The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 255

COMING WEDNESDAY IN ATLANTA TECH: A CHAT WITH IXL CHAIRMAN BERT ELLIS "1 DIVIDENDS Q8 GEORGIA STOCKS Qll SUNDAY, SEPT. 10, 2000 ON THE WED CONTACT US Jennifer Hill, 1 Sunday Business editor jhillajc.com I 404-526-5869 INSIDE TODAY Upclose: Cynthia Kaye built her computer solutions company into a multimillion business. Q2 Ambitious goals: Al Gore's plans for continued prosperity are admirable, but Donald Ratajczak asks if they are realistic. Q4 Log on Atlanta: An Internet forum kicks off at Georgia Tech, with President Wayne Clough (right) hosting a meeting, as Ernest Holsendolph previews. Q6 EVERY WEEK Monday: Deals and Trends in Horizon Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: Maria Saporta Wednesday: Adanta Tech Thursday: International Business Friday: Adanta Real Estate The latest business news, regularly updated during the day, at www.ajc.combizatlanta Find out about the Internet Forum in Adanta: www.atlantaonthenet.org "Airplane manufacturers just couldn't get over the giggle factor.

Fred Ayres, president. Ayres recounting when he first installed a modem turboprop engine on an agricultural spray plane. Ha i id II i I Up in! i 'I 1 is T.si" 1 (If "4 fi I Boxy4ooking plane is built to handle bulky, odd-shaped freight containers Photos by DAVID TUUS Staff Fred Ayres sits inside the Loadmaster, a cargo plane with a fuselage exactly molded to fit freight ers. FedEx has ordered 75 of the planes, and Ayres hopes to sell them throughout the world. ing and assembly plants in Albany and in Dothan, and production eventually will rise to 100 aircraft annually.

Each plane carries a sticker price of $4.5 million. Ayres Corp. currently builds about 50 agricultural spray planes a year. Its Turbo Thrush aircraft are flying in about 85 countries. The company also builds specialized components carrier from day one.

The air cargo industry has some unique needs, and this airplane is built to address them." Ayres plans to fly the Load-master prototype for the first time early next year, obtain FAA certification after that, and steadily ramp up production in 2002. If sales meet company expectations, Ayres will grow to 1,000 employees at manufactur for Boeing helicopters, Pratt Whitney jet engine "hush kits," and cargo doors for planes being converted from passenger jets to freighters. The privately held company has annual revenue of about $40 million. The Loadmaster's selling points include low-tech simplicity and high-tech efficiency. The plane is non-pressurized, has fixed landing gear and can be flown by a single pilot.

But the Loadmaster also incorporates high-tech avionics and a radical new propulsion system in which two turbine engines turn a single propeller. In a worst-case sce- I '4 By Dave Hirschman dhirschmanajc.com Albany Fred Ayres is accustomed to being laughed at. The former crop-duster was the butt of jokes 25 years ago when he first installed a modern turboprop engine on an agricultural spray plane. Such engines are now standard equipment in the aerial spraying industry, but Ayres couldn't give the technology away when it was new. "Airplane manufacturers just couldn't get over the giggle factor," said Ayres, 69, president and chairman of Ayres a 300-employee aircraft manufacturing firm here.

"They had an idea of what an ag plane ought to look like and my airplane didn't fit their image. They thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen." Ayres is preparing to amuse the aerospace world again with his hulking Loadmaster, a car-toonish cargo plane now taking shape in Ayres hangars here at Southwest Georgia Regional Airport. The bulbous, slab-sided aircraft is the first ever designed specifically for air cargo, and it resembles the boxes it is meant to carry. In fact, the internal dimensions of the Loadmaster's cavernous fuselage were literally molded to fit FedEx freight containers. FedEx is the launch customer with firm orders for 75 Loadmasters and options for 200 more.

"Cargo airplanes have always been hand-me-downs," Ayres said. "The Loadmaster is the only plane ever designed to be a cargo nario of an engine failure on takeoff, Ayres said, Loadmasters will still be able to climb and unlike other multiengine planes; their pilots won't have to con-' tend with dangerous unbalanced, thrust coming only from one side of their airplanes. "We think the Loadmaster is going to be one of the safest airplanes ever built," Ayres said. "It's going to be far less demanding on pilots than any other aircraft its size." In addition to FedEx, Ayres has sold Loadmasters to air cargo companies in Australia, Canada and South Africa. Ayres also is planning future versions of the plane to be used as fire bombers, passenger carriers and military transports.

The Loadmaster is a far larger and more complex aircraft than the company has ever produced, however, and Ayres turned to the Czech Republic for design and manufacturing expertise. Ayres hired LET Aircraft Corp. there to build the Loadmaster's 64-foot wing. But he was so concerned that desperate financial times in Eastern Europe would jeopardize the project that he decided to buy the formerly state-owned company. As a side benefit, he discovered that some of the components on the twin-engine, turboprop aircraft that LET already produced could be transferred to the Loadmaster.

The factory has a long history of designing and building military planes for the German Luftwaffe during World PLEASE SEE Ayres, Q5 1r, r.N v' I lech I f.S '4 v' The Ayres Corp. Loadmaster, a model of which is shown here, has a distinctive single-propeller, twin-engine, box-shaped design. SWM seeking the Net rather than newspapers Let LQ. help you take stock This has been a tough year for investors, what with a spring sell-off, rising interest rates, increasing uncertainty and an upcoming presidential election. Help yourself develop an edge LOOKING FOR LOVE rretosiWal divorced Die ftjrdi youn 1 single feate.

be against what's happening by reading the Oct. 2 issue of I model to very, very fi wilthy Investment Quar By Matt Kempner mkempnerajc.com SWMs, GBFs and other abbreviations for lonely hearts are leaving the classified pages of the nation's newspapers for the' Internet. The question is, will newspaper advertising managers lose more than love? The Association of Alternative News-weeklies says that in its latest survey, members reported revenue from personal ads dropped more than 13 percent in just one year. The Los Angeles Times, the nation's fourth-largest newspaper, dropped personal ads altogether as revenue sank. At The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where money from personal ads has plummeted 90 percent in five years, executives plan to stop publishing print versions of the ads early next year.

Bill Offill, the Houston Chronicle's advertising manager, hasn't taken that step yet, but he doesn't doubt that it is coming for the nation's biggest newspapers. "Within two years I don't think you will see any of the major metres with personals," he says. "That is a business that has really moved to the Internet," Offill says. "All you have to do is go to like a Yahoo and look at the thousands of personals listings they have." Newspapers are finding it hard to compete with Web sites that let prospective companions post photographs and give lengthy descriptions of themselves without cost. They can also respond to other ads for free.

For most big newspapers, elimination of personal ads wouldn't be a major blow. Even at their height, they accounted for 1 percent or less of all classified revenue at some newspapers. But the problems with personal ads highlight the growing risks that print news papers face in an increasingly online world. "It shows there are some kinds of classified advertising that are susceptible to being taken away by the Internet," says John Morton, a newspaper consultant based in Maryland. "Theoretically, almost anything could wind up on the Internet." Beyond personal ads, print classified may be particularly vulnerable because of the Internet's advantages in sorting and searching big databases of information.

With 40 percent of newspaper revenue coming from classifieds, the risks are great. So far, though, revenue from all print classifieds is up, not down, according to the Newspaper Association of America. The booming economy has filled the biggest sections of classified pages jobs, real estate and automotive with ads mostly placed by businesses. But some newspaper executives say they PLEASE SEE Internet, Q4 terly. You'll find the latest thinking on what's 11 I imYMMm im ahead for the market, as well as a complete listing of stocks and mutual funds.

Journal-Constitution subscribers can have one delivered free by calling 404-222-2727. Subscribers who ordered previous issues do not need to reorder. Copies also are available for $8 each by calling 404-526-26 1 0, if you are not a subscriber or just need extras. TROY OXFORD Staff AJC.COM EVERY SECTION, EVERY DAY THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION I.