At EAA AirVenture this week, Lancair International’s director of business development, Kevin Eldredge, announced major changes for the iconic experimental airplane brand. With the emergence of the four-seat pressurized Lancair Evolution turbine and piston airplanes, a new corporation called Evolution Aircraft is splitting off from the parent company. Evolution Aircraft will focus solely on the pressurized single-engine airplane models. Meanwhile, the light kit portion of Lancair is for sale.
Eldredge said that, with the emergence of the Evolution models, Lancair has changed as a company. Unlike other Lancair designs, the Evolution is not a kit that customers bring home to build. Instead it is built with a combination of the owner, factory builders and builders in commercial shops. With the new DNA, Eldridge, who joined the company in late 2015, felt that Lancair was unable to adequately support the lighter side of the company and thought it best to separate the Evolution. Also, while the Evolution has been a unique product in the market, the legacy Lancair products have had too much competition, and the Legacy, the latest light experimental kit the company has been building, was no longer selling.
Lancair International, which was started by composite airplane pioneer Lance Neibauer and has been in operation for 32 years, is being liquidated and the remainder of the kit company’s assets, which includes support for more than 2,000 kits including 1,200 registered completed airplanes, is for sale. Until there is a buyer, however, Eldredge said he is committed to continuing to support the fleet.
