in the GA piston engine portion.

I think there is a general sense with the customer base that’s changing. You know as the "old guard" starts to quit flying, the new folks that are coming into flying are really used to that new [automotive] technology. So I think technologically the industry is focused on more automated controls, more engine upgrades. It’s been a slow adoption process. In my 40 days I’ve seen some of both the excitement for it and the resistance to it.

So I don’t think much has changed on the engine side, but I think a lot is going to change within the next five years.

AM: Speaking of new: What’s happening with TCM’s FADEC program?

Ross: Very bluntly, I think our FADEC program is a little bit behind where we would like it to be. It’s had its own series of learning curves. Many of them related to us performing effectively and getting them out there for customers. At the same time we’ve had some recent successes. Liberty is flying its aircraft with our IOF-240 engine with FADEC and we appreciate Liberty’s helping us introduce that product and learn from that. We are taking that and making an aggressive push across our engine platforms in 2008 to offer a series of engines to both OEMs and the aftermarket that will be FADEC based. We believe that the FADEC is now at a point where it can really be offered out there. And we’re going to put our push behind that effort.

AM: Well that’s great. Once you fly that FADEC you are instantly spoiled.

Ross: That’s what I hear. I’m not a pilot, but I’m going to become a pilot. Actually I’m going to start flight school right after the first of the year. I keep telling people I want to learn on a FADEC-equipped airplane.

AM: What about the alternate fuel engines? Do you have any plans for a diesel engine?

Ross: I won’t discuss that much other than to say that yes, we do have plans for a diesel engine. Our specific focus will be to not reinvent the wheel here. But, we do intend to do an aviation specific piston engine as opposed to what I am calling an automotive derivative engine. The primary focus here is not that the automotive derivative engines aren’t doing well, and aren’t a good start, but we want to make sure we are meeting the weight desires of the general aviation industry. So we are focusing on an aero-derivative engine targeted on providing the TBOs and goals of fuel flexibility while also keeping the weight consistent with an Avgas engine.

AM: Excellent insight. Thank you. Let’s talk a bit about what’s coming next — beyond FADEC and beyond alternate fuels — what else does the future hold for TCM?

Ross: You know that’s really a tough question. Give me another six months and I’ll be able to lay a full plan out in front of you. That would be my answer to that. We have a lot of exciting preliminary ideas on the table but it is too early to start discussing them now.

AM: Fair enough. Anything else you want to tell us about TCM?

Ross: I think the important thing for your readers is to understand that TCM is a great company. We have the support of a great company behind us. The historic Teledyne business. We are a company that is going to focus aggressively in the coming couple of years as I said on truly improving overall customer service and truly offering some innovative, industry first products. So the message is give us some time but keep an eye on us. I don’t think we’ll disappoint.