Lancair Evolution

Less than two years after Evolution Aircraft separated from the Lancair International brand, the company has shut its doors. When a manufacturer goes out of business, aircraft owners are generally left high and dry until the company’s assets are bought up by someone willing to take on the project and the liability that comes along […]

Flying magazine recently had the chance to fly and review the Lancair Evolution Piston, which features the same composite airframe as its turbine-powered counterpart along with a 350 hp Lycoming iE2 engine. Check out some shots of the experimental four-seater piston below.

We took off from Camarillo under calm, clear blue skies. The hillsides along the coast of Southern California displayed a panoply of colors — bright-green grasses mixed with expansive patches of purple, yellow and orange flowers. The last time I was in Camarillo in a Lancair Evolution, the airplane had a big Pratt & Whitney […]

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 […]

Lancair has delivered the first piston-powered Evolution, equipped with a fadec-controlled Lycoming iE2 engine rated at 350 horsepower. The piston Evolution is designed around the same carbon fiber airframe as the turbine version, minus the firewall forward section. With a 168-gallon fuel tank that is necessary to feed the turbine-powered Evolution, the range of the […]

July 2010 — For the past few years piston-engine giant Lycoming has been developing a new engine, the TEO-540-A1A. The designation is meaningful: It is a “turbocharged,” “electronic ignition” and “opposed” — nothing new there — version of the venerable 540-series Lycoming engine that has been a mainstay of the general aviation fleet for decades. […]

Lycoming flew a Lancair Evolution to Oshkosh, powered by its new TEO-540-EXP iE2 engine. Advantages of the 350-hp engine include single-lever operation, automated preflight safety checks, automotive start simplicity and reduced pilot workload. The iE2 system also allows use of alternative fuels and promises increased fuel efficiency and reliability. The iE2 system was announced at […]