…Lancair Certified’s 400 No Slouch

For those who want speed but would prefer others to sniff the resin fumes, Lancair Certified gained certification for its turbocharged Columbia 400 at Sun ‘n Fun and customer deliveries began a short time later. The first to fly away was Paul Duckett, a Missouri resident who put his deposit down in 1998. “Paul has been an incredibly patient man waiting for his airplane,” said Lancair President Bing Lantis. Now, the 400 won’t likely challenge the NXT in any race but it’s no slouch, either. A Lancair 400 “pilot report” has been posted to the Lancair Owners and Pilots Association Web site, here. For Duckett’s part, he decided (at 202 KTAS) not to push his new baby too hard on the trip home. He settled on 17,500 feet, a conservative 25 inches of manifold pressure and 2500 rpm, which translates to economy cruise (65 percent). That still got him 202 KTAS and a ground speed of 242 knots. If he’d slapped the ponies a little harder to 85 percent, Lancair figures he would have gotten home a fair bit sooner by increasing his speed to 220 KTAS, which would have nudged 300 mph in groundspeed. Lancair insists that new owners take a three-day training session before they take the high-performance plane away.