Company History

How Precise Flight Came to Be...

Precise Flight, Inc. was founded in 1980 by Bill Thomas, a former Cessna Chief Test Pilot and Frank Thomas, founder of the Burger Chef Restaurants to produce SpeedBrakes for Cessna 210 aircraft. 25 years later, Precise Flight, Inc. is a market leader in three of its product lines, and among the top producers of its fourth and newest product, PreciseLite, HID Aviation Lighting.

Frank Thomas and Burger Chef, Inc...

Burger Chef got its start in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1956, when several prototype units were opened by General Restaurant Equipment Company, owned by Frank and Donald Thomas, to test equipment and prove the concept that would become Burger Chef. Another key player during the start up of Burger Chef was Robert Wildman, who was deeply involved with the original design and development of the concept of the chain. By 1958, the concept had been refined and the first unit under the Burger Chef name was opened at 1300 W. 16th Street in Indianapolis. By the end of 1958, there were eight stores in three states as franchising got underway. At this time, Burger Chef featured a "complete meal for 45c"- hamburgers, french fries and drinks were 15c each. The Burger Chef system utilized an open-flame broiler developed by the Thomas brothers which gave the burgers a unique flavor. The original model turned out 1,000 burgers an hour, in the mid 1960's a model was introduced with a 2,000 burger per hour capacity.

During the 1960's, Burger Chef reached into 38 states as the chain grew steadily. In 1968, General Equipment sold Burger Chef Systems to General Foods for $20 million. General Foods began a major expansion program opening 300 new units a year. In 1969, the 1000th Burger Chef was opened. The chain was at this time the 2nd biggest fast food chain in the USA, only a few hundred stores behind No. 1 McDonalds. However, this was not to last. In 1971, Burger Chef -which peaked at 1,200 stores-went into a tailspin, with General Foods taking a $75 million write-off on the chain. The expansion program came to an abrupt halt. General Foods figured the fast food business would be an easy way to make money, but they were more adept to manufacturing packaged foods and selling them to supermarkets. Later in the 70's, Burger Chef was mainly concentrated in the Midwest and Southwestern states, still one of the nation's largest fast food chains with 800 stores. A large number of locations in the Southern states broke off from the Burger Chef chain to form a new chain called Mr. Cook Restaurants. General Foods sold Burger Chef to Hardee's in 1982. It was at this time most Burger Chefs were converted to Hardee's outlets, many were closed or sold-especially those with a Hardee's location nearby. Less than 100 Burger Chef locations were left.

The last known Burger Chef was closed in 1996, located in Cookville, TN. There are restaurants operating today under the name Burger Chef, but have no connection with the original chain.

Hardee's recently renewed the rights to the Burger Chef trademarks until 2006. There had been casual discussion among Burger Chef fans about reviving the chain, but with Hardee's action this will be impossible, at least until 2006. A return of Burger Chef would create new competition for Hardee's, likely the reason for them retaining the rights.