Nick Finazzo: They’ve gone great. I think that when the FAA got on board and started flying the airplane, they were, and this is not a new comment, because I’ve made this comment before. These are different FAA people than had previously been on the airplane. They’re impressed, they like it. They see how the system works. So, I would say overall, we did as well as we could expect. There were no negatives that came out. The only negative part of this whole thing is I think we’ve probably only flown in the first two phases of flight tests less than 10 hours. And again, the disappointing part for us, I’m sure, for anybody that’s invested in the company, is that this flight testing is spread out over a longer period of time, even though in the last couple of months, all through February, we only flew seven hours.
So that’s the disappointing part that it’s just that the elapsed time between flight sets are relatively long. But understanding the FAA, there’s multiple parties from the FAA involved. It’s multiple areas and our fifth set of flights, there will be a lot of pilots on the airplane, both commercial pilots that will get on the airplane and flight and will be demonstrating to the FAA how a brand-new pilot gets trained on the system and multiple FAA pilots and human factors, individuals from the FAA will be assessing how those pilots perform, who have never flown the airplane with that system on it. So, it’s all good, it’s — Ken, it’s frustrating that it’s so long. I mean, we’re getting a level of scrutiny from the FAA that we’ve never experienced that all people we’re dealing with, but never seen this before when we’re really sort of — we’re not making modifications to the like characteristics or physical part of the aircraft.
We’re just giving it enhanced vision. And so that’s maybe that’s a result of the increased scrutiny that they got over the max. And the good part about that is when we’re done with this system, it will have gotten all the scrutiny of the FAA, they’re fully behind it. They’re very supportive, very cooperative. I have nothing, but really positive things to say about the FAA’s attitude on getting this certified. I think they see what we have, which is advanced technology is something that doesn’t exist today. And I think that they’re going to do their job. They’re going to be thorough. But at the end of the day, we’re going to have a rock-solid safe system that has the full support of the FAA and we’ll get an STC.
Martin Garmendia: And if I could add, this is the first primary flight control system, that’s being certified by the FAA after the 737 MAXC at primary flight display. So again, this is — we’re kind of in new territory. This is novel technology. So, the FAA is providing more screening, which is rightfully so.
Ken Herbert: Great. Thanks, Martin. Thanks, Nick.
Nick Finazzo: Okay, welcome.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. Please proceed with
Michael Ciarmoli: Hey, good evening, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Nick maybe just to stay on AerAware. Can you tell us how many kits you’ve gotten inventory? Are you still building up finished kits? And do you know what the launch customers potential volume requirement will be once this does get certified? And maybe even presumably customers behind the launch customer?
Nick Finazzo: So, I won’t tell you exactly how many kits we have, but I will tell you that I have mandated our people to build a minimum of 100 kits by the end of the year, and we’re well underway of doing that, I think we’ll exceed that. And with regard to the other question, regarding €“ regarding launch customer, again, it’s premature to talk about who the launch customer will be, but I will tell you this. The customer — potential customer that has flown with us on multiple occasions all throughout the past 200 some hours we’ve flown our airplanes. They have a fleet of over 500 737NGs and MAXs. So that would be a big one. How long would it take to get up to 500 sets of flight equipment? Just — if we did 100 this year, a set a target of minimum 250 for next year and another 250 a year after that and then adding in 25 250 A320 kits. It would take several years to build up to a 500-airplane fleet for one customer or one airplane type.