- Lancair
Infobox Company
company_name= Lancair International
company_logo=
company_type=privately-held company
foundation= 1981
key_people=Joseph Bartels
industry=general aviation
location=Redmond, Oregon
company_slogan=
products=Lancair 360 ,Lancair IV ,Lancair ES
num_employees=
parent =
homepage= [http://www.lancair.com/Main/ Lancair Performance Aircraft]Lancair International, Inc. (pronounced "‘lance-air’") is a U.S. manufacturer of
general aviation aircraft kits. They are well known for their series of high-performance single-engine aircraft that offer cruise speeds that surpass many twin-engineturboprop designs. Along with theGlasair series, the early Lancair designs were among the first kitplanes to bring modern molded composites construction to light aircraft.History
Introduction
The company was founded by
Lance Neibauer in 1981 as a producer of compositehomebuilt aircraft kits. Neibauer had been introduced to aviation by his uncle Ray Betzoldt, who had collaborated with Al Meyers to build theMeyers 200 . Whenever he visited his aunt and uncle, he always took a ride in the Meyers.Lance Neibauer, "The Lancer 200", "Sport Aviation", April 1985, pp.11] Hooked, he went looking for an aircraft twenty years later and found nothing that he liked, and decided to join theEAA and design his own.Neibauer started work on the new design by asking every builder he could find what features they were looking for in a homebuilt design. Looking to improve performance with the latest possible features, he selected the new
NASA NLF 0215-F airfoil designed by Dan Sommers at Langley. The NLF, short for "Natural Laminar Flow", is a series of designs that replaced the older GAW series with more forgivinglaminar flow characteristics. By 1983 the aircraft's basic parameters were fixed, and Neibauer rented a shop inSanta Paula, California and started work on the design.Intending to introduce aircraft at Oshkosh in 1984, a minor fuel leak in the wing tanks forced them to miss the show in order to fix the problem. A modified version of the prototype with re-shaped cowling and some changes to the wing profile emerged as the "Lancer 200" in December 1984. Equipped with a 100 hp
Continental O-200 engine, the Lancer easily outflew anything powered by the same engine and generated intense interest at Oshkosh '85. However, a naming conflict forced the design to be re-christened, finally going on sale in 1985 as theLancair 200 .The 200 was quickly replaced by the
Lancair 235 , equipped with the slightly more powerfulLycoming O-235 . Re-engined versions quickly followed; theLancair 320 with the 150 hpLycoming O-320 , and theLancair 360 with the 180 hpLycoming O-360 . A new tail was introduced for the later models in order to address stability problems at low speeds with the larger engines.The Lancair designs provided the highest performance in the single-engine GA class, and as the kit-build market was dominated by pilots looking to outperform existing "off-the-shelf" designs, the Lancair's kits sold well. By the end of 1990 they had sold over 600 kits for the various two-seat models, giving them what Neibauer claimed was 30% of the kit-built market.
A Lancair 320 appeared in a 1995 exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art.
New models
Starting in 1990, Neibauer turned his attention to a four-seat design that would retain the qualities of the earlier two-seaters. These efforts culminated in the
Lancair IV , a four-seat optionally pressurized (IV-P) single-engine aircraft with a high cruise speed. The IV broke all existing speed records in February 1991 when it averaged 360.3 mph between San Francisco and Denver. [http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Lancair-International-Inc-Company-History.html "Lancair International, Inc."] , "International Directory of Company Histories", Vol. 67, St. James Press, 2005]Already stretching the limits of their existing facilities, the company started looking for a new factory and after examining 200 potential sites they moved to
Roberts Field inRedmond, Oregon in 1992. The company became Lancair International with the move. As of August 1998, according to "Flight International ", Lancair had sold 1,400 kits, 300 of them the Lancair IV model. Soon after the IV was introduced, Neibauer started work on a simpler fixed-gear version that emerged as theLancair ES .Columbia Aircraft
In 1994 NASA launched the
Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments (AGATE) project re-energize the rapidly downsizing general aviation market. A series of factors, including new regulatory restrictions and immense liability claims rendered the GA field unprofitable, and most manufacturers had abandoned the "low end" to concentrate on the business aircraft market. American GA aircraft production numbers had declined from 18,000 in 1978 to 954 in 1993, an all-time low. The only area that seemed to be vibrant was the home-build market, where the liability issues were not as much of a factor.Prominent among the homebuilt market was Lancair, and in 1994 NASA and others encouraged Neibauer to develop a FAA-certified aircraft., [ [http://www.fly-columbia.com/ "Columbia Aircraft: A Legacy Of Performance"] ] On 3 April 1993 he spun off a new company, Pacific Aviation Composites USA, [ [http://egov.sos.state.or.us/br/pkg_web_name_srch_inq.show_detl?p_be_rsn=321021&p_srce=BR_INQ&p_print=FALSE Business Registry Business Name Search, Pacific Aviation Composites USA, LLC] ] in nearby
Bend, Oregon . The new Lancair LC-40 was based on the fixed-gear ES. The first prototype flew in July 1996, followed by the certification prototype in early 1997.After a lengthy certification process, the design emerged as the Columbia 300 in 1998, followed by the turbocharged Columbia 400 in 2000. The 400 included a new
glass cockpit that was developed on NASA's own 300 under the AGATE program, and was later put into the production model 300's to produce the Columbia 350 in 2002. [http://www.airliners.net/aircraft-data/stats.main?id=263 "The Lancair LC-40 Columbia 300/350/400"] , "airliners.net"] The Lancair Company [http://egov.sos.state.or.us/br/pkg_web_name_srch_inq.show_detl?p_be_rsn=699880&p_srce=BR_INQ&p_print=FALSE Business Registry Business Name Search, The Lancair Company] ] was formed as a separate entity on 7 April 2000 and Pacific Aviation Composites was merged into The Lancair Company on 4 May 2000.Deciding to focus on the Columbia models, in March, 2003 Neibauer sold the kit side of the company to Joseph Bartels, a Louisiana attorney and Lancair IV-P builder and owner. Bartels had already formed Aero Cool to sell
air conditioner s for the various Lancair models. On 15 July 2005 Neibauer's portion of the company becameColumbia Aircraft . The Columbias competed relatively unsuccessfully with the new and first-to-marketCirrus SR22 .
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