Piston Single A Worthy Successor To The Bush Hawk-XP

Found Aircraft's Drew Hamblin, Director of Marketing and Sales, announced the granting of a type certification amendment (TC) by Transport Canada for the FBA-2C3 Expedition E350 aircraft at AirVenture Tuesday. The TC includes both day and night VFR and IFR operations for both the E350 tricycle geared airplane as well as the E350 with Aerocet 3400 and 3500L floats installed. Type certification for the E350XC conventional geared aircraft is expected by years end.

Introduced last year at AirVenture 2007, the Expedition E350 is a successor design to the Found Aircraft Bush Hawk-XP, last delivered in August 2007 and is the culmination of over two years of development work. "The E350 was designed to be a hybrid combination of cross-country and STOL aircraft," said Hamblin. The versatile design is primarily aimed at commercial and Government operators, including the United States Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service.

The E350's combination of high full fuel payload of 962 pounds with seating for up to five, long range, high cruising speed, low STOL landing speeds plus rugged landing gear for landing on unprepared runways puts the airplane in at the top of it's class. With four doors, each opening 180 degrees, rear doors able to accommodate 55 gallon drums vertically or horizontally and quickly removable with quick release pins and a 52 inch wide cabin, the E350 is a highly unique and versatile aircraft. The E350's cabin is 50 inches high and almost 12 feet long.

The E350's 39-foot cantilever wing with vortex generators allows the aircraft to cruise at 156KTAS at 8,000 feet, take off over a 50 foot obstacle in 1,286 feet and land over the same 50 foot obstacle in 1,378 feet -- all at gross weight. Sea level ROC is 1,091 FPM. The E350 utilizes a Lycoming IO-580 315HP piston engine swinging a Hartzell 82 inch propeller. This engine is the most powerful six-cylinder engine Lycoming produces and is based upon the highly successful IO-540 series.

The aircraft's fuel capacity is 98 gallons usable and range is 750NM with maximum endurance of 6.5 hours. At gross weight of 3,800 pounds, the aircraft stalls at 54KCAS. Although each aircraft is hand built to order, basic empty weight is around 2,250 pounds.

The fuselage structure is steel tube surrounded by carbon fiber and aluminum skins. The standard avionics consists of six-pack flight instruments and Garmin GNS-530W, GTX-327 transponder and GMA-340 audio panel. Upgrades include the Garmin G600 or Chelton FlightLogic Synthetic Vision EFIS (US and International outside of Canada).

This aircraft is one of only a few offering the forward vision infrared camera (EVS) system for low or no light conditions.

Found Aircraft, of Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada provides a three year 1,000 hour warranty on the Evolution E350. Standard equipment pricing is $485,000.

FMI: www.expeditionaircraft.com