A linear synchronous motor prototype consisting of an excitation system made of high-Tc superconducting (HTS) coated conductor wire coils with silicon steel core and a conventional cooper coil wound armature stator has been constructed and tested. The performance of the prototype system operated at different air gaps reflecting real life operating conditions was focused on. The dependence of the reduction of the thrust and normal forces with respect to the increasing of the air gap was presented. Thrust decays rapidly with increasing air gap at low magnetic gap while having a weak decay at higher magnetic gap. The highest recorded peak thrust is 117 N/m for a magnetic gap of 15 mm, and this is achieved with less than 16 m of HTS coated conductor. This work has helped to better design superconducting linear synchronous motors.