Business Advisory Board

Roy LoPresti

"In Memoriam"

Roy LoPresti was arguably the most well known, respected and universally admired General Aviation designer of the last 30 years. His career spanned from the design of the Lunar Lander to some of the most admired and top selling aircraft of all time. The Mooney 201,231,252,301 and the Grumman Tiger, Cheetah and Cougar, to name a few.

His last design, the Fury, is a pure Sport Aircraft. Designed with the discriminating pilot in mind it was introduced to an enthusiastic aviation public which responded by dropping a whopping 569 deposits to stand in line for delivery. The prototype was reviewed by the aviation press in almost mythic terms. In fact, almost every pilot who reviewed the design actually ordered one. Pretty high praise. The Fury was to be manufactured by Piper aircraft. Unfortunately, Piper went bankrupt and the ownership of the design was left unresolved.

Never one to be daunted, Roy continued to refine and improve the Fury. New ideas flowed from his creative mind: variable control modulus, BioMetric systems, more performance on less fuel (again!) and an even more efficient cowling. On and on. All waiting for the day when the Fury would take wing. Well, that day is here.

The LoPresti family is delighted to announce that we have acquired all the rights, license and materials to build the Fury and bring it to market. We have assembled the tooling and necessary materials to carry the Fury through certification and we have begun the funding process to establish an elite manufacturing facility. Finally, we brought together one of the most experienced engineering teams in aviation to make certain we do justice to Roy's dream and with an eager public waiting in the wings, the LoPresti's are on their way to making Roy's last dream a reality.

Curt LoPresti

CEO of LoPresti Fury

Curt LoPresti has 30 years of general aviation design and test experience. He was Project Engineer and Project Pilot for the Fury program. Curt demonstrated the aircraft to the aviation press and the US Air Force. Curt was part of the sales/marketing team that took orders for 569 aircraft. He has spent the past 13 years designing, developing, FAA certifying and producing performance enhancing modifications for LoPresti Speed Merchants. He is an FAA DMIR (Designated Manufacturing Inspection Representative). He is currently President of LoPresti Speed Merchants. He is 49 years old, a graduate aeronautical engineer and a talented aircraft designer and test pilot. With his father Roy he has designed and built race cars, boats and airplanes.

Rj Siegel

Business Manager of LoPresti Fury

Rj has a 30 year history of successfully managing business, manufacturing and technology projects to market. He led various development programs at Apple Computer. He was on the original Macintosh design team and managed a spectrum of multimillion dollar projects to completion. In addition to his business experience, Rj has an extensive background in aviation and has constructed half a dozen prototype and experimental aircraft. Rj is also a skilled communicator and negotiator. As business manager it will be his task to integrate and manage the diverse business processes necessary in getting the Fury to market.

Peter Pierpont

Professor and Director of the Applied Engineering and Research Center at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida

Peter has worked with the LoPresti family on installation of new advanced new power plants in general aviation aircraft, holds degrees in electrical engineering and Russian and French languages. He is a test pilot and will serve as a liaison between LoPresti and Embry Riddle to help integrate new technology into design, certification and manufacturing. Peter is a retired Navy Commander and instructed at the Naval Academy.

Bill Cox

Bill is one of the best known general aviation writers in the world. He has written for every major general aviation periodical in the world. He has been writing for more than thirty years and is internationally known and respected. Because of his unique position, Bill will keep us informed on the market place and will be most helpful in lending his extensive experience.

Dan Lynch

Dan was involved in the certification of 16 different models of general aviation aircraft at Cessna, Piper, Rockwell/North American, American Aviation and Micco Aircraft. Additionally, Dan has set up plant management and manufacturing, tool design, N/C programming, tool manufacturing, all phases of manufacturing, purchasing, quality, production control and tool scheduling. Dan recently set up production at Micco Aircraft and had overall responsibility for certification, testing and production of two models of Micco Aircraft. This included building the prototypes, static test articles and static test fixtures. He was also responsible for getting the Production Certificate there and did so in record time.

Jack Jansen

Jack is an extremely experienced general aviation production expert. He has recently retired as President of Mooney Aircraft. Jack ran production at Piper in Vero Beach, Aero Commander in Albany, Georgia, set up aircraft manufacturing plant and ran production in Toluca, Mexico, and was manufacturing supervisor at Cessna in Wichita, Kansas, for more than 20 years. Jack has tooled and planned many complete aircraft models and will serve as a manufacturing consultant to LoPresti Aircraft Engineering.

Earle Boyter

Earl has been in general aviation marketing and sales for more than twenty years. He is a very experienced pilot and has worked for most of the major general aviation manufacturing companies. Earl was Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Piper Aircraft, Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Diamond Aircraft, Vice President for US Marketing for Socata Aircraft and Vice President of Sales for Mooney Aircraft. Earle has also introduced brand new airplanes to the market place.

Ken Ibold

Ken Ibold is editor of two EAA publications, Sport Aviation and Sport Aerobatics. He is also former editor of Aviation Safety magazine and edited the Aviation Consumer Used Aircraft Guide (9th Edition). His work in aircraft safety earned him an invitation to be a panelist at the National Transportation Safety Board's General Aviation Safety Symposium, as well as speaking invitations to aircraft type groups' conventions. As an investigative reporter, Ken's experience has ranged from investigating famine in Africa to the life of illegal immigrants. His journalistic work has earned him more than a dozen regional and national awards. Ken's logbook includes more than 50 aircraft types, including flight reviews of experimental and production prototype airplanes. He has been a pilot since 1987 and an airplane owner since 1994.

J.W. "Corkey" Fornof

Corkey Fornof is our Director of Flight Operations and chief test pilot. With 17,000-plus hours in over 287 different types of aircraft, Corkey has flown on every continent of the world except Antarctica. He has worked as a test pilot, corporate pilot, aerial coordinator, fixed wing camera pilot, technical advisor, actor, and stunt pilot including over 2,600 low level aerobatic performances, and formed the first civilian high performance aerobatic flight demonstration team, using WWII fighters. He also formed and lead the first civilian jet demonstration team, flying BD-5Js.