So yet another Oshkosh is in the books (no, we are still not ready to start calling it "Airventure" - we're "old school" EAA'ers!). So what did we learn:
1. Our market is starving for a reasonably priced certified electronic ignition that's as easy to install as a magneto. SureFly has the right product at the right time at the right price point.
2. SureFly is (target) priced right at $1,250 for 4-Cylinder and $1,550 for 6-Cylinder. Innumerable customers went away swearing their going to buy the "first" one as soon as it's certified.
3. One isn't enough. The majority of us would prefer to replace BOTH mags - not just one. Once we explained our reasoning for replacing only one (safety, simplicity, shorter path to certification), everyone agreed our approach is sensible. But they still want TWO. Noted (but we must proceed with the current shorter path to certification FIRST).
4. There may be only 2,000-3,000 installed Lycoming "Dual Mags," in the world, but most of their owners appear to attend Oshkosh annually and apparently they all arranged to stop by our booth. ; ) But again, once we explained SureFly's high volume approach - plans to manufacture tens of thousands of SIMs every year, not dozens, folks were quite understanding. We hear Electroair is getting closer to a certified dual mag replacement.
5. Where's the generator? The vast majority of people asked about self-powering mags (thanks to the success of our friends at eMag with their P-Mag product). While we don't necessarily agree a SIM needs to be "self" powered, we would agree it won't be much trouble to provide internal power generation in the event of a loss of buss voltage. We'll keep you apprised on what (and when) to expect that feature moving forward.
6. Saving fuel isn't nearly as important as just getting rid of magnetos. Folks are downright frustrated with mags. Low quality. Low service life. Expensive (and often damaging) inspections and overhauls. Frankly, folks are fed-up. Timing advance is cute, but it's not the reason people want SureFly certified yesterday. They simply want to throw their mags in the trash.