Good Results Reported by First Customer

The folks at Lancair seem pretty enthused with early reports from the first Columbia 400 customer. “Show Me State” resident Paul Duckett, Lancair Columbia 400 customer number one, flew his aircraft home to Missouri for the first time, last week. What's he think, so far? “Lordy mercy, that’s a fine product.”

This is gratifying news to officials at The Lancair Company who accepted Mr. Duckett’s deposit for the Columbia 400 way back in 1998. “Paul has been an incredibly patient man waiting for his airplane,” said Lancair President Bing Lantis. “He showed tremendous faith in us when he made his deposit and we are more pleased than you can know that he is so happy with his Columbia 400. Nobody deserves it more than Paul does.”

Mr. Duckett accepted the keys to his Columbia 400, N48PD, at Sun ‘n Fun when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarded the aircraft its official type certification. However, Mr. Duckett’s schedule didn’t allow him to complete Lancair’s three-day flight training program until last week.

“The 400 is everything that I thought it would be and then some,” Mr. Duckett said in a phone interview following his flight.

Though he didn’t push his airplane too hard in his first long cross-country, he did realize some pretty exceptional performance along the way. Flying east at 17,500’ at a conservative 25” of manifold pressure and 2500 rpm (about 65% power), Mr. Duckett saw 202 KTAS (242 KTS ground speed) while burning 18 gph. Had he been flying at maximum cruise power (85% power), he would have seen 220 KTAS at the same altitude. He also reported that the aircraft’s Continental TSIO-550 ran cool throughout the trip and didn’t consume any oil.

ANN's Experiences Agree

ANN Editor-In-Chief Jim Campbell, took the the Columbia 400 to 23,000 feet a few weeks ago and got great numbers. In a note to the Lancair Pilot's Association, Campbell reported that, "The L400 is one badass little airplane... 23000' in 26 minutes (with two ATC altitude holds), intensely good harmonies at altitude, and an honest to oh-my-goodness 233kts... I've got screen pix of the PFD to prove it. The L400 is as the Angelina Jolie of airplanes... BAD, beautiful, wild and SO ready to boogy."

Lancair is now preparing to deliver additional Columbia 400s to a growing backlog of customers. Capital improvements at its Bend, Oregon plant are enabling a steady increase in production rate that the company expects to grow to approximately one aircraft per business day by next year.

FMI: www.lancair.com/certified