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Epic turboprop

Peter wrote:

very labour-intensive

It takes 4000 man hours to build a tbm.
The tooling and materials, the entire process, is simply amazing. Some serious build quality!

always learning
LO__, Austria

One more thing is that TBM price is quoted as $4,3M. This is for a fully loaded 940. If you take a naked 910 and remove pilot door, which the Epic doesn’t have, price becomes $3,75M. That’s closer to the Epic.

LPFR, Poland

Took a few pictures of some Epic’s when at Osh in 2016. They also had a mock up of the interior of how the certified version would be. We could wander around in it, but didn’t take any pictures. It was nice, but epic? Way above my “pay grade”, so didn’t really pay that much attention to it other than, hmm nice plane.




The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

In 2016 that was the “homebuilt” Epic and by all accounts it was really bare inside, with Vauxhall Viva carpets and such. The homebuilt market is happy with minimalist interiors. As with most kit vendors – that industry seems to lurch from crisis to crisis anyway, largely because they don’t have the ripoff-priced certified-paperwork spare parts business to prop it up when kit sales are low – the factory was having all kinds of problems, financial and others, and some buyers of the “kit” resorted to litigation to get parts they paid for but weren’t getting, like, ahem, the PT6

Now that they are certified and asking for a few $M they need to go for “presentation”. And I can’t believe this is hard. Actually the pics on their website look great but I am not the judge. I have 1.5hrs in a TBM850 from 2010 and was hangared for 10+ years in a TBM service/dealer hangar so saw plenty of interiors and also saw the close-up build quality.

One problem for the TBM-Epic comparison may be that Socata can lay on twice the corporate hospitality of anybody else (I’ve seen some of it close-up at Tarbes). But the Epic seems to outperform the TBM by such a huge margin that anybody doing their homework is not going to be swayed.

How does the dry-tanks range compare? The 1650nm quoted is roughly Shoreham to Alexandria, but that will be with NBAA reserves.

I also wonder if they will appoint dealers. That is a “1950s Mercedes / Chevvy / etc” model which is out of place in the modern world, because planes can, ahem, fly, spare parts can travel from the US by DHL/etc in 24hrs (48hrs at worst) and the dealer merely inflates the price by at least 15% (15% was the Air Touring margin on a TBM) for doing nothing useful. Often the dealer has a “difficult personality” in there (in typical aviation tradition it is not hard to find a person who the customers cannot trust as far as you can throw them) and this damages the brand for years.

They do need to sort out service facilities, however, and that may be hard if the service shop is not going to make the easy 15% selling planes.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

GaryandAlice wrote:

FAA certified for certain. I don’t know about EASA.

Not yet.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Peter wrote:

In 2016 that was the “homebuilt” Epic and by all accounts it was really bare inside

I said they had a mock up interior showing how the certified version would be. It was a “fuselage” we could walk into and have a glimpse of what may come one day. Now it’s here by the looks of it.

Peter wrote:

As with most kit vendors – that industry seems to lurch from crisis to crisis

Well, kit vendors, as well as UL in Europe are the only aviation business alive today making any substantial numbers of aircraft. Certified has to go to SET as minimum, because the more expensive you make it, the more you will attract people with money. A “kit” Epic makes no sense, because for the same manufacturing cost you can sell it for 3-4 times as much certified. When the price is measured in M’s instead of k’s that is rather obvious. Another thing is the commercial market. You cannot use a homebuilt commercially, thus you artificially restrict your market to a small fraction. Smaller SEPs makes perfectly sense as homebuilts and ULs, because the private market is more than 90% of the SEP market in any case (not counting planes for flight schools)

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

I actually think there is a small market for a homebuilt twin turboprop or jet. Like a “Carbon Commander” or a “Carbon Avanti” or something. I’d seriously consider it if someone would offer it. I’d get a lighter, faster carbon twin where I can stick whatever avionics I want in there and go nonstop 2500nm. Sounds great.

I actually thought the other day of how neat it would be to have an exact carbon (excuse the pun) copy of my Commander – but in carbon. Exact same dimensions, wings etc, but with a lot more fuel capacity and a higher cabin diff. Would be a killer ride.

Last Edited by AdamFrisch at 18 Nov 22:53

EPIC is finally delivering the certified E1000 – here.

Not often one heard of a startup getting something certified and then delivering some.

The performance claimed is amazing

Equipped with Garmin G1000 NXi avionics and a 1,200-hp Pratt & Whitney PT6A-67A engine, the six-seat airplane has a cruise speed of 333 ktas and can climb at 4,000 feet per minute. Its range is 1,560 nm, which Epic said will allow it to fly coast-to-coast with one fuel stop.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

333 KTAS at which altitude and temperature would be an important detail.

Last Edited by Rwy20 at 02 Jun 20:27

No wonder it is so fast. Its got a 1200 hp turbine up front for a 6 seat aircraft. The same as a PC 12 which is MUCH larger.

Upper Harford private strip UK, near EGBJ, United Kingdom
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