The history of late-in-the-year flights by companies looking to make good on promises to fly before year-end is long, and 2015's success story goes to Epic Aircraft, which flew its E1000 on December 19th, 2015, beating its self-imposed deadline by more than a week. While Epic is simply trying to get its slick turboprop through the certification in a timely manner so it can start delivering airplanes to customers, the history of late-year first flights is fascinating. Perhaps the greatest story on the subject is that Learjet's Lear Fan flew for the first time with a wink and nod from British regulators. on December 32nd of 1981, in order to make a funding deadline. No such slight of hand was necessary for the folks at Epic.
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