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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 17 Sep 2017, 21:56 
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Did anyone see the LX-7 at Oshkosh? Seems like the plane performed even better than they were expecting.
RDD has several listed on Controller for 2018 delivery so it appears they have some hulls in line to convert.


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 02 Oct 2017, 13:27 
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According to the company president at the Evolution Fly-In this weekend, nobody's buying the piston Evolution. He says the low price gets them in the door but once they start crunching the numbers so far everyone has decided to go up to one of the turbines. The only exception has been one guy who needs the piston's range, he's flying from Texas to S. America regularly and wants to avoid paying fees to all the countries along the way.


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 03 Oct 2017, 22:01 
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Quote:
October 2nd, 2017

Evolution Aircraft Company will be immediately reducing its operations to minimum levels to close out its remaining orders. I have been in negotiations with potential investors for some time, but have decided that until one of these are secure we must reduce our operations down to only those required to complete the remaining orders we have on the books. This is mainly in the avionics and engine development portion of our business. We do have three complete Evolution kits remaining in inventory and are willing to sell these to anyone that understands our current situation. Once we can secure new investment to guarantee our ability to deliver on new sales, we fully intend to do so.

We will be contacting all customers with open orders immediately and continue to update them on progress. We will be providing more information very soon on specific aspects of the remaining operations, but our most immediate responsibility is to the many employees that we must lay off as part of this restructure. I would ask that you direct all contact to me for the time being. I may not be able to respond immediately but will do my very best to either contact you as quickly as I can or forward your request to the person who can.

We all appreciate your patience and understanding through this transition and I want you to know that I am fully committed to meeting all the obligations we have and to developing a plan quickly to resume full operations along with continued to support to the many aircraft in the fleet.

Bob Wolstenholme
President, CEO
bobw@evolutionaircraft.com


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 03 Oct 2017, 22:07 
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Username Protected wrote:
Quote:
October 2nd, 2017

Evolution Aircraft Company will be immediately reducing its operations to minimum levels to close out its remaining orders. I have been in negotiations with potential investors for some time, but have decided that until one of these are secure we must reduce our operations down to only those required to complete the remaining orders we have on the books. This is mainly in the avionics and engine development portion of our business. We do have three complete Evolution kits remaining in inventory and are willing to sell these to anyone that understands our current situation. Once we can secure new investment to guarantee our ability to deliver on new sales, we fully intend to do so.

We will be contacting all customers with open orders immediately and continue to update them on progress. We will be providing more information very soon on specific aspects of the remaining operations, but our most immediate responsibility is to the many employees that we must lay off as part of this restructure. I would ask that you direct all contact to me for the time being. I may not be able to respond immediately but will do my very best to either contact you as quickly as I can or forward your request to the person who can.

We all appreciate your patience and understanding through this transition and I want you to know that I am fully committed to meeting all the obligations we have and to developing a plan quickly to resume full operations along with continued to support to the many aircraft in the fleet.

Bob Wolstenholme
President, CEO
bobw@evolutionaircraft.com


Ouch!

RAS


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 07 Oct 2017, 15:54 
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Just before the re-org, the company came out with these "Top 10 Reasons to Build a New Evolution". Of interest to those interested in the piston, they will now sell you an engineless kit. So if you like the piston Evo but aren't convinced the electronic controls have enough track record to be worth the price premium, or have some other favorite engine you'd like to use, now's your chance. More piston-relevant excerpts below:

9/26/2017
NEW VS USED: TOP 10 REASONS TO BUILD A NEW EVOLUTION
...
2. Garmin G3x Touch Panel Design For all Models...

3. We now sell four different engines to fit any EVO maximizing efficiency for any mission profile. And if you are super adventurous and want to use your own engine package we will sell the Evolution kit without any engine at all.

4. Total revamp of the landing gear. The quality and delivery of our new landing gear is now more robust and more reliable. After difficulties with our gear vendor in 2016, we were forced to rebuild all the fixtures and bring the production of our gear back in-house. While this caused many delays and difficulties in 2016 we are now up to full production. 4.1 We also just completed a review and improvement initiative on the oleo strut with our supplier.

5. Totally new AC system. Once we released the piston version of the Evolution in 2017 we realized that the turbine version of the AC system would not be adequate. We took a look at the entire system and found that we could make improvements for both versions and reduce the overall weight by 12 lbs. Now all kits after 87 are shipping with the new all-electric AC system. Since this new system is all electric it can be turned on when the engine is off to pre-cool the cabin on those 115 degree days in Tucson!

6. New and improved hydraulic system. We spent many months in 2016 looking at the original design of our hydraulic gear actuator system and have now released a completely new version that is shipping in all new kits. It is a simple two direction pump system that makes emergency deployment and operation very reliable. The added benefit of this system is that the pilot is now not required to take any additional steps to assure the gear will stay secure when in the down position.

7. Improved de-ice aerodynamics with joggled wing. The Evolution has always been available with a de-ice boot system, however, the boots used to go on top of the leading edge which reduced speed by as much as 10 knots. In 2016 we made a brand new set of molds with an integrated joggled leading edge for all Evolutions allowing the de-ice boots to install flush maintaining the critical shape of the original wing design eliminating most of the drag.

9. Streamlined build process = shorter timeline. After a thorough review of the build process, we have developed a long list of items that we intend on including in our quick-build program by the end of 2017. This means that when the kit goes to your build assist shop, their team will be able to reduce the build time by as much as two months from the current seven-month norm.

10. Ten full days of flight testing. In the past, we included the first flight and a few days training with the kit purchase. Since now there are so many training options out there we have changed our policy to include a full ten days of flight testing by one of our experienced test pilots. The FAA requires 40 hours of initial flight testing to receive an airworthiness certificate and with proper planning and support from your approved builder, we feel that including ten days of flight testing is a small investment and the best way to make sure your Evolution flies exactly as it was designed to.


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 08 Nov 2017, 01:50 
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A piston Evolution came into the shop yesterday with engine trouble and I talked to the pilot about it at some length. No error lights or codes but vibration and EGT say it's only running on five cylinders. Not much he could do to diagnose the problem without the required laptop. The engine controller lets it run at temps way beyond my comfort zone (>500F CHT, >1800F TIT). Since it has the same metallurgy as other cylinders it'll be interesting to see what kind of longevity they demonstrate in service. I believe the 3rd piston Evolution is very close to flying.


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 25 Dec 2017, 18:08 
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Any thoughts or information on insurance premiums for the evo piston? I would assume that it's substantially less to insure in the experimental market than the turboprop

... I've been following along watching Evolution (Lancair) for a couple decades now and would love the piston for my business and personal bird. I hope they get thier funding worked out!


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 25 Dec 2017, 21:16 
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Username Protected wrote:
Any thoughts or information on insurance premiums for the evo piston? I would assume that it's substantially less to insure in the experimental market than the turboprop

... I've been following along watching Evolution (Lancair) for a couple decades now and would love the piston for my business and personal bird. I hope they get thier funding worked out!


Tommy-
I haven't quoted a piston Evo in a while but I can tell you that the turbine experimental market is not in a good state right now (Evo and Epic). For instance over the last quarter the Epic market is down to just one underwriting carrier. I believe the same holds true for the Evo. That translates into a $30.5k premium on a $1.2m hull, $1m 'smooth' liability and with a $25k deductible on a recent risk I placed. That specific policy is with a owner/pilot transitioning with about 50 hrs mentoring required.

It is a premium base in that class of aircraft that frankly we haven't seen in over 10 years. Thankfully it isn't indicative of the current state of insurance with the certified aircraft such as the TBM, Meridian, PC12 etc.

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E-mail: thauge@wingsinsurance.com


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 09 Mar 2018, 20:10 
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Word is that today the owners of 2 (of the either 2 or 3 built) piston Evolutions are meeting with the company in Redmond, very unhappy with the plane. Inflight shutdowns at altitude, random failures, the engine is just not ready. Further layoffs at Evolution have brought the company down to, by my count, just 5 remaining employees so it's unclear what resolution to the problems they can or will offer.


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 10 Mar 2018, 06:11 
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Word is that today the owners of 2 (of the either 2 or 3 built) piston Evolutions are meeting with the company in Redmond, very unhappy with the plane. Inflight shutdowns at altitude, random failures, the engine is just not ready. Further layoffs at Evolution have brought the company down to, by my count, just 5 remaining employees so it's unclear what resolution to the problems they can or will offer.


Sounds like it's LYCOMING problems - not Lancair ...

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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 05 May 2018, 20:36 
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You have your chance, one of the few made is for sale
https://www.controller.com/listings/air ... -evolution


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 05 May 2018, 23:13 
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Username Protected wrote:
You have your chance, one of the few made is for sale
https://www.controller.com/listings/air ... -evolution


I’ve flown this one. It’s an amazing aircraft. The performance is near my PC12 for 1/3 of the fuel (and a few less seats).


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 06 May 2018, 00:15 
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I’ve flown this one.
How was the engine cooling? What kind of CHTs did you see while climbing, at what IAS and climb rate?


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 06 May 2018, 09:10 
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Dave,

It has been a year ago and I’d be afraid to quote anything. They did have some cooling problems initially but they got those resolved. If you would like, I can pm you the owners email.


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 Post subject: Re: Piston-Powered Lancair Evolution?
PostPosted: 09 Jul 2018, 22:15 
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Aircraft: 1993 Bonanza A36TN
The owner of other one of the 2 piston Evolutions, not the one for sale on Controller, has filed suit against the company. I talked to him last week. Claims unmet promises, plane is not ready, etc. and wants them to buy it back. IIRC, there was a third built with the piston engine but it was later converted to PT6. So the percentage of happy customers of this engine is pretty low.


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