Introduction The company was founded by Lance Neibauer in 1981 as a producer of
composite homebuilt aircraft kits. Neibauer had been introduced to aviation by his uncle Ray Betzoldt, who had collaborated with Al Meyers to build the
Meyers 200. Whenever he visited his aunt and uncle, he always took a ride in the Meyers. Hooked, he built a Rand KR-2, a wooden and composite retractable taildragger, and later helped the Rand-Robinson company refine the plans for easier building by customers. Neibauer began working an all-new design after asking every builder he could find what features they were seeking in a homebuilt design. Looking to improve performance with the latest possible features, he selected the new
NASA NLF 0215-F airfoil designed by Dan Somers at Langley. The NLF, short for "Natural Laminar Flow", is a series of designs that replaced the older GAW series with more forgiving
laminar flow characteristics. By 1983 the aircraft's basic parameters were fixed, and Neibauer rented a shop in
Santa Paula, California and started work on the design. Already stretching the limits of their existing facilities, the company started looking for a new factory and after examining 200 potential sites they moved to
Roberts Field in
Redmond, Oregon in 1992. The company became Lancair International with the move. As of August 1998, according to
Flight International, Lancair had sold 1,400 kits, 300 of them the Lancair IV model. On 3 April 1993 he spun off a new company, Pacific Aviation Composites USA, in nearby
Bend, Oregon. The new Lancair LC-40 was based on the fixed-gear
Lancair ES. The first prototype flew in July 1996, followed by the certification prototype in early 1997. After a lengthy
certification process, the design emerged as the
Columbia 300 in 1998, followed by the
turbocharged Columbia 400 in 2000. The Lancair Company was formed as a separate entity on 7 April 2000, and Pacific Aviation Composites was merged into The Lancair Company on 4 May 2000. Cessna introduced their models as the
Cessna 350 and
Cessna 400.
Selling off older designs In July 2016 Lancair announced it would be selling the older Lancair lines of aircraft to concentrate on the
Lancair Evolution instead. In February 2017 the 200, 360, IV, IVP, IVPT, ES, ESP, and Legacy designs were sold to Mark and Conrad Huffstutler, who now operate the company as Lancair International, LLC, in
Uvalde, Texas. They purchased all the assets, intellectual property and will provide parts and other support for all the older Lancair models. They plan to resume production of some of the older models and will develop new models as well. With the sale announced Lancair changed its name to
Evolution Aircraft. == Aircraft ==