This would be the dream machine for me.....

Congrats!!!

The piston and chute go well together, the extra weight of the piston up front balancing out the 80 lb. chute in the tail. The chute is harder to balance with the light PT6 up front, and arguably harder to justify with turbine reliability. Few turbine builders have opted for the chute.

The piston does make an attractive package, though. Incredible range, great efficiency offset by slower climb, making the flight levels less usable which was a big factor for me. The decision to use the new Lycoming iE2 engine delayed the program by several years and it's still not fully sorted (you'll see a new cowling for the piston soon, they were working on it in a corner of the shop). It's also a very expensive engine, for a piston, and brand new so no reliability history and no overhauled units available. So far, hard to see the appeal over a TCM TSIO-550 but I expect the iE2 has more future potential. And Garmin won't let them use the GFC700 autopilot with the piston.

Does it? What is that track record? I've heard that as well but can't find any details beyond that it was used in one Northrop Grumman (Scaled Composites) prototype, the Firebird. How many engines are they actually flying, how many hours, how many failures have they had, how long are they getting out of those cylinders at >400F CHTs, are they making TBO? The military's been pretty close-mouthed with that information, as is their habit. If there are real-world reliability numbers publicly available, I couldn't find them. As the man said, just how Experimental do you want to be?

Jos awesome, good for you!
Will follow this thread closely!

A peek at the build process, with my 15 seconds of fame.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/nNQrtWyPZ-M[/youtube]

Dave great, great video......and great cameo.....they should pay you

Question on the things you mentioned in a previous email brought up by the the Xavion guy......are they fixing or have fixed the landing gear retraction issue?

What about the pressurization is that still an Achilles heel?

Tell us rookies more, many of us love this airplane and all it represents

They think they've fixed it 3 times now. In May 2013 they said dump the system pressure after landing using the emergency gear extension valve. In Dec 2016 they came out with a hardware fix, a solenoid valve, to obviate dumping the pressure. And last week, Apr. 4 2017, they sent out a notice that a customer designed a better fix than the solenoid, which they will be sending out. I guess only time will tell if that does it or if more fixes will be needed.You mean the pressurization (and other systems) controller, the much-hated Moritz? Very cool story there. Everybody hates that thing but one builder had the mechanical, electrical and software skills to do something about it, he designed and built a replacement and gave it to the company, gratis. He had over a thousand hours in it just in testing. They were impressed and made a copy, then another, improved one, all in-house. It's in all the new kits going forward, including mine (better be!). That builder (don't think I can name names yet) ran through a demo for us on a laptop. It's too cool for school! Modeled on the controls in a Tesla, touchscreen w/ 3D graphics that handles everything, very automatic, very graphic. Example: De-ice turns on automatically when OAT is below 6C, maxes out at -20C and below, automatically turns off on the ground. When the de-ice is on, the wings on the 3D image of the plane on the screen turn red; actuate the gear lever and watch the wheels come down; when the WOW switches are activated, the bottoms of the tires get flat. It's almost too cute. The graphics model alone is over a gig of memory. Software controlled circuit breakers, hardware backups, etc. Very, very trick.

The same guy designed and gave them a new panel, also being made standard. More cool beans. Edit: Page showing new controller and panel. Would've saved a lot of typing if I'd found this first!
http://www.evolutionaircraft.com/blog/e ... interface/

Looks like Darth Vader's Tie Fighter.... I vote to keep the color...

cracks me up when you have a box with a bajillion dollar turbine in it and it says "'Do Not Drop"...

You're doing my dream item on my bucket list btw....

I always dreamed that near the end I'd be doing this:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/AXwGVXD7qEQ[/youtube]

The cost difference was smaller than I expected since Pratt was having a sale.

My dream was more like this ...
[youtube]https://youtu.be/g2O7rZTBs7w[/youtube]

But I suspect the first engine run is going to be more like this ...
[youtube]https://youtu.be/xos2MnVxe-c[/youtube]

What a bad ass plane!! Please post tons of pics during the build.
Was a bit surprised to read that the piston version would only be about an hour behind the turbine for the trip to Cabo.
You and Gerry are living the dream.

Reading Austin's comments on the Evo. Never knew there was an issue with the programing of the -42 engine with the Garmin screens. Everyone raves about the -42 engine on the Evo.

Rgs

Patrick

yeah, and nobody cares about the G900x, because it's a dinosaur, so, I think the argument is flawed, Lancair wants you to drink the 135/900x kool aid because they have a ton pre-negotiated they need to sale, or at least that was the last good data point I got about 3-6months ago when looking

i wouldn't rule out a 135, but most are coupled with the 900x which loses me instantly

the best part of the piston airplane, is that it CAN be upgraded to the PT6 down the road....so fly now on a lower budget (i.e, instead of new cirrus) and upgrade down the road

I think that the PT6 will be cheaper to maintain and run over the long haul........jetA is about half the cost of AvGas!