AVIATION’S FOREMOST FORECASTER WILL TALK 2021 AND BEYOND IN MARCH 15 WEBINAR FOR WICHITA AERO CLUB 

Richard Aboulafia Will Be Featured Speaker for ZOOM.us event.

The Wichita Aero Club held its first meeting on December 2, 2008.  It was actually a month ahead of the originally planned debut, which was set for January, 2009–but a crisis in the aerospace industry seemed to be looming in the fall of 2008 and it hit with full force during the fourth quarter of that year so the newly-formed board of the Wichita Aero Club decided to invite the industry’s foremost prognosticator, Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group, to come to Wichita and tell us whether the gathering clouds on the horizon were the beginnings of a fearsome storm or just a temporary and insignificant squall. Despite suffering from a nagging case of laryngitis, Richard told us to prepare for a challenging downturn...and he was right.

We’ve been fortunate to host Richard for WAC events on three other occasions since, and he will join us again on Monday, March 15 for another “Virtual Brunch” at 10:000 AM via Zoom.  We’ve asked him to share his insights and forecast for the aerospace industry—and Wichita’s aviation community—in this on-line event. 

For those who don’t know Richard, he’s the Vice President, Analysis at Teal Group. He manages consulting projects for clients in the commercial and military aircraft field, and has advised numerous aerospace companies. He also writes and edits Teal's World Military and Civil Aircraft Briefing, a forecasting tool covering over 135 aircraft programs and markets. Richard also writes publicly about the aviation field, with numerous articles in Aviation Week, Aerospace America, and other publications. Frequently cited as an aviation industry authority by trade and news publications, he has appeared on numerous television news programs and has spoken at a wide variety of conferences.

Richard’s television news and radio program appearances include ABC, BBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, CBS, CNN, NBC, NPR and PBS.  He has a Masters degree in War Studies from King’s College, University of London and a Bachelors degree from George Washington University. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Casey, son, Simon, and daughter, Wren.