Epic Aircraft unveiled a revised instrument panel for its E1000 single-engine turboprop here at AirVenture. The automotive-style panel was designed in-house and features the Garmin G1000 glass-panel avionics system. The $2.75 million E1000 is intended to be the certified version of Epic’s LT kit aircraft. Epic filed for certification 18 months ago and CEO Doug King expects to complete the process in 2015 and have the first conforming aircraft flying at the end of 2013.

“We have a real advantage in that we are building an airplane that we are already building,” King said, noting that the company and its customers have completed 45 LT kit aircraft and have another five in work. “We have pretty good experience building the airplane and we are just modifying what we need to certify it other than the cockpit. The cockpit is really quite an upgrade. We know the performance and we have an experienced team working on certification. These guys have worked on projects including Adam [Aircraft] and the Columbia 400 [now the Cessna Corvalis]. We have more than 75 people working on the program and are fully funded. We have more than 300,000 square feet of plant space that we own outright. We don’t have any big debt, any big bank notes,” King said.

King said more than 35 E1000s already had been sold with fully refundable deposits of one percent of the sales price. King anticipates production of 24 to 30 aircraft annually once the aircraft is certified.