Luscombe Four-Seater Revived (Again)

The name may have changed but the airplane remains the same as Quartz Mountain Aerospace (formerly Luscombe Aircraft Corp.) rolled out the Model 11E for the TV cameras at Wiley Post Airport in Oklahoma City earlier this week. The revival version of the 11E, which has a modern engine, avionics and other gear, has been around for years and is fully certified but there’s never been enough financial backing to get into full production. Quartz Mountain is hoping that its partnership with the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education will give it part of the boost needed to get into production. The state-funded agency is essentially training a labor force for the aircraft company in a facility next to the Quartz Mountain factory in Altus, Okla. The first graduating class is already working there. But it takes more than government-sponsored training to get an airplane into production. Quartz Mountain CEO John Daniel says he’s still looking for cash to get production started. “Our ability to start manufacturing and to amass the financial resources we need to ramp up production over the next few years has and will continue to require substantial financial resources,” he told reporters. Quartz Mountain hopes to build 68 airplanes in its first year of production, starting in September, and eventually hit 360 a year. The airplane is a roomy four-place with a 185-hp fuel-injected Continental IO-360 and 120-knot cruise speed. It’s priced at about $200,000. The 11E is derived from the 11A, which was built by the original Luscombe company in the late 1940s.