AAI Corporation
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AAI Corporation (Aircraft Armaments Incorporated) is a subsidiary of United Industrial Corporation that was established in Hunt Valley, Maryland in 1950. It provides a range of (mostly aviation-related) testing, simulation, maintenance, and logistics services to the United States armed forces.
Since 1985, AAI has become a leading producer of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, first with the RQ-2 Pioneer (in partnership with Israel Aircraft Industries) and more recently with the RQ-7 Shadow.
In the mid 1990's the company formed a spin-off company called "ETI" (Electric Transit Incorporated) and began to dabble in electric public transit buses with a third-rate automotive company named Skoda Auto in the Czech Republic. Using the method of lowest-bidder wins, ETI and Skoda won a contract for a medium sized electric bus fleet in Dayton Ohio and went on to win a fairly large job in San Francisco California. The designs of fundamental systems within the fleets turned out to be majorly flawed before even a handful of buses were put into service. The mounting design problems were coupled with growing personnel, manufacturing, management, legal, and vendor problems in the US and overseas. Insiders soon discovered that the technology coming from Skoda (used in most of the major systems) turned out to be using methods and materials dating back to the 1940's. AAI/ETI, Skoda, and all of the vendors began growing more focused on lawyers, legal battles, and internal audits until it became obvious to the transit agencies management that the project had been abandoned from a perspective of progress. Due to these 2 major business failures in the USA, Skoda finally closed their doors on most portions of their international transit business in 2003. Shortly thereafter AAI/ETI decided to follow suit thereby coming clean in their abandonment of the public transit business for good.
External link
AAI Corporate website (http://www.aaicorp.com)de:AAI Corporation