Epic Aircraft

The company was founded in 2004 and located in Bend, Oregon due to public incentives which were offered, including state loans and grants of US$1.3M. In return for the grants and loans Epic promised to create 4,000 jobs.[4]

On 5 June 2009 Epic was sued by Blue Sky AvGroup, an Epic customer that had an aircraft under construction at the build center, alleging that Epic had failed to meet its contractual obligations.[4][5][6][7] The case went to court in 2013 and ended "without an award of costs, disbursements or attorney’s fees to any party".[8]

In late June 2009 the company dramatically scaled back its operations. The lay-offs primarily affected the aircraft build center, where customers worked on their own kits.[5] Epic was subsequently named as plaintiff in July 2009 in a lawsuit against engine maker Williams International, claiming that the engine maker defaulted on a contract to supply engines for the Epic Victory program.[5]

On 8 August 2009 the company's premises were seized by the building's landlord, Delaware-registered ER1 LLC.[4]

Several additional lawsuits were filed against Epic. These included "serious allegations about the conduct of company principals". In a sworn statement Chief Financial Officer David Clark said that Epic owed its customer builders an estimated US$15 million for parts and that the company had no money to pay those debts. Also in his sworn statement Clark alleged many financial irregularities and that company financial reports and practices "did not comply with generally accepted accounting practices". Other sworn statements by Clark and General Manager David Hice alleged that the company was a "chaotic financial environment over which CEO Rick Schrameck ruled exclusively". Hice further alleged many financial irregularities, including that the company missed its payroll in July 2004 and was only able to pay its staff using customer aircraft deposits from sales at AirVenture that same month. Hice also alleged that "On June 16th, 2009 I was terminated after Rick Schrameck physically attacked me."[9][10][11]

In September 2009 CEO Rick Schrameck was removed by the board of directors from any "managerial or supervisory capacity" with Epic parent company Aircraft Investor Resources, and the company voluntarily entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy, seeking to reorganize, find investors and continue kitplane production on a reduced scale.[12][13]

As a result of the bankruptcy filing customers with aircraft under construction at the company facility were permitted to remove their aircraft and parts.[12][13]

In an auction on 26 March 2010, the state-owned China Aviation Industry General Aircraft was the highest bidder with a US$4.3 million offer, beating out a bid by the LT Builders Group, a group of seven aircraft owners with incomplete aircraft in the plant. The hearing judge admonished the LT Builders Group for their bid describing it as "pathetic, useless, incompetent, unacceptable, garbage and fiction" but gave the group another chance to improve their position and reserved his decision on the final winner of the auction until 2 April 2010.[14][15][16][17] On 2 April 2010 the judge issued a judgement ordering China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Co. Ltd. to form a partnership with the LT Builders Group allowing the latter to run the Bend plant. The deal was completed by 11 April 2010, with the LT Builders Group agreeing to run the plant and market to North America, while the Chinese company would market to the rest of the world. The new company intended to reopen the Bend plant for builder-assist construction as well as pursue type certification of the Epic LT, a project which the original company owners had started, but not completed.[18][19]

Doug King became CEO, as an unpaid volunteer in 2010, following the bankruptcy. King had an incomplete LT in the plant and wanted to get it completed and decided to help get the company turned around and profitable, with an aim of certifying the LT design.[20]

At AirVenture on 31 July 2010 King announced that the company was ready to take orders for the Epic LT kit aircraft at that time and that 11 aircraft were in plant, being completed by their owners.[21]

In November 2011, a Russian, Vladislav Filev, the owner of S7 Airlines, visited the Epic plant. An enthusiastic private pilot, he was looking for his ideal personal aircraft. King took him for a demo flight in an LT and Filev decided to buy the company to pave the way for type certification for the LT.[20]

Filev's company, Engineering LLC became the owner of Epic in March 2012 for US$200M and announced its certification plans for the LT design. As part of this plan the company entered into negotiations with Cessna in December 2012 to buy the former Columbia Aircraft plant that Cessna owns in Bend. The company indicated that it expected to hire 40-80 new employees in 2013 as part of the certification effort and to expand kit production.[20][22][23][24]

Filev had his own, personal Epic LT delivered from Bend, Oregon to Moscow by King in August 2013, delivering it for Filev's 50th birthday.[20]

By 2014 the company was engaged in certification of the Epic E1000 and had purchased the former Cessna 204,000 sq ft (19,000 m²) facility in Bend, Oregon that had once produced the Columbia Aircraft line.[25]

By October 2014 the company reported that it had 60 orders for the E1000. At that time, the company forecast selling 50 aircraft per year.[26]

Schrameck was arrested for fraud in March 2015 in Los Angeles and held in federal custody awaiting trial. The detention order filed indicated that he should not be released due to a high risk of "flight to foreign country". On 27 March 2015, Schramek pleaded not guilty in US District Court to eight counts of wire fraud, four counts of mail fraud and six counts of money laundering regarding his dealings with Epic and its customers. The case alleges that Schramek deliberately defrauded customers of more than US$14 million.[8][27]

The company's E1000 single engine turboprop had its first flight on 19 December 2015.[28]

In April 2018 former CEO Schrameck pleaded "guilty" to one count of wire fraud and was scheduled to be sentenced on 11 June 2019, by US District Court Judge Ann Aiken. The Department of Justice, US Attorney's Office, District of Oregon stated, "Schrameck gave customers Airframe Purchase Agreements and Aircraft Completion Assistance Agreements that misrepresented how the customers’ funds were being used. Without his customers’ knowledge, Schrameck used the funds for other projects, to complete existing Epic LT aircraft, and to support his own lavish lifestyle."[29][30]

Development of the E1000 towards certification continued. The company had intended to outsource production of some composite material parts, but encountered issues with quality, meeting specification and timeliness or deliveries. As a result, they decided to produce all 587 composite parts for the E1000 in-house.[20]

The design encountered a set-back in the summer of 2018 when it was discovered that it was 10 to 20 kn (19 to 37 km/h) slower than its promised cruise speed. The problems was traced to ram air recovery in the engine intake design. This design had been dictated by certification requirements and the engine manufacturer's approval, over the non-certified LT intake design. Redesign and flight testing added six months to the process.[20]

On 31 March 2019 Filev's wife, Natalia Fileva, was killed in the crash of an Epic LT on approach to the Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport. Fileva was one of the wealthiest women in Russia and co-owner of S7 Airlines, with her husband. Also killed in the crash was her father and the pilot. Fileva was on her way to Frankfurt for medical treatment.[31]

The US Federal Aviation Administration awarded the E1000 its type certification in November 2019. The certification effort had been initially estimated by King to take three years and cost US$20M, but took seven years and about US$200M. At the time of certification the company had more than 80 orders for the E1000.[20][3]

After certification the company indicated that it intends to ramp up production to one aircraft every three weeks by the second half of 2020 and earn its production certificate, so each individual aircraft will not require FAA inspection prior to delivery. This will be followed by one aircraft every two weeks by the first half of 2021 and work towards one aircraft a week. The goal is to ultimately produce 50 aircraft per year.[20]

The first two E1000s were delivered to customers at the end of May 2020.[32]

In July 2020 the E1000 was named as the winner of Flying magazine's 2020 Innovation Award. Flying's Editor-in-Chief Julie Boatman, noted the aircraft's deliveries starting during the COVID-19 pandemic, "we’re really pleased to be in a position to award the 2020 Innovation Award to Epic Aircraft for the phenomenal job that you’ve done, not just bringing the aircraft to certification over a couple of decades, but also in the midst of everything that we’ve been going through over the last 4 months now, to continue pushing forward, to get those first deliveries out the door, and into the hands of some extremely happy pilots".[33]