Russian company Enterprises LLC has acquired Bend, Oregon-based Epic Aircraft. The acquisition has the potential to push FAA certification forward for Epic’s LT – a six-seat single-engine turboprop that has been sold as a kit. An Epic spokeswoman said the company expects certification in three years.
Enterprises LLC, a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) company, says that it will seek to leverage Epic’s manufacturing knowledge in other ventures, though it didn’t name those projects specifically.
Epic‘s deal with Enterprises LLC could be a bit of good news for Bend’s composite workforce, which has seen rough days with Cessna’s Corvalis plant closing down in 2009. Epic will hire 10 people with more to follow, according to the spokeswoman.
From Epic’s inception in 2004, the company had the intention of selling certified airplanes. To enable the financial burden of certification, the airplanes were marketed as kits. But Epic was plagued by financial trouble and its former CEO Rick Schrameck left under controversy in 2009.
Kit buyers, many of whom had paid large sums of money upfront but who had been unable to finish their airplanes when the company went into a virtual standstill during its late 2009 bankruptcy, organized as the LT Builders Group to take over the company in 2010, enabling the owners to continue their missions of completing their airplanes. Since then, Epic has completed about 10 kits, some of which were in various stages of completion at the time LT Builders Group took over, according to Epic. The composite components are built in house.
The 2010 takeover was a joint deal with China Aviation, which bought the rights to manufacture Epic’s kit designs abroad. However, LT Builders Group was the sole owner of Epic prior to the Enterprises LLC deal and the spokeswoman said China Aviation will not have any claims to the certified airplanes.
The sleek Epic LT airframe is pressurized and constructed of carbon fiber. A Pratt & Whitney PT6-67A powers the airplane, which is capable of speeds up to 325 knots and has a service ceiling of 28,000 feet. The cost of the kit is $1.9 million and requires the owner to spend several weeks at the factory to comply with kit-building rules. Currently Epic also sells a scaled down version of the LT called the Escape, powered by a Honeywell TPE331. Epic is not working on certification of the Escape at this time.
