Evolution Aircraft
American aircraft manufacturer
The Evolution Aircraft Company is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Redmond, Oregon. The company specializes in the design and manufacture of light aircraft in the form of kits for amateur construction.
Bob Wolstenholme is the president and CEO of Evolution Aircraft.
History
In July 2016, Lancair announced it would sell off the older Lancair lines of aircraft to concentrate on the Lancair Evolution instead. Kevin Eldredge, who was Lancair's Director of Business Development, indicated that at one time Lancair's products had been unique in the market, but only the Evolution design now occupied that customer niche and thus it made sense to concentrate on that aircraft type. He stated, "there is nothing in the market that can compete with the Evolution" and "unless something drastically changes with the market, after the first of the year, we will be ramping up to one every two weeks." The company had been making 10% of its revenue from supporting the older, out of production designs with parts.
Due to the complexity of the Evolution aircraft design, it is not a traditional kit aircraft, that is normally built in a garage. Instead, the kit was designed to be built in professional facilities that assist the amateur builder, including the factory facility and commercial aircraft shops. This focus on using available space at the factory for builder assistance, plus lower sales of the older models, meant there was a good business case for selling off the older designs and freeing space for Evolution completions.
In February 2017, the assets, including the intellectual property for the older designs, were sold to Mark and Conrad Huffstutler, who moved the production of those models to Uvalde, Texas, and now operate the company as Lancair International, LLC. With the sale of the older aircraft lines, Lancair changed its name to Evolution Aircraft and remained in its existing Redmond facility.
“Evolution Aircraft” enters the record as american aircraft manufacturer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Evolution, Aircraft and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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