Piper made its first appearance at AirVenture under new ownership and under the stewardship of new CEO Kevin Gould and President John Becker. Now owned by Imprimis, Piper unveiled sweeping plans to expand its product line globally and moved to “reintroduce” two of its training airplanes, the Warrior and the Seminole, in support of the initiative to expand its reach into the Far East. It also said that it was looking for dealers to sell Piper airplanes in 12 untapped regions of the world, including India, China, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Enabling the reintroduction of the two airplanes, Piper VP of Marketing Bob Kromer said, was the adoption of the Garmin G600 flat-panel avionics package with solid-state attitude and heading. The system gives flight schools, said Kromer, the Garmin system they were asking for but at a price that kept the cost of the airplanes down.
