Aviation Solutions

F18 Cohort Spotlights

Meet Matt — a solo entrepreneur aiming to build a fleet of experimental aircraft, to provide training to military ground forces!

We welcomed Matt to our F18 Cohort because of his passion, drive and story behind his business. Here’s a few sentences about him:

I grew up around the Air Force, served 16 years in the Marine Corps, with 4 of those years assigned to a Navy unit, and then transferred to Army Special Operations.

After all of his experience in the Air Force, Marina Corps and Army, he created Aviation Solutions, a business building a fleet of small, high performance experimental aircraft (a proven design called the RV-8, produced by Van’s Aircraft of Aurora, OR) to provide training to military ground forces when the military can’t provide their own assets. The company’s goal is to “provide exceptionally high quality training to the military for significantly less cost than other companies in the space who are using Vietnam-era or Soviet-era jet aircraft.”

Matt has set himself short-term and long-term goals, steps and milestones:

• My goals for the next few months is to de-risk the venture from three viewpoints — regulatory, market, and technology — in order to pursue funding to build a prototype, conduct test and evaluation, and build a fleet of aircraft, and a cadre of qualified pilots.
• My short-term next steps are to complete a legal assessment of my regulatory strategy, build a detailed 3D model to demonstrate the aircraft and its capabilities, and to develop a detailed market analysis.
• My long-term next steps are to finalize my executive team selection, build and test a prototype aircraft, weapons, and sensor systems, and to contract for the acquisition of follow on aircraft.

Matt shares with us that his intent is to build the company, the fleet of aircraft, a cadre of pilots (both employees and independent contractors), and a portfolio of contracts, to position the company for acquisition in 5–10 years.

For the reader

We asked Matt about what he needs from the community and what he can give to the community. Here’s his answer:

I’m looking for someone who can help me design an iOS and Android virtual / augmented reality app for training. If funded, I’ll be looking for a VP for systems integration who can integrate commercial avionics, sensors (HD camera and Infrared Camera), iOs and Android applications, and military specific video transmission protocols.