LoPresti Aviation will release a kit for its Fury.
The Fury was designed by Roy LoPresti and has been under development by the company for the past several years. “About two years ago, we got the hint that the economy wasn’t going to recover as quickly as we hoped,” said Rj Siegel, CEO of the company.
Meanwhile, the company was getting asked by a lot of homebuilders when it was going to make a Fury kit available. “A lot of RV guys knocked on our door, saying they wanted this to be their next kit,” he said.
Realizing it had a market for the kit, the company then realized it faced a problem: The Fury was designed to be a certified, mass-produced airplane. So how could a homebuilder complete one without all the tooling of a factory?
In true LoPresti style, the company is solving the problem in an innovative way. It went to several EAA chapters in the Vero Beach, Florida, area, where the company is based, and asked members to take the plane apart, then put it back together.
What has evolved is the Fury Squadron, a group of volunteers who meet every Saturday to work on the project. “These guys have built over 200 airplanes,” Siegel said. “They are all very creative and they are teaching us a better way to put together the kit.”
The Squadron is working on three prototype kits now, starting with the tail. In return, the volunteers will get a kit plane for a flying club, while the remaining kits — about eight more — will be offered for sale at $160,000, sans engine and avionics. LoPresti officials are shooting for a build time of 800 hours.
The kit planes will have several options for engines, including the IO-360, which powers the Fury that’s flying now; the IO-390; and the DeltaHawk turbocharged superdiesel engine, which is expected to be certified early next year.
The first kits are expected to ship late next year, with tail kits shipping first, Siegel said.
For more information: LoPrestiAviation.com
