Customer Service Manager Discusses What Lancair Customers Are Building And How (Part Three of Three)

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Aero-News: Well, I think that pretty much covers the program. Is there anything else you want to send out there to the readers?

KL: Well, in addition to the program, we have fastbuild options. We have engine fastbuilds, we do firewall fastbuilds, so when they come in and do four weeks, their firewall will be done, so when they're ready for their engine, then they send their engine mount back, and we fastbuild the engine.

It can, if they're using our avionics shop, move from the engine shop into avionics, and they'll do a complete engine harness. We have one in the tent -- it's just beautiful workmanship. And then of course, you know, our avionics shop offers prewired panels.

Aero-News: I imagine, though, people really want to put their mark on a panel. Isn't that something that's highly customized?

KL: Yeah. Several years ago -- trying to make it easier -- we tried to come up with Panel A, B and C on each of our airplanes. That didn't work! Everybody wanted something just a little bit different.

Aero-News: "I want Panel A but with THIS from Panel C..."

KL: Exactly! They're all custom. Similar equipment, just a little different in the layout, or colors are different. Some customers go with the leather, we offer a very nice leather-wrapped panel now.

Aero-News: Are more of them choosing a glass panel, or is it steam gages?

KL: Glass. I would guess that in our panels that we're putting together, eighty percent have been glass of some sort -- either the Avidyne, Chelton, and we have our first OP Technologies panel that's going to be going together.

Aero-News: I didn't even know they existed -- I just saw an ad for them in a magazine I was reading yesterday! You can't keep up...

KL: Yeah, I wanted to go over there [OP Tech booth], one of their sales reps is a Lancair IV builder out of Chicago. And I ran into him yesterday, and said, "You're going to have to show me your equipment."

I flew cross-country in the Propjet -- there were three of us -- and it was my first cross-country with a Chelton.

Aero-News: Isn't that thing the cat's pajamas? To me, that's the class of the market right now.

KL (reverently): For anyone, if you aren't sure what you want, go on a cross-country trip with the Chelton. It was just awesome.

Aero-News: I mean, the Avidyne's very nice, I've flown that in the Cirrus, but the Chelton is something, with the terrain and obstructions and everything... I want that. And I don't fly in weather. I imagine most of the Lancairs will be operated in weather at some point.

KL: I don't know that a lot of people intend to fly hard IFR, they don't fly hard IFR. But these are all IFR airplanes. Coming out, we ended up going up to Indy for a demo ride, and had to file IFR, just to get through some stuff, and of course we got weathered in for a day.

Aero-News: Has anyone built a Legacy or a fixed-gear with a VFR panel? Never?

KL: I don't know of any off the top of my head. But there's a guy we;re working on a Legacy fixed-gear with right now, who's just going to do just a basic VFR panel. He says that he can always upgrade later. I told him, "The trouble is, once you're done with this, all you're going to want to do is fly it. So I'd do what you finally want now, but it's probably never going to be retro'd."

You could. But when you have that kind of time into a project -- you know, just do it right.

And then we just had a Legacy Fixed-Gear customer put $120,000 panel in.

Aero-News: WOW. What did he put to run the meter up that high?!?

KL: Chelton, Chelton screens... weather... traffic...

Aero-News: Ryan traffic?

KL: Yeah.

Aero-News: Well, you could do it. You could probably specify Honeywell if you really wanted to. Any other customers doing something unusual?

KL: This is a good story -- and we're going to do a release on him as soon as he flies, but this customer bought the Legacy fixed-gear kit last summer, and did not have a pilot's license. And he was going to learn to fly while he was building it. And he just took his checkride maybe six weeks ago. And he's coming out the last week of April to fly his airplane. He went through the ten-week completion program.

Aero-News: So how do we transition him to the Legacy FG from whatever he's been flying -- which is probably something considerably lower-performance?

KL: Mel [Hill, Lancair Sales] flew with him. His insurance company required him to fly, I don't know, fifteen hours [with a CFI]. Just his last visit out, which was  maybe a month ago. He was just training that week. He'd work on his airplane a little bit, but he was getting his time in.

Aero-News: And Mel's going to be satisfied with him or...

KL: Or he won't sign him off. He's planning to be flying this back to Virginia, as soon as the time's flown off.

We have a flight training program. High Performance Flight Training operates our flight training now, it was started through Lancair, and we support it, and they've got qualified pilots. Our focus is safety. Everybody knows what's happening, with the insurance industry, and how hard and how expensive it's getting. So our goal is to prove to them that we're making our pilots as safe as possible.

FMI: www.lancair-kits.com