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Epic
LT Demo Flight by Jack Paul Showers
It’s larger than the TBM 850 and not quite as large as the PC-12. Faster than either. And, it’s not certified. Not yet, at least. You either have to wait, or buy it as a kitbuilt airplane that you assemble at an Epic supervised assembly site.
My longtime friend, Bill Hammack, a guy who is knee-deep in the world of aviation, got a demo flight set up in an Epic LT single engine turboprop at New Orleans Lakefront airport. We waited in the makeshift Millionair FBO in the midst of destroyed buildings all around the airport…. Remnants of Hurricane Katrina, where I lost a Mooney. Milling around in the temporary lobby was Bill Cosby, whose G-IV, "Camille", was waiting outside. He was in town, it turned out, to speak to an inner city school's kids about doing right and turning out right. He's a good guy.
I occasionally wandered outside and looked to see if I could spot the Epic arriving. On the 5th or 10th trip, there it was, taxiing up the taxiway parallel to 36L.
As I watched it taxi in, I was struck first by how large it is…. Sort of like a, well, PC12. And, it’s better looking than in pictures. Something about the lines look better in the flesh than they translate to paper. Sorry, but it’s not photogenic. But it is good looking.
I didn’t get to taxi it, so I don’t know, but the demo pilot, Mike, said it had a “very direct” taxi, whatever that means. I’m sure he was talking about the steering, and I’m guessing that he meant it is sensitive.
We were departing New Orleans Lakefront, and there was a Falcon something or another turning final, so we didn’t have time to mess around. Mike pulled it out onto the runway, and started the roll.
The takeoff happened pretty quickly. I was right seat. Mike gave it takeoff power. I was still trying to get over how smooth the entire engine/prop/airframe felt when the darned thing started to fly. It has lots of power, using the same PT6 that is in the Pilatus PC-12, according to the Epic folks. As I said, the turbine is very smooth with very little vibration. Nice.
On climb-out, the demo pilot had me hold the nose up to maintain a 160-knot IAS climb, which did two things: It produced a 4000 foot per minute climb, and it totally obliterated the forward view due to the high deck angle.... About 7 degrees nose up. I’m not used to that and it is uncomfortable. The climb rate was excellent considering the five grown men onboard. The airplane had just been flown from Orlando to New Orleans, so there was not full fuel, but none of the guys inside were lightweights. That big PT6 gets the job done. Oh, and it really wanted a lot of right foot on the rudder in the climb. A lot.
The demo pilot told us that he usually maintains about a 2000fpm climb at 210KIAS. But we did not do that.
When it is leveled out, the visibility is restricted above by a roof-line that projects well in front of you. Visibility to the sides is fine…. Visibility above and below the horizon in front of the airplane is marginal to lousy. I’m reminded of the designs of airplanes in the 50’s that had similar windshields….. Commanches particularly had this issue, but this was more dramatic.
Now, trying to fly the airplane…
The controls are so stiff in roll axis that I thought the autopilot was on and I was having to overcome it. When I mentioned that to Mike, he responded by saying, “Well, it just depends on what you’re used to.” I’m not so sure about that. This is stiffer by a long shot than a Mooney, which is stiff. Worse than a Cessna 210 or anything I’ve ever flown. Maybe it was just an aberration in this one airplane. In total contrast, the pitch mode was somewhat sensitive. Both Bill and I jerked it around a pretty good bit in pitch mode trying to maintain altitude. Of course, we were beginners in this airplane.
The only glass panel stuff I’ve ever used is the Avidyne system in Bill’s Columbia 400, and the Chelton displays in the panel of this airplane seemed to have quite a few little features that were superior to the Avidyne (which, in fairness, is several years old now), including better traffic depiction, highway-in-the-sky, a predictive route line that shows where your airplane will track when you start a turn, or change it, and lots of other small treats. I was not in the airplane for long enough to give it a thorough going-over, so I’m sure that this system is much more sophisticated than even what I saw. And, let me be quick to say that we were told repeatedly that the Chelton system in this airplane was not the big one that would be in the final airplane, but it still was the most impressive thing about the airplane, I thought. (I might mention that the entire airplane is purely a certification model, so it does not have all the details finished as would one of the true demo models…. We actually missed one of those finished models by about 30 minutes, we later learned, and regretted it because that airplane was totally “tricked out” and the subject of no small amount of bragging by the Epic folks).
There’s only an air-stair door, and the pilots have to use that, so you do the standard foot-first slide to get to the “front office” as they call it.
At the end of Bill’s leg of the flight, he greased it on. The guy's got a good touch. Good ending to a nice afternoon in a different airplane. We went back inside the Millionair lobby and talked with Rick and Mike. They filled us in on some of the details. Insurance is available, they say, for something on the order of $60,000 a year if I remember correctly.
This thing leaves me with the impression that it was conceived with a speed-at-any-cost mindset. Hang a huge engine on a light, slick airframe and watch 'er go! And, Rick, the owner of the company has long been involved in automobile and airplane racing, so some of that stuff had to rub off on this new design. The approach I think they took to this airplane seemed apparent to me the moment I stepped up the stairs.... the passenger area is OK, but not by any means is it sumptuous. Sort of Spartan. I didn't see the other, fully finished airplane, but this one seems to me to have been conceived by a pilot for pilots.
Overall, I’m not impressed. It is extremely fast, it has a very long stage profile (which Bill likes since he needs that to get to his other home in the Caribbean), but there is something that is missing, here, to me. Nothing I can put my finger on, but it just didn’t seem like something that I’d want to own. I like the composites, love the Columbia 400, and have a pretty open mind, here, I think. But, I wasn’t blown away. Now in fairness, I must say that my friend, Bill, liked it very much. And, Bill has no small amount of experience with advanced types…. In fact, he’s the owner of the Columbia 400 that I like so much and has had a couple of King Air’s and a host of other airplanes. So, maybe I’m off base. And, granted, this opinion is based on maybe 45 minutes in the airplane. But, that’s my very subjective take on it.
Unfortunately, there were questions I didn't ask. Who actually did the design work? What kind of feedback is coming from the FAA? Who is your market? And, I can't help but wonder what kind of parts support will be possible if the company fails. This is the business of aviation, after all. On the other hand, I'm mindful of the fact that the sucess of this design will put tremendous heat on competing manufacturers to build very fast, pressurized, long-legged people carriers, too, further improving the market for us consumers. So, I wish them the very, very best, though I won't be joining up, at least for now.
Anyway, the jury is still out. The kit costs 1.2 million, and for another $150,000 in fees to folks who will help put it together, it’s an airplane.
See www.epicaircraft.com.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Jack Paul Showers