First I must give thanks to Mike Rellihan Dave Buttram George Daniels Jeff Salan Chad Tyson
Without these people, I would not be here.
Who Is Robin Thomas ?
Born and raised in third world countries, where I spent most of my life: 13 years in Argentina, ten years in England, ten years in Mexico 27 years in the Caribbean, and thelast ten years in Florida.
I have had my own businesses since I was 25 years old, and every business has been successful.
I have loved aviation since the age of eight, competing in model glider meets since age ten, building my own designs from scratch.
There was a long hiatus from aviation to music, social anthropology ( MA,Cambridge University) brief stint in medicine companies, then printing, fishing and sailing.
I bought my first plane in the middle sixties, first a Bellanca, then a Lockheed AL 60 B, next an Apache, an Aztec, and a Seneca I.
I first experienced modifications on the LA 60B, when an egineer from Lockheed came to Mexico for three months to help me make it work better. That was in 1965. But it was 1982 when frustration with the Seneca I made me get serious, because it was such a dog. I got a lot of extra performance from it… 15 to 20 mph, and it was written up in Aviation Consumer (March/83) .
Iwas in business. Soon after bought a Cherokee, and got performance increases of over 20 mph. ( Also reviewed in Aviation Consumer)
In 1984, I started working on exhaust systems. With a full time dedicated manufacturing person for a year. Tried 80 different exhaust designs, testing them virtually daily. Got very good results, but felt that the remoteness of the Virgin Islands location would not permit me to manufacture and sell them successfully. So I put them to sleep until a couple of hurricanes blew me to Florida in 1996.
Once established in Florida, on a shoestring, I got some investors from among my former customers and started Power Flow Systems Inc. After a year earned my first STC, for the Cessna 172, and in the next seven years we have obtained over 20 STC's for Piper, Grumman, Cardinal, Mooney, Symphony and Diamond. We are now standard equipment on the Diamond!
The latest STC is for the Sundowner and related aircraft.. I believe that the reason that I am working on small aircraft is that I did not study engineering. Had I done so, I would be working on Jets and Rockets. Since I had no formal training, I worked on the aircraft I owned. At first it was Pipers, then Cessnas, and so on. We currently own one each of the above plus a Mooney and a Sundowner.
My personal credo is: If it isn't the best in the world, don't make it!
