A federal court action has Bend, Ore.-based Epic Air moving one step closer to bankruptcy, now that a separate organization known as a receiver has been named to take charge of Epic’s assets. Epic quietly laid off all of its workers in two waves earlier this year, shutting its doors this month when it fell behind on lease payments for its building, the Bend Bulletin reported. Epic’s owners have not spoken publicly since earlier this summer, after one buyer of an Epic LT sued after his plane was not completed on time. At the time, the company’s management insisted that it had enough cash on hand to keep operating. But Epic has gotten no new orders in the last year, former employees said. Owners of the Epic LT single engine turboprop, an experimental aircraft, say the design is viable and they want to find a way to get the company up on its feet again. There are about 35 registered Epic LTs in operation, according to the FAA’s aircraft registry database.

Citing a weak business jet market where financing is hard to get and buyers are leery, Hawker Beechcraft last week laid off 300 more employees and has stopped matching 401(k) retirement contributions for the next year. The latest round of layoffs brings to 3,100 the number of positions Hawker Beechcraft has cut since November, a 32-percent reduction, the Wichita Eagle reported. Hawker is also shuffling some of its management, with three vice presidents resigning last week. About half of the most recent layoffs affect union production line employees, while the rest are spread throughout the rest of the company.

It has been a rough year for Cessna, as the company cut its workforce in half, closed one production facility completely and axed its most ambitious business jet program to date. So in hindsight, it seemed premature in May — in between rounds of layoffs — when CEO Jack Pelton said the company was still on relatively firm footing, and that it was positioned to deliver more planes than any other general aviation manufacturer. Take two: Pelton last week said the company thinks it has reached the bottom, with fewer order cancellations and more business jet orders coming in, the Wichita Eagle reported. Pelton said deliveries will dip next year, and then start picking up after that. He and other Cessna officials dispelled rumors that have circulated for several months that Cessna’s parent company, Textron, was trying to sell of Cessna. Textron is committed to the Cessna brand and has no plans to unload it, officials said. Pelton acknowledged that the current recession was hitting harder than previous dips, something he called “startling.”

Epic Aircraft has laid off the majority of its workers in the last year and is now operating with a skeleton staff as it struggles with cash flow problems and tries to fend off a lawsuit that could put the company in the hands of a court-appointed receiver, documents in a federal lawsuit say. Such a move, typically used when companies go bankrupt, would strip Epic of control of its own finances; the receiver would sort out Epic’s assets and try to pay off the company’s debts. That would be “catastrophic” to Epic’s future, CEO Rick Schrameck said in court documents. You can view some of the court documents here. A buyer in Florida who sued Epic last month for reneging on its contract to build an Epic LT turboprop and supply an engine for it said in recent court filing that Epic laid of 67 workers in June, leaving the company with 45 employees. Last week, company officials acknowledged that just 15 workers remain, but said Epic has a plan to bring furloughed employees back to work. At a hearing last week, a federal judge ordered Epic to provide detailed information on the number of orders it received each month for the past year, as well as its monthly staffing levels in 2009. The next court date is set for Aug. 25.

Three months after suspending development on a wide-body business jet that would have had a global range, Cessna last week said it is terminating the program altogether. Cessna planned to invest nearly $800 million in the Columbus jet, which would have involved building a $200 million production plant in Wichita, Kan., as well as hiring 1,000 new employees, the Wichita Eagle reported. The end of the program before construction had even started on a new factory is a blow to the city, which was counting on hundreds of construction jobs and as many as 3,000 new jobs at Cessna’s suppliers. Cessna gave few reasons for why it canceled the Columbus program, beyond broad statements about how the business jet market has deteriorated in the last year amid the deep global recession. In a financial filing, the company said it was taking a $43 million loss on the development of the jet so far. While the company said it might build a wide-body business jet in the future, that program would not be the same as the Columbus. The $27 million jet would have had a 4,000 mile range and would have seated up to 10 passengers, putting it in a league with top-of-the-line business jets from Gulfstream and Bombardier. Cessna said it plans to return $10 million in incentives to Wichita and the county by the end of the month. In a scramble last year to secure the Columbus program, local and state governments in Kansas pledged tens of millions of dollars in incentives for Cessna.

The most recent round of layoffs at Cessna, announced last week, means that by August, the company will have just half the workforce that it did in November. The additional 1,300 job cuts will affect all divisions of the general aviation manufacturer, the Associated Press reported. Though CEO Jack Pelton said last month that he thought his company was rounding the bend, officials last week said customers are continuing to cancel orders and even if the economy has reached bottom, it will be some time before aircraft production picks up again. Last week’s announcement of more layoffs brings to 8,200 the number of the people cut from Cessna’s payroll since November. In April, Cessna laid off 2,300 people, suspended development of the Columbus large business jet and shuttered its facility in Bend, Ore.

Cessna’s parent company, Textron, has secured a 10-year, $500 million loan to help it finance business jets for overseas buyers. The loan comes from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, a federal agency, which gives companies the loans so that buyers can obtain financing more easily, rather then going through another bank, the Wichita Business Journal reported. Cessna lost 92 orders in the first three months of this year and has revised downward its production estimates for the rest of 2009 as a result. Company officials hope that with the cash infusion, they’ll be able to help close deals for international buyers more easily, since many prospective aircraft buyers are having difficulty getting loans and financing. Company officials say with the money and an easier path to closing high-value sales, they may be able to save some jobs. Cessna has cut its workforce by about 20 percent since last fall.

While vacation bookings to Cape Cod are off 30 percent for this summer compared to last year, executives at the regional carrier Cape Air aren’t too worried about the drop. The airline, which operates a fleet of twin-engine Cessna 402s, is cutting flights on some of its vacation routes and using the planes to expand service to Baltimore, White Plains and New Hampshire, the Provincetown Banner reported. Cape Air is considering enlarging its Caribbean and Florida service, and may even expand to Cuba if travel restrictions there are lifted. Cape Air hasn’t laid off any of its 700 employees in the current downturn. A bigger concern is what to do with its aging fleet of 402s, which company executives expect have 10 to 15 more years of life in them. With the 402 out of production, Cape Air has been buying up used ones to scrap for parts. The airline hasn’t settled on a replacement aircraft for its fleet, but it wants to stick with a smaller plane like the 402, which seats nine passengers.

The liquidation of Adam Aircraft and Eclipse Aviation has done little to dissuade the founders of a new very light jet manufacturer from looking to raise $100 million to begin manufacturing their $2 million jet. Stratos Aircraft, based on Bend, Ore., now has a full-size cabin mockup that it plans to unveil at AirVenture later this summer, The Bulletin reported. The carbon-fiber plane would cruise at 400 knots with a range of 1,500 nautical miles, its designers expect. The single-engine VLJ will be able to hold four people at most. While Stratos is now taking refundable $50,000 deposits, no one has signed up to buy the jet yet. Lacking funding right now to finish designing the aircraft and begin building prototypes, Stratos has not released a timeline for testing and aircraft deliveries.

The sale of Piper Aircraft two weeks ago from one investment firm to another netted the first a profit of $31 million on the sale, though the total purchase price has not been released. American Capital sold its 100-percent stake in Piper to Imprimis, a firm based in Southeast Asia. American Capital first bought a partial ownership stake in Piper for $20 million in 1998, then bought its way to complete ownership five years later for an additional $34 million, according to a news release from American Capital. Though both investment companies heralded the sale as a sign of Piper’s strength and its ability to grow in the future, the company’s current condition became more clear with recently released sales figures. Piper sold just 22 planes in the first three months of this year, half the number sold in the same period in 2008, the Vero Beach Press Journal reported. Of those sales, a dozen were for the $820,000 Matrix and six were for the $2 million Meridian turboprop. Piper went through several rounds of layoffs earlier this year as it slowed down its production lines.