In the mercilessly cruel financial world of small airplane companies, and the new companies that plan to build airplanes, bankruptcy may offer the only chance of success. Nobody can, you see, sell enough airplanes quickly enough to recover the development costs of starting a company and designing and certifying an airplane. That means somebody needs to lose millions of dollars along the way to give the infant airplane a chance to make it.
That’s what has happened to the Extra aircraft company and its Extra 500 single-engine turboprop. Millions are gone following the bankruptcy of Extra, but that loss now gives the new company at least a chance for success.
