Lancair is restarting light aircraft production and hopes to deliver "two or three" Columbia 300s by the end of the first quarter. The company was forced to halt production last year while it sought funding to ramp up output of the new design to the level required for sustained profitability.
Late last year, Lancair's Malaysian backers agreed to "nearly quadruple" their investment in the Oregon-based manufacturer, says president Bing Lantis. The additional funding is sufficient for production to restart and ramp up as originally planned. Certification work on the more-powerful Columbia 350 and 400 has also been resumed, says Lantis.
The investment has come from the Malaysian government, which owns Composites Technology Research Malaysia (CTRM). Plans call for CTRM to become a second source for the composite airframe of the Columbia.
"There is no requirement to buy from them," says Lantis. "It will be a business decision, but they are a good supplier."
Certification work on the Columbia 350 is "basically done", says Lantis, but Lancair has taken advantage of the hiatus to make improvements to the 400. "We have flying yet to do [on the 400]," he says. The company's order backlog grew during the production shutdown, and now stands at around 180 aircraft of all three models, Lantis says.
Mooney Aircraft, which restarted deliveries last year after being rescued from bankruptcy, is projecting sales of 80 aircraft this year. Last year the Kerrville, Texas-based company completed and delivered 17 aircraft that were already on the assembly line when production shut down. Mooney plans to restart the production line for new orders next month.
New Piper expects to deliver 252 aircraft this year, down from the 291 shipped last year. The company had projected deliveries of 331 aircraft in 2002, but reduced this to 305 when the general aviation downturn began to bite.
Year-end shipment numbers were reduced further by the crankshaft problem which affected availability of the Lycoming IO-540 engines that are used in certain Piper models.
Source: Flight International
