JetEXE Buys Lancair, Plans Sustainable Designs

JetEXE Aviation has bought Lancair International and has big plans for the historic kitplane company. The Sacramento-based MRO, training and charter business’s owner says that for now the focus will be on keeping up support for the existing fleet, but there’s a plan for the iconic brand. “New designs, expansion and moving to new facilities would follow this year,” Capt. Augustine Joseph told AVweb. “We plan to bring out new and advanced designs and also focus on designs that incorporate sustainable energy technologies both in manufacturing and in our products.”

Lancair was a pioneer in composite construction and led the mainstreaming of the homebuilt movement through the latter part of the last century. It developed 14 designs and thousands of the speedy singles are flying all over the world. Founder Lance Niebauer sold the kit business in 2003 to build the certified Columbia line of aircraft, which was eventually bought by Cessna and ultimately dropped. Lancair become Evolution Aircraft in 2016 to concentrate on the pressurized turboprop model. It sold off older kit designs, and that business was purchased by JetEXE from Mark and Conrad Huffstatter, of Uvalde, Texas, who had hoped to revive the kit production but were concentrating on fleet support in recent years.

Editor's Note: This article first appeared on AVweb.com.

Homebuilt Aircraft JetEXE Aviation Kitplanes Lancair

Russ NilesContributor

Russ Niles has been a journalist for 40 years, a pilot for 30 years and joined AVweb in 2003. When he’s not writing about airplanes he and his wife Marni run a small winery in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley.