Overview
Progressive Aerodyne is an American light-aircraft manufacturer known for a single design carried for more than thirty years: the SeaRey amphibious flying boat, sold both as an amateur-built kit and as a factory Special Light-Sport Aircraft. The company has been Chinese-investor owned since 2016. Its story is unusual for a light-aircraft builder in that it never diversified; the SeaRey has been the whole business from the start.
Heritage
The company was founded in 1991 in Orlando, Florida by Kerry Richter, working with Wayne Richter and Paige Lynette, and grew directly out of the Richter family’s earlier Advanced Aviation ultralight business. Kerry Richter led the design. The SeaRey prototype first flew on 13 November 1992, and the airplane found a following among recreational pilots who wanted water flying without a certified aircraft’s cost. In 2010 the company relocated to Tavares, Florida, a town that bills itself as “America’s Seaplane City,” and over the type’s life more than 700 SeaRey aircraft have been delivered worldwide.
Design Signature
Progressive Aerodyne’s signature is depth over breadth: one airplane, refined across three decades rather than replaced. Every SeaRey shares the same core, a parasol wing set above a boat hull, a Rotax pusher engine, and retractable amphibious gear, offered in parallel as a build-it-yourself kit and a finished factory LSA. The design goal throughout has been accessible recreational water flying, and the airframe’s steady evolution reflects a builder improving a known quantity rather than chasing new markets.
For Owners
Production halted and the Tavares factory closed around April 2024, with the company seeking a buyer. The fleet keeps flying, supported through third-party specialists rather than the original manufacturer, so a buyer today is shopping the used market with aftermarket rather than factory backing. That is a manageable situation for a widely built type still served by independent specialists, but it is the central fact to plan an ownership budget around.