Epic Aircraft’s Epic World Odyssey

July 14, 2016 - Six Epic LT homebuilts and a handful of Epic customers departed on the Epic Odyssey, an around-the-world adventure, on July 7 after kicking off their trip at the world’s center of general aviation in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

The tour and its 26 participants will visit 20 cities around the world in 20 days, with the experience culminating where it all started—in more ways than one—at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2016.

“It’s such a privilege and perfect opportunity to do something like this that’s pretty remarkable for experimental aircraft to do,” Epic’s marketing manager Gale Evans said.

Evans said CEO Doug King and Epic customers were originally tossing around the idea of a European tour, but because Epic’s parent company is located in Russia, they realized the opportunity to expand the trip to an around-the-world tour.

Epic aircraft owners are looking forward to the trip not just a chance to see the beauty of the world from above, but as a learning experience. Six professional pilots with international flying experience are flying with the Epic group to provide expertise and share their knowledge.

Alan and Wendy Barron said they are particularly excited to visit the coast of Italy, to fly their approach along the shore and also for Alan to challenge himself as a pilot.

“I’ve never had my plane out of the country, so I think it’s going to be fun getting comfortable with that,” Alan said. “I have a business down in Panama and Costa Rica so I think it might bring me to bring myself to fly down there in my airplane.”

It’s a busy year for Epic Aircraft, which has discontinued its line of experimental aircraft in order to introduce its first type certified airplane, the E1000.

“It’s a chance to do this around the world tour and validate the integrity of the [Epic] design and hopefully to be a great launch point to certify the E1000 version in the upcoming six months,” Evans said.

King said the new E1000 will be the fastest single-engine turboprop, in addition to carrying the legacy and many of the same qualities as the Epic LT.

“This is sort of the last hurrah for our kit planes,” King said. “It’s really been a great airplane. The E1000 will come online at the end of this year, beginning of next year, and it’ll have the same great qualities. You’ll still be able to fill the seats and put bags in, fill it up with gas. And then it’ll be a unique airplane for certified airplanes.”

Visit Epic’s blog to follow their around-the-world experience.