Innovative Aerosystems, Inc. (IA)
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Earnings Call: Q3 2019

Aug 8, 2019

Operator

Good day, welcome to Innovative Solutions and Support's third quarter 2019 earnings conference call. All participants today will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance during the conference, please signal for a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. To withdraw a question, please press star then two. Please note, today's event is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Geoffrey Hedrick, Chairman and CEO. Please proceed.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Good morning. This is Jeff Hedrick. I'd like to welcome you this morning to our conference call to discuss our performance for the third quarter of fiscal 2019, current business conditions, and our outlook for the coming year. Joining me today are Shahram Askarpour, our President, and Relland M. Winand, our CFO. Before I begin, I'd like Relland to read the safe harbor message. Relland?

Relland M. Winand
CFO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. I would remind our listeners that certain matters discussed in the conference call today, including new products and operational and financial results for future periods, are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, either better or worse, from those discussed, including other risks and uncertainties reflected in our Company's 10-K, which is also on file with the SEC and other public filings. Now I'll turn the call back to Jeff.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Thank you, Relland. The company's third quarter results continue to reflect the cost controls and marketing refocus initiated at the end of the last fiscal year. The revenue increased this quarter, and we were profitable for the third consecutive quarter. Profits were also up sequentially, and we generated 28% of our revenue in cash, $1.3 million. Once again, each of the three market segments we serve, commercial air transport, general aviation, and military, contribute to our third quarter results. In addition, customer service revenue remains strong. The company's ability to have products that provide access to these markets remains the core strength of the company. Substantial revenues in the third quarter were generated from our general aviation PC-24 production and the retrofit programs for commercial air transport.

In the military market, we continued production for the KC-46 program, and the Navy continues to evaluate our new air data computer for the company, and we have developed for the F-5. We believe that these programs, along with our steady maintenance activities, will provide a solid base of revenues over the coming quarters. Excuse me. In addition, the revenue and development expenses have been relatively constant at approximately 15% of revenues, a historical sweet spot. The company continues to implement its strategy of investing in fewer but more promising technologies and products. At the same time, we continue our optimistic outlook for our patented ThrustSense autothrottle, especially now that we've added a twin turboprop STC to our portfolio. Just recently, our new ThrustSense autothrottle on the Beechcraft King Air twin engine turboprop was the subject of an Aviation International News feature.

They found the autothrottle safety benefits compelling and noted how the engine failure, especially during takeoff. They went on to further remark that many of the benefits of the autothrottling, concluding that great tool to help pilots concentrate on the flying of the airplane without worrying about power control. Industry authorities clearly understand its advantages. I believe the autothrottle provides the same level of protection in many cases as a FADEC engine. It offers engine protection from over temperature and similar costly maintenance issues. With the autothrottle system fully operational and certified, we've chosen to spend a little extra time refocusing on perfecting the installation procedures to make sure that it is simple and efficient. We want to support the marketplace starting with the first installation, minimizing aircraft downtime.

With this extra preparation does allow owners and operators to install the autothrottle quickly and at a lower cost, and at the same time, strengthening our market penetration. Let me turn it over to Relland for a discussion of the financials.

Relland M. Winand
CFO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Thank you, Jeff, and thank you all for joining us this morning. Revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2019 was up 35% from a year ago to $4.6 million, our third consecutive quarter of revenue growth. We were also profitable for the third consecutive quarter. Revenues were primarily comprised of product sales, which includes approximately $1 million of customer service revenue, which has steadily increased over the last three quarters. The balance of the quarter's revenue was for engineering services. Gross margins for the third quarter of fiscal 2019 were 55%, an increase from 47% in the same quarter last year. Margins in the quarter were essentially consistent with the second quarter of 2019. We believe the improvement in gross margin primarily reflects better leverage from increased revenues and the benefit of the workforce reduction implemented in the third quarter of fiscal 2018.

Total operating expenses for the third quarter of fiscal 2019 were $2.1 million, down approximately $500,000 compared to approximately $2.7 million in the third quarter a year ago. Research and development expenditures were down $300,000 for this quarter compared to the same quarter last year, while selling general and administrative expenses were down approximately $200,000 for the third quarter of fiscal 2020 as compared to the same quarter last year. Each of these decreases reflect the impact of the third quarter fiscal 2018 workforce reduction. While R&D spending is down from a year ago, a shift in our strategy has enabled us to improve the productivity of our spending by investing in fewer, but what we believe are more promising new technologies. In the quarter, we earned $124,000 of other income, primarily interest from our cash balances.

We did not recognize any income tax expense in the third quarter of fiscal 2019 due to the utilization of tax loss carry-forwards. We reported quarterly net income of $511,000 for the third quarter of fiscal 2019, or $0.03 per share, compared to more than $1 million loss, or $0.06 per share loss in the same quarter a year ago. We believe that the company remains in a strong financial position. We generated a positive cash flow of $1.3 million in the quarter, and at June 30th, 2019, we had $22.6 million of cash on hand with no debt. We believe the company has sufficient cash to fund operations for the foreseeable future. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Shahram.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

Thank you, Relland. Good morning, everyone. We achieved steady progress in the third quarter, both financially and strategically. It was our most profitable quarter of the year, and it was a period where we made significant strides in strengthening our position in all our end markets. As we continue to increase our organizational efficiency, we witnessed the result of our actions through increased strengthening of our cash position. Let me provide a little more detail on some of our ongoing programs that Geoffrey briefly reviewed. On PC-24 program, production continues to grow as demand for the utility management system we supply Pilatus is keeping pace with the sale of what is one of the most successful new aircraft launches in the industry. Keep in mind that we believe Pilatus will be ordering a significant quantity of shipsets per year.

However, we include only a small portion of this future revenue in our backlog. We continue discussions with other aircraft manufacturers who have expressed interest in this UMS product. In our commercial air transport market, revenues continue to be generated from our Boeing 737, 757, and 767 portfolio of cockpit technology, both from existing and new customers, domestically and internationally. There has been a little tailwind here because we anticipate that by end of next year, support for existing CRT-based displays will end, making it more attractive for these airplanes to get our cockpit offerings. This is where our MRO channels are becoming more valuable as we continue to have new service centers signing up at installation sites for our commercial and business aviation products. Relying on our dealer network to perform individual sales allows our internal sales force to focus on more lucrative opportunities.

Since we have been manufacturing many of our commercial aviation products for years, they require little additional engineering and are therefore quite frequently our most profitable products. In the military market, our production KC-46 program continues forward. Our engineering contract to develop a new air data computer for the Navy is in the aircraft installation and flight test support phase. The basic product is derived from the successful air data computer we developed for the ATEN, and we believe this versatile product to have opportunities on other platforms in the U.S. and international military markets. In general aviation market, we remain excited about the potential of our ThrustSense autothrottle, where we now have single and twin-engine STCs. Our strategy is to add optional features for the basic STCs, where each feature is essentially a new technology.

More importantly, in contrast to the base autothrottle, the addition of these optional features is strategically designed to substantially enhance the autothrottle's appeal. As we progress with additional certifications of our King Air autothrottle, we will expand the certification base to allow us to take advantage of the full market potential for all King Air models. As Jeff mentioned, we're also refining the installation process to reduce the cost and critical downtime of the aircraft. This is a deliberately planned and disciplined way to ensure a successful launch and to improve our long-term opportunities with this revolutionary product. On the PC-12, we're seeing increased interest in both full cockpit auto-throttle configuration, as well as individual standalone installation. We've done deliveries, and we've completed installation of both configurations, not just within the U.S., but also internationally, which is very promising.

The revenue growth and increased profits realized over the past several quarters are providing the time and resources we need to carefully plan and meticulously execute our autothrottle market entry strategy. Progress is being made. The endorsements we have received from industry authorities, like Aviation International News, and the welcome reception we are seeing from manufacturers, dealers, and operators, has us confident there is a large market for autothrottle that our constant cultivation will bring to fruition. Let me turn the call back to Jeff for some closing remarks.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Thanks, Shahram. Another quarter of consistent performance has enabled us to advance our autothrottle strategy at a pace to yield the greatest return. We are, in some respects, creating a whole new market. I am confident that we have the right product, a sound strategy, and a strong team that will enable ThrustSense to achieve widespread adoption, and we believe that it deserves. We recently heard that the certification authorities had completed a 2-year review of our unique safety feature that can prevent catastrophic loss of control of the aircraft with the loss of an engine. This is a breakthrough. This prudent review by the FAA and other agencies has resulted in, I believe, an approval and an STC of this new feature. I emphasize new. Does not exist anywhere in the world today. This feature within the next couple of months.

It's an optimistic output, and we'll be happy to answer any questions you have. I'll turn it back over to the operator.

Operator

At this time, we will begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If your question has been asked and you would like to withdraw it, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Today's first question comes from David Campbell of Thompson, Davis & Company. Please proceed.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Yeah, good morning, everybody.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Good morning. Good to hear from you.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Thanks for having a good quarter. You almost made my estimate. You were close.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

We worked hard at it, but I needed a new car.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Well, you got one.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

We're working on it.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

You deserve one.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

We're trying to do it in a disciplined way, as you know. Appreciate your interest. Keep going.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Well, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the revenue. First of all, the revenue in the quarter does not include anything from the autothrottle. Is that correct?

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

It does.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

It does, yes.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

It does have revenue from.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

Small amount. Yes.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Okay. You've mentioned something about service revenue. I'm a little confused. Is that the same thing as product revenue?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

It's repair and overhaul. We have equipment that's been out in the field for 20 years now, and some of that equipment is being sent back in for refurbishment or repair. The revenue from that is now become significant because the amount of equipment has grown. There's a significant amount in service for a long period of time, and that provides a significant revenue to the company. Continues to grow. We've hired a new manager of that department who's done an outstanding job. He had experience with OEMs like Safran and other international OEMs. I think the operation is getting better and more productive.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Is it likely to be sustainable? Is it something that's going to happen every quarter?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

It tends to grow, because as you field more equipment, the support of that equipment grows.

For most companies that have been around for a while, that's a significant part of their profits. When I was at Smiths, we had a significant repair and overhaul facility that generated a significant amount of our revenue.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

Just to let you know, when you look at production, it's in that number.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Okay.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

It's in the production number.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

It tends to be almost $1 million a quarter.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

It's in the production number.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Pardon me?

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

It's in the production number.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Yes. Yeah.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

There wasn't any engineering business in the revenue in the quarter.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Yeah, there was some.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

There was some.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Primarily, I think to the F-5.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Right

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

program where we're getting funded for modifications to our existing design.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

It was smaller than in previous quarters.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Yes, that's correct. Our engineering is now more focused toward our own development of our own products now.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Right. It sounds like autothrottle is going to have more revenue in the future, based upon your optimism.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

We're talking to a number of sources that have expressed interest in us supplying them autothrottles. We don't want to discuss who they are or what they are, but it's premature. We're chuffed, and we're excited about the recent FAA decision, which was a landmark decision. They did a great job. It was a tough analysis, but it's a profound change. If we can implement this, as they have pointed out, it has the ability to save lives, and that's exciting in itself.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Right. Now, do you sell the autothrottle? Are you selling that through service centers, fixed-base operators? Is that how you sell?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

We sell it through FBOs. We expect to be selling it through OEMs as well. The thing that everybody's been waiting for has been this decision from the FAA, and it looks like it's imminent. I'm excited about after two years of review, it's nice to see them finally finish up.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

They've given you the certification to install it.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

There's multiple certifications, but the thing that I'm talking about specifically is this loss of control.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Okay.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

If the engine fails and the speed gets too slow, the airplane just flips on its back and kills everybody on board. We've seen some examples of that recently, by the way. The thought is that this system will prevent that from happening.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Okay.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

A different certification than the fundamental certification for the autothrottle. The fundamental certification for the autothrottle is simply a system that controls the speed, the power to the engines, and protects the engines from over temperature and over powered.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

The FAA is working on this certification.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

They approved that. That's already approved.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Right.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

This is another feature, this loss of control feature, has never been done before, and so there was no certification background for them to certify it under. They had to develop all the background and extensive review to make sure that it was safe. It appears that they've completed that review, and we expect momentarily, the approval of the approach, and then we have to fly it and prove it. That's all. We've been waiting two years to fly.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

You still have your King Air. You can use yours to practice on it.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

We've tested it already. We've run a lot of tests, they've been very successful, very promising. We now have to test it for the FAA, obviously. FAA has shown they have been more than cooperative, but they're being very prudent. This is caution, and it's appropriate for new technology, especially this is trying to mitigate a catastrophic event, an event that you really don't have much chance to recover from.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Right. The only problem is the King Air's not big enough to hold your new car.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

You got that right. A guy that worked for me that bought a trailer truck and used it as a RV. On the trailer truck, he had a smart car tucked in the back of the tractor so he could drive around when he stopped. I must have paid him too much money. I don't know. Anyway, good talking to you.

David Campbell
Senior Vice President-Research Analyst, Thompson, Davis & Company

Thanks for the good news. I'll turn it over.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

All right. Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Irwin Goldman, a private investor. Please proceed.

Hi, Jeff.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Good morning.

Hello.

Good morning.

Good morning, Jeff. You may remember me. I'm the old guy at the annual meeting, 96 years old.

I know. I also remember you mowed faster than I did.

All right. I had a lot of questions then, I have a lot of questions now.

Okay.

I'd like to start off with your employees. Number one, how many did we add in the quarter? Number two, are we hiring now?

We still continue to hire a few people. We don't have this urgent need, we're doing it in a carefully planned better way, hopefully getting better quality people. It's a tough environment right now, and it's good. Unemployment is near an all-time low, so there aren't a lot of people looking for jobs. Recruiting the right people is difficult, but we still find them, and we've had a few remarkable successes recently.

Okay. How many employees do we have right now?

65, roughly.

Okay. All right. You had 49, you added six. Okay.

We have some consultants that we use. We use a lot of specialized consultants as well.

Okay. Next question is about Pilatus. Is that a public company, and if so, what's its name?

It isn't a public company, and it's a Swiss company.

I know it's Swiss. Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah. It's not public.

Okay. Now, about the Pilatus. What % about the sales to them, I'd like to know the sales in the latest quarter and what % of our total sales that is. One would depend on the other. How many $ and how many units?

Well, honestly, we don't make any of that public. We can tell you that it represented a significant portion of our revenue.

Relland M. Winand
CFO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Absolutely.

Significant, meaning more than 25%?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

More or less. It's in the range. That's a little high.

I can't hear you.

Relland M. Winand
CFO, Innovative Solutions and Support

It's a range, yeah.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

It's approximate, and we can't tell you exactly what it is because we don't release that.

Okay. Are your July sales to Pilatus more than they were in June?

Relland M. Winand
CFO, Innovative Solutions and Support

We're not prepared to go into that. That's the fourth quarter.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

That's a detail we don't address directly. The good news is, we are on every production Pilatus PC-24. The rates at which we deliver it during the year are not only dependent on what they deliver, but depending on how they stage their material. There's periods of it's bumpy. You'll have a lump and then you'll have nothing. We don't define it because it's not representative of what the consumption. What we do know is every airplane that's built and delivered, we're on the airplane.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

A couple of things we should spot on that is that they plan on delivering 40 aircraft in 2019.

How many?

Forty.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Forty.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

2019 and 50 in 2020.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Their production's going to go up by 25% next year.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

A couple of years ago, they opened the books. They took orders for 84 PC-24s at $9.2 million. Back in May, they reopened the book at EBACE in Switzerland. They increased the price from $9.2 million, I believe, to $10.7 million.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

By a lot.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

They took a whole bunch more orders. It's a very, very successful product that's being marketed.

Okay. The next question related to Pilatus is, how are they on paying their bills, and do they have a credit limit?

No, they're owned by Swiss banks.

Owned by Swiss bank?

Relland M. Winand
CFO, Innovative Solutions and Support

They pay on time.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

They pay on time.

Relland M. Winand
CFO, Innovative Solutions and Support

No issue.

Okay. I'm sure it's a corporation that stands on its own feet. Do you have a credit limit on them or a credit guarantee?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

No credit limit.

No. Okay, they've been paying their bills promptly?

Relland M. Winand
CFO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Absolutely.

Okay.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Their revenues are over $1 billion.

Okay. Oh, really? Okay, good. All right. Can you tell us something about the KC-46? That's military, isn't it?

Yes, that's correct. We can't tell you much about the KC-46 because it's military.

Okay. Besides those two, do you have any other customer who is over 10% of your sales in the last quarter?

No.

Relland M. Winand
CFO, Innovative Solutions and Support

No single one.

No.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

We expect to get more out. Talking to a number of OEMs for different products. We want to get a nice distribution. We're looking at expanding our OEM business that will provide more stability in our revenues, while we pursue retrofits.

The last question I have is, tell us all about whatever you can about sales efforts and interest on the autothrottle.

We can tell you that the industry, all the press has raved about the product. People that have installed it rave about the product. Our issue is simply trying to implement all of the technology that we developed, but need to get approved, the additional features. We're getting close to that, and we're refining as we explain the installation procedures to minimize the downtime. If you own an airplane, you don't like your airplane to be down. Anyway, we don't expect to have any program in the near future that represents individually, a very large percentage of our revenue. We will expect to have that distributed over a broad range of people, and retrofitters.

You said something about the people who have had it installed. I didn't know there were any. How many installations have you made?

About five.

Okay. That's good. Thank you.

We have five, and they're working fine, and we're bringing it up slowly because we don't want to have problems, and we haven't had any problems to date. We're optimizing installation, which is critical. We're normalizing that installation. We're going into building harnesses that we never initially anticipated, but now we're doing it to provide consistency of installation. It's those kind of refinements that we're in the process of doing it. We're making improvement steps.

All right. Thank you, Jeff. That takes care of the questions. I'll probably think of some later on, but that's for now. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Charlie Pine of Van Clemens & Co. Please proceed.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Good morning, gentlemen, and congratulations on another good quarter.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Thank you. Well, thank you. We're working at it.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Well, keep it up.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Yep.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Most of my questions have been answered, so, the last one I guess I would have would be probably for you, Jeff, and that would pertain to your discussion and the information that you had provided regarding what you're doing to, I guess, simplify the process for the autothrottle installs. How many man hours I thought I read somewhere in an article that it discussed what approximate man hours of time it took to install the ThrustSense into a King Air. What do you anticipate? What are you trying to get that number? What's your goal as far as getting that number to, as far as the amount of man-hours to do a typical kind of normal install for the ThrustSense?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

It depends on the airplane, but for the Pilatus, because it's single engine, it's less than a King Air.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Well, I wanted to address the King Airs.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Okay. Well, the King Airs, we started out at 50. We believe we could get it down to 30. That's what we're working at. We want to keep it as low as possible. Now, that's 10% or 15% of what an autothrottle installation normally takes, so it's pretty remarkable. We want to get it down simply so that a person can bring their airplane in and get it back within a couple of days, completely updated and ready to fly away. Anybody that owns an airplane hates to put it down, myself included.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Got it. Just so that I heard that right over these kind of scratchy phone lines, you said you're currently at around 50, and your goal is to get it to about 30 hours?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

That's correct.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

All right. With these additional features that you're referring to above and beyond this certification for loss of control, could you elucidate one or two of these? These additional features, what's the approval process involved for those types of situations? What's the kind of lead time?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

The summary is true. The loss of control, obviously, I discussed, is a major feature, and it requires FAA certification and review, and it's a long procedure for this because it still hasn't been done before. The ones we're talking about now are minor modifications, and in some cases, we can refer to them as a minor modification and simply submit the data to the FAA. There's no test flying other than our own that's necessary. These are primarily, in fact, without exception right now, features that will enhance the operator's experience, but are not distinct certification issues.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Okay. Lastly, can you refresh my memory again on what you expect for a kind of a plain vanilla cost of an install on a standalone basis without all the extra utility stuff, utility management systems, but just the drop-in ThrustSense into a King Air, what you will be receiving on that again?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Right now in the King Air, what would the IS&S receive?

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Yes.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

No, it's just the installation cost. The MSRP at the dealer, the guy selling it.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

For a flyaway is about $75K on the King Air.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Okay.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

It's about $65,000.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Exactly

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

C12 roughly.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

That's what.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

That's what, and then the price on the day is installed to a dealer.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Okay. Wait. Please repeat that again. You said the MSRP for a dealer will be about $75,000?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Installed.

Shahram Askarpour
President, Innovative Solutions and Support

No, for the dealer. For the end user.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

End user MSRP, installed is $75,000.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Installed. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

For the King Air.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

For the King Air.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Right. Roughly.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Okay.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Okay.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Okay. Roughly. Great. Okay, thank you for clarifying that to me. That's all I have, and congratulations again, and looking forward to more to come, and hopefully you get that next FAA decision as soon as you're alluding to.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

It's really a breakthrough technology. It's never been done before.

Charlie Pine
Analyst, Van Clemens & Co

Okay. Well, great. We appreciate it. Keep it up. Thank you.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from George Merema of Pareto Ventures. Please proceed.

George Merema
Analyst, Pareto Ventures

Good morning. Thanks for taking my call, Jeff. Had a couple more questions on autothrottle. Most of my questions have been answered, I want to drill down a little more on the way I understand this is you can sell the autothrottle by itself for the $75,000 sort of number, or you could buy it as a package with your whole flight deck upgrade. Is that correct?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

That's correct.

George Merema
Analyst, Pareto Ventures

What would be your ballpark guess on percentages? Would a quarter of people go for the whole upgrade, or 75%, or 10%? What sort of expectations do you guys have for the standalone versus a complete upgrade?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

It depends on the aircraft, but I would say initially that the vast majority would just buy the autothrottle. We are finding, strangely enough, that the autothrottle attracts people into the dealer. They're getting to the dealer and saying, "Gee, I'd like to do the whole cockpit." We're getting people that are doing, especially in the Pilatuses, we're getting cockpit upgrades. The King Air autothrottle that we now presently provide is only certified in more advanced cockpits that people aren't going to tear out and put a new cockpit in. These are later generation cockpits, advanced generation cockpits, and probably far more expensive airplanes. There's thousands of them out there. In those cases, we're going to do not as many cockpits. We're going to do primarily the autothrottle. Understand, the autothrottle consists of also providing a standby instrument, which is a combination instrument, and an autothrottle.

We do provide some features, additional features in the cockpit.

George Merema
Analyst, Pareto Ventures

Currently, are your demand signals for this primarily coming on retrofits, or do you also have a demand pipeline for putting it in new planes off the assembly line?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

We're negotiating that right now.

George Merema
Analyst, Pareto Ventures

Given your new breakthrough on the safety features of this, is there any discussion at all with the FAA about a mandate for this in small planes?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

The FAA doesn't issue mandates, remember. Their responsibility is fundamentally to make sure that whatever equipment is in the airplane is safe. They do nothing more than evaluate how safe the design and implementation is. I will say that we got comments from one person at the FAA who commented that they lost a person every four days, and the things that we were doing were going to save lives. I was surprised that he said that, and very appreciative that he said that. At any rate, that's the good news. The cockpit upgrades right now. We may do a King Air, but right now we're focused on equipment that will go into existing installations.

George Merema
Analyst, Pareto Ventures

Okay. One more. Given the demand signals you're getting currently, can you help to give a little color or frame up the magnitude of this opportunity for 2020 and beyond? Just to give some ballpark idea how to think about this.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Well, I don't want to speculate on that, but I will tell you that there are multiple thousands of aircraft as opportunities. If it's successful, we continue to work at it, try to keep the installation costs down, manufacturing costs down. We would expect excellent penetration, especially if there's a life-saving safety feature potential, which we're not sure of yet, but we believe there's an opportunity for that as well.

George Merema
Analyst, Pareto Ventures

It sounds like you feel like, given all the articles over the years and the big news about this, that there's probably a lot of pent-up demand for something like this, I would assume.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Well, I don't know yet. As I say, don't get too enthusiastic until you cash the check for the equipment.

George Merema
Analyst, Pareto Ventures

Understood. Okay. Thank you.

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Rick Teller, a private investor. Please proceed.

Good morning. Just two questions here. One is, since I guess the last conference call, there have been a couple of crashes of King Airs. There was one out in Hawaii, and I think one down in Texas. Obviously, there's no reports yet probably from the National Transportation Safety people. As far as you can tell, are either of those things that perhaps might have been prevented with your autothrottle?

Geoffrey Hedrick
Chairman and CEO, Innovative Solutions and Support

Honestly, I really wouldn't want to speculate. I don't want to speculate on something that killed 21 people. I really don't. If we're fortunate enough to be able to do something, that's great. I don't know the details of either of those crashes. I only have it thirdhand, wouldn't want to speculate on how our equipment would work.

Right. Okay.

I'm sorry.

No.

I'm obviously evasive, but I think it's appropriate. We still don't have NTSB analysis of what happened, so for me to speculate whether we could do anything would be inappropriate.

Right. Okay. Understood. No problem. The other question is this. A lot of King Air owners are using them for various commercial purposes rather than just as a private plane. I'm sure that the insurance expense for them is probably fairly high. I'm wondering whether you have yet made any attempts or plan to be in touch with aviation insurers to see if they would give a discount to King Airs that have autothrottle installed with the extra safety feature options?

Well, your comments are very appropriate and well pointed. Yes, we have contacted some of the insurance companies. Anything that reduces pilot workload is terrific. Yes, insurance is very expensive. I think clearly that's a feature that insurance companies would like, I think. Ultimately, anything you can do, especially in a more complex airplane, anything you can do to reduce the pilot's workload is important. We see this in a broad range of applications, not only in the King Air, but the same system is applicable to regional jets, and there are a large variety of literally tens of thousands of aircraft that have no autothrottle that we could work with. We see a large market. Look, it's very early in the stage. When our production rates are up, I can be a lot more bullish.

Right now, I'm being a little circumspect.

Okay, great. Thanks.

Thank you for your interest. I appreciate your interest. Thanks. We'll shut off today, and look forward to having you join us next week.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.