Champion Lancer

The Champion 402 Lancer was a small American twin-engine trainer built by Champion Aircraft, designed to give flight schools the cheapest possible way to teach students for a multi-engine rating. It was a high-wing monoplane derived from the tricycle-gear Champion 7FC Tri-Traveler, with a metal tube airframe, fiberglass covering and fixed landing gear, and its two wing-mounted Continental O-200-A engines drove fixed-pitch propellers that could not be feathered. The prototype first flew in 1961, the type was certificated by the Federal Aviation Administration in March 1963, and production lasted only that one year, with somewhere between 25 and 36 aircraft built. The two crew sat in tandem, the front pilot using a control yoke and the rear pilot a stick. Pilots criticized its poor single-engine performance, restricted visibility and noise, and a few survive on the US registry today. American Champion now holds its type certificate.