Says It Was 'Weeks Away' From FAA Certification Of Its Epic Airplane

Bend, OR-based Epic Aircraft, which is developing the Epic E1000, has announced that it will lay off most of its workforce as the Coronavirus pandemic continues to grip the nation.

Epic sales and marketing manager Mike Schrader told television station KTVZ that a "skeleton crew" of 30-50 people are all that are still working out of its workforce of about 325.

The company said that the virus hit when it was just weeks away from gaining FAA production certification for the Epic, which would have allowed it to sell factory-produced airplanes without extended FAA Involvement. But the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the FAA to pull back from conducting "fly-offs" of finished production airplanes, which is required for the production certificate.

Still, Schrader said the company fully expects to emerge from the other side of the pandemic and re-start production of airplanes. He said that investors are willing to wait out the delay "because of the quality of the product."

(Image from file)

FMI: Source report