Lancair

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Lancair

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1981
Seat Uvalde , Texas
management Mark Huffstutler
Number of employees 45 Status: 2015
Branch Aircraft construction
Website http://www.lancair.com
Status: 2017

Lancair 235
Lancair 360
Lancair IV-P
Lancair Legacy
Lancair Propjet
Lancair Evolution

Lancair [ ˈlæːnsʔɛə̯ɹ ] is an American manufacturer of aircraft kits for general aviation . The company is known for single-engine, high-performance aircraft with cruising speeds above many twin-engine turboprop models. Together with models from Glasair Aviation , Lancair's earliest designs were among the first aircraft kits made from modern composite materials .

In 2017 the company including all constructions was sold to Lancair, LLC and moved from Redmond in Oregon to Uvalde in Texas . The original company only kept the newest model, the Lancair Evolution, and renamed itself Evolution Aircraft .

history

Beginnings

The company was founded in 1981 by Lance Neibauer to manufacture aircraft construction kits from GRP . Neibauer came into contact with aviation through his uncle Ray Betzoldt, who had developed the Meyers 200 together with Al Meyers . Whenever he visited his uncle and aunt, he flew on this plane. Twenty years later he was looking for a plane but couldn't find one he liked. He then became a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association and designed one himself.

Neibauer first asked every owner of a kit airplane he could find what properties they would like for the design of a kit airplane. In order to achieve a high efficiency of its design, he chose the newest flow profile of NASA , the Dan Somers in NASA research center in Langley developed NLF 0215-F. The NLF profile (English for Natural Laminar Flow) is a series of designs that replaced the older GAW series and offered better laminar flow . In 1983 the basic characteristics of the aircraft were defined and Neibauer rented a workshop in Santa Paula , where he began developing its design.

Originally, the new aircraft was to be presented in Oshkosh in 1984 . However, a leak in a wing tank prevented this. A modified version of the prototype with a redesigned cowling and small changes to the wing profile was finally presented in December 1984 as the Lancer 200. Equipped with a 100 hp Continental O-200 engine, the Lancer 200 outperformed all other machines with the same drive and garnered great interest in Oshkosh 1985. Due to a name conflict, the model was renamed the Lancair 200 and sold from 1985.

A short time later, the Lancair 235 followed , which was equipped with the slightly more powerful Lycoming O-235 as well as the Lancair 320 with a 150 hp Lycoming O-320 and the Lancair 360 with a 180 hp Lycoming O-360 . The rear of the latter two was also modified to address low-speed stability issues caused by the larger engines.

Lancair designs thus offered the best performance in the single-engine , piston -engine light aircraft class, and since the kit market was dominated by pilots who wanted more powerful aircraft than "off the shelf" aircraft, kits sold Lancair good. At the end of 1990, over 600 kits of the various two-seater models had already been sold, which, according to Neibauer, gave Lancair a 30% market share.

In 1995 a Lancair 320 was shown at an exhibition in the New York Museum of Modern Art .

New models

In 1990 Neibauer began to design a four-seater model that should retain the qualities of its two-seater predecessors. This led to the development of the Lancair IV , a four-seater model with an optional pressurized cabin and high cruising speed. The Lancair IV broke all previous speed records in its class when it reached an average speed of 313.1 knots on a flight from San Francisco to Denver .

Since the existing production facilities had reached their limits, the company looked for a location for a new factory. After examining two hundred possible locations, Lancair moved to Redmond Airport in Oregon in 1992 and renamed itself Lancair International. According to Flight International , Lancair had sold a total of 1,400 kits by August 1998 , including 300 of the Lancair IV model. Shortly after the Lancair IV was presented, Neibauer began developing the Lancair ES , a simpler model with a rigid chassis.

Columbia Aircraft Corporation

After Lancair's designs had established themselves in the kit market, NASA among others encouraged Neibauer in 1994 to develop a certified aircraft. On April 3, 1995, he founded the company Pacific Aviation Composites in nearby Bend in Oregon . The new aircraft, the Lancair LC-40, was based on the Lancair ES. The first prototype had its maiden flight in July 1996 and in early 1997 it was certified by the responsible authority. After another long certification process, the prototype became the Columbia 300 model in 1998 , followed by the turbocharged Columbia 400 model in 2000. On April 7th, the Lancair Company was founded as an independent company and on May 4th, 2000 it was merged with Pacific Aviation Composites.

In March 2003 Neibauer decided to devote his attention exclusively to the Columbia models and sold the kit business to Joseph Bartels, a lawyer and owner of a Lancair IV-P from Louisiana . Bartels had previously founded Aero Cool , which sold air conditioning systems for various Lancair models. On July 15, 2005, Neibauer's remaining part of the company became Columbia Aircraft Corporation . The Columbia models competed relatively unsuccessfully on the market with the Cirrus SR22 . In 2010 the majority shareholder , the Wolstenholme family from Colmar , Pennsylvania , bought the company completely and appointed Bob Wolstenholme as managing director. After the bankruptcy in 2007 the company was sold to Cessna .

Cessna offered the two Columbia models as the Cessna 350 and Cessna 400 .

Sale of older constructions

In July 2016 Lancair announced that it wanted to sell the older aircraft designs in order to concentrate fully on the Lancair Evolution . In February 2017 the models 200 to 360, IV, IV-P, IV-PT, ES, ESP and Legacy were sold to Mark and Conrad Huffstutler, who continue to run the company under the name Lancair International LLC to this day. After this sale, the original Lancair changed its name to Evolution Aircraft .

Airplane models

Web links

Commons : Lancair  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joseph Ditzler: Lancair buys its Redmond building. The Bulletin, May 13, 2015, accessed May 5, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c Lance Neibauer, "The Lancer 200", article in Sport Aviation , April 1985, page 11 (English)
  3. ^ A b c d Lancair International, Inc. History. International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 67, St. James Press, 2005, accessed April 16, 2018 .
  4. ^ Columbia Aircraft: A Legacy Of Performance. Sandhills Publishing Company, archived from the original on June 20, 2008 ; accessed on September 16, 2008 .
  5. ^ Business Registry Business Name Search. Oregon Secretary of State, accessed April 16, 2018 .
  6. ^ A b Lancair LC-40 Columbia 300/350/400. airliners.net, accessed on April 16, 2018 (English).
  7. ↑ About Lancair. Lancair, accessed April 16, 2018 .
  8. ↑ TEXTRON'S CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY TO ACQUIRE ASSETS OF COLUMBIA AIRCRAFT. textron.com, November 27, 2007, accessed April 16, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Cessna Gets Columbia. AVweb, November 27, 2007, accessed April 16, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Elaine Kauh: Lancair To Sell Legacy Assets In Favor Of Evolution Series. AVweb, July 29, 2016, accessed on April 16, 2018 .
  11. ^ Mary Grady: Lancair Brand Under New Ownership. AVweb, February 14, 2017, accessed on April 16, 2018 .