Elliot Goulding was all smiles when he walked into the restaurant occupying the ground level of the small hotel he and the rest of the Hiller team occupied for the duration of the airshow. Seeing Ingrid Dows sitting at one of the tables with Shirley Slade and Elizabeth Gardner, he went straight to them and stopped next to Ingrid.
‘’Ingrid, your idea of making a vertical landing on arrival and in front of all those potential customers was an absolute stroke of genius. I already have over a dozen important potential customers in line to buy our TRAN-SONIC, including the U.S. Air Force, which would like a military mixed passenger/cargo variant of our plane. Uh, I hope that you were planning to design such a variant, right?’
‘’First, yes: I already had that in mind. Second, please sit down and have supper with us.’
Once Elliot had sat, Ingrid gave him the menu she had been studying.
‘’Choose your supper, then you will tell me which potential customers we have hooked up. By the way, I counsel you their lamb couscous: it always is very good.’
‘’Uh, alright: I will have the couscous and a beer. As for my list of interested customers, I have the U.S. Air Force, the French Air Force, Air France, Pan Am, American Airlines, Quantas, Air India, Scandinavian Airlines, Iberia, Air Canada, Korean Airlines and Japan Airlines. We are already looking at an orders book of at least 200
aircraft.’
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‘’Wow!’ exclaimed Elizabeth Gardner, thoroughly impressed by that number.
However, she sobered up when she thought about something.
‘’Wait! How is Hiller going to produce so many TRAN-SONIC airliners in a timely fashion? It had to open two completely new aircraft assembly lines in the last five years in order to build all the SKYTRUCKs and A-24 SHARKs ordered by our customers.
Those assembly lines are presently working full tilt and will never be able to build our new TRAN-SONIC as well.’
‘’You are very right about that, Elizabeth.’ said Elliot in a sober tone. ‘’However, Ingrid has already anticipated that problem and has discussed it with Jeff Hiller and me.
We were only waiting until the interest in our TRAN-SONIC would be confirmed before implementing the solution proposed by Ingrid. Now that our stand in Le Bourget is being besieged by potential customers, Hiller will now go offer to the North American Aircraft Company a contract to produce our TRAN-SONIC under license. As you may know, North American has been having serious financial difficulties lately, having run out of government contracts. It is now on the verge of bankruptcy and its workers are afraid of soon ending on the unemployment line. With North American’s CEO and workers union desperate to avoid foreclosure of their aircraft plants, Jeff Hiller will propose to buy a controlling majority of North American’s shares, on top of contracting them to build our TRAN-SONIC under Hiller license. North American does have three well-equipped assembly plants and a competent workforce and it would have been a truly sad affair to let such a historic company disappear. With that deal, we will be able to start mass production of our TRAN-SONIC as soon as it will obtain its official FAA certification. It may also help our existing plant in Palo Alto by producing as well more of our A-24s, which is still in high demand. It may be a big financial gamble for Hiller at first, but the possible rewards could be huge for our company.’
‘’I like that plan!’ said Shirley Slade in an enthusiastic voice. ‘’I believe that it should work.’
‘’I believe so too, Shirley.’ said Ingrid. ‘’It would save North American from bankruptcy, save the jobs of thousands of employees and help us build our TRANSONIC quickly and in large numbers, something which would otherwise be impossible for Hiller to do, in which case we would have designed and developed our new airliner for nothing.’
Pouring some water in the glasses of her group, Ingrid then raised her glass high.
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‘’Let’s drink to the success of our TRAN-SONIC and to the continued success and growth of the Hiller Aircraft Corporation.’
‘’TO THE TRAN-SONIC AND TO HILLER!’
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CHAPTER 15 – REMEMBERING PAST INCARNATIONS
13:05 (Seattle Time)
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 ‘C’
