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| The original location of Classic Aero Designs |
In 2002, I was laid off from my job as a software developer. While I was job-hunting, I came across the opportunity to buy an existing upholstery shop. At the time, my wife and I had been setting aside money to start a business making interior products for homebuilts. I had hoped we could wait a while longer until we had more money saved, but the upholstery shop seemed like a good fit.My motivation for starting this kind of business was to get back into both flying and homebuilding. My idea was to design and build the kind of interior I would want in my own airplane. I wanted it to be similar to the fit and finish found in modern automotive interiors. I hoped that there were other homebuilders out there that were looking for the same thing.
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| Our first homebuilt project, a Fisher Horizon 1 |
My wife and I went ahead and purchased the business. The shop did automotive, furniture, and commercial upholstery work. The previous owner had three experienced upholsterers working there, and they stayed on to work for us when we took over. We continued doing the same type of work the shop had previously done for about 2 more years.As we learned the ropes of the upholstery business, we began working on the aircraft related products on the side. A friend of mine was just finishing an RV-7, and I offered to make his seats in exchange for using the plane for measurements and documentation. We did the same thing with other aircraft owners, and soon we had seats for several RV models. That was the start of Classic Aero Designs. |
