Bud Layne

D-JET customer at SpanTach, LLC

"We use our aircraft to help fuel the growth of our company. Our company is highly relationship driven. We know our customers on a personal basis, and they know us. Staying in touch face-to-face with our customers is primary to us. We believe the DA42 and ultimately the D-JET will be vital tools to help us continue to grow and innovate."

"I founded SpanTech in 1986 and I'm very proud of what we've been able to accomplish. SpanTech LLC is based in Glasgow, Kentucky. We produce The Designer System® family of continuous plastic chain curving conveyors. This is a truly modular conveyor system, capable of horizontal and vertical bends within one chain design. These systems are widely used in food production, packaging, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing. The Designer System represents the only sanitary plastic conveyance system that is a single, integrated design by one manufacturer."

"I love innovation and great industrial design. Innovation and great design have helped our company grow and prosper through the years. And we continue to invest in R&D to drive innovation, making our products better to serve our customers more effectively. I've found that if an object is beautiful or if kids like to play with it, the product is probably a market hit."

"I was totally impressed with Diamond Aircraft's brilliantly designed and built planes. They are beautiful. Diamond is several steps ahead of everyone else. And I think some amazing innovation is applied as these planes are built. As I walked around the Diamond manufacturing facility in London, I was struck by how smart the design and manufacture choices were that I saw. We're manufacturers too. We can feel when a company is striving for perfection in all matters."

"We've used an airplane to establish and enrich the relationship with our customers for some time now. We have a company pilot, Terry Richardson, who does most of the flying, though I also fly the company aircraft and my other personal airplanes extensively. In addition, our vice president of research and development, Mark Russell, increasingly flies our airplane."

"Terry, our company pilot, is an amazing pilot with a wealth of experience. He has flown thousands of hours in the military at both poles of the earth - in Antarctica and in the Arctic - in all kinds of conditions. So it's great to have someone with his depth of experience on our team."

"I also love aviation and the thrill of flying. This has led me to restore airplanes, as well as fly them. My latest project is a Navy N3N-3. I'm instrument-rated with 1600 hours of flight time, and I fly on my own and for business."

"Our business aircraft today is a Baron twin. Our business is growing so rapidly, that we need an airplane that can go a bit farther and faster and accomplish our flights more economically. We do business in more than just the eastern half of the U.S. now and our geographic footprint is expanding rapidly. Face-to-face contact is important in our business so we need an aircraft that will help us continue to reach out."

"In the spring of 2007, a colleague and I decided to go to a jet show in Charlotte, North Carolina. He had owned a King Air aircraft that was proving to be very expensive to operate due to its fuel burn, so he was seeking a change. Our intent was to go there and put a deposit on an Eclipse 500, in which we would partner. The cabin in the Eclipse jet was too small for us so we decided that would not work. It literally did not fit us. So we thought that since we were there at the event, we should look at some other options."

"We literally went from plane to plane at this event looking for something that would be comfortable and spacious to meet our needs. This is when we saw the D-JET mockup."

"We were really surprised at how large the D-JET's cabin was. It was easy getting into the plane, seating ourselves at the flight controls and moving around in general. The airplane fits us. We didn't feel claustrophobic inside the cabin. We hadn't even heard about the D-JET prior to seeing the mockup at this event. The more we learned about the airplane, its design philosophy with its single-engine economics and its 25,000-foot ceiling, the more we concluded this would have to be our airplane."

"We also learned more about Diamond as a company so we felt good about the decision. In that process, we discovered the DA42 and we concluded this would be a great airplane to use while we are waiting for delivery of our D-JET."

"We're excited about moving up to the DA42 and the D-JET for a number of reasons. One reason is to escape the cold of our current Beechcraft. It gets very uncomfortable inside our Baron at altitude. The cabin heating system just does not work all that well. Even flying with our coats or jackets on, it is uncomfortable. We're looking forward to the more modern climate control systems in the DA42 and especially in the D-JET."

"We also are excited about the move forward with the Garmin G1000 system. Our aircraft today uses the Garmin 530, but the situational awareness the G1000 system provides is dramatically different and better."

"Terry will be the first in our team to get type-rated in the D-JET, though Mark Russell and I also plan to be type-rated shortly afterward.

"Overall, we're very excited about our new Diamond airplanes and we look forward to continuing our relationship with Diamond Aircraft as a company in the years ahead. We view Diamond as a partner to help us achieve our business goals."