Indian Country Today (Lakota Times)
03-29-2000
Seminoles producing single-engine aircraft: Plane is modern version of
historic WWII fighter
AP and staff reports
FORT PIERCE, Fla. - Chief James Billie wanted to chart a new course for the
Seminole Indian Tribe that doesn't include alligator wrestling, bingo or
airboat rides in the Everglades.
Billie wanted the Seminoles to become the first American Indian tribe to
make its own airplane. A three-year effort was successful. The tribe's MAC
(Micco Aircraft Co.) 145-A earned a Type Certificate from the Federal
Aviation Administration which permits manufacture and sale of the aircraft.
The Seminole certificate is only the fourth issued by the FAA since 1992.
'I wanted to get ... the general public in a different mind-set that
Seminoles are not just living out in the swamp,' Billie said. 'We also do
high-tech things.'
The 145-A is marketed as the SP20 and is a 200-hp, all metal, two place
retractable conventional gear aircraft. It comes in two versions. The
VFR-equipped aircraft sells for $147,500 and the IFR equipped aircraft is
$162,000.
The plane is a modern version of the Meyers 145, a post-WWII forerunner of
the SP-20, known as an extremely reliable and sturdy craft. The SP-20 has a
top speed of 160 mph, has a 200-horsepower engine and a sliding canopy.
Inside the plant, a prototype plane is painted red, black velvet and Las
Vegas gold. It is being marketed to flight instructors and sport aircraft
fliers.
The plane is unusual for aircraft of its size and type with its
side-by-side seating. Two-seat aircraft made by most U.S. general aviation
companies are designed with tandem seats, one behind the other, Micco
President DeWitt Beckett said.
The company is in the process of certifying the SP26, a 260-hp version,
that will be used for aerobatics. Certification is expected by June.
Billie, a licensed pilot and avid flier, had wanted to produce his own
plane for about 10 years and help diversify a business empire heavily
reliant on tourists and bingo players.
The Seminoles operate a multimillion-dollar business operation from
headquarters in Hollywood, Fla. Most of the tribe's money comes from its
lucrative bingo halls in Tampa, Hollywood, Immokalee and Brighton, about 50
miles west of Fort Pierce, and a tourist park on Big Cypress Indian
Reservation called Billie Swamp Safari and recreational vehicle parks. The
tribe is pushing to offer casino gambling.
It was the first to build and operate a hotel, the Sheraton Four Points on
its Tampa reservation. It also receives revenue from sales of tax-free
cigarettes, cattle production, citrus and vegetable farming and other
domestic and overseas investments.
While getting into the airplane business is a significant step for the
tribe, it's too soon to say how much it would bring to the bottom line,
Billie said.
Five years ago Billie bought the manufacturing rights to the Meyers 145.
After doing initial work on the design and tooling of the plane in Wichita,
Kan., the tribe moved the company to Florida in 1996.
The tribe produces the Micco, which means `leader' or `superior one' in the
Seminoles' language, at its plant at St. Lucie County International
Airport, about 55 miles north of West Palm Beach. The company employs 58
workers.
Billie hopes it can snare a government contract to sell trainer planes for
the military. He has said the tribe would have an inside track because it's
a minority-owned manufacturer.
The Seminoles' move into the small plane industry comes at a time when the
general aviation industry is on the upswing.
In the first half of 1999, nearly 1,100 general aviation aircraft were
shipped compared with 953 during the same period a year ago. The industry
shipped 928 planes for the entire year in 1994.
The rebound occurred after Congress passed the General Aviation
Revitalization Act of 1994, which limited the liability of small plane
manufacturers in air crashes to 18 years after a plane's production.
Tribe officials are targeting the Micco, which starts at $147,500, to
people who might otherwise buy home-built 'kit' airplanes, Beckett said.
About 3,000 kit planes were sold in 1997.
The average cost of a kit plane is between $50,000 and $60,000, said Dick
Knapinski, a spokesman with the Experimental Aircraft Association in
Oshkosh, Wis. But those planes take between two and four years to build and
between 1,000 and 3,000 hours of labor.
Beckett said the Micco also has been pitched to private flight schools,
including Air Safety International Inc. in Vero Beach, and university
flight schools.
Officials at the University of North Dakota's Odeguard School of Aerospace
Sciences flight school in Grand Forks, N.D., purchased a similar plane last
year, the DA-20 Katana produced by Diamond Aircraft of Ontario Canada, said
Al Palmer, the school's flight instruction director.
The side-by-side design of the Micco and the Katana, which costs about
$185,000, makes it attractive to flight instructors, Palmer said.
'You can sit there and watch the student use the controls,' he said. 'When
you're in a tandem you have to just look at what the airplane does.'
Micco hopes to grab a share of the market for two-seat aircraft because The
New Piper Aircraft Inc., Cessna Aircraft, Commander Aircraft Co. and others
have not produced similar two-seat planes in recent years. Their usual
customers, corporations and business owners, typically want an aircraft
that seats at least four people.
'We're not trying to be a Piper or a Cessna or anything like that,' Beckett
said. 'We're building a high-quality product for a niche market.'
Article copyright Indian Country Today.
Article copyright Indian Country Today.
V. 19
