Eclipse Aviation News
The company announced Wednesday that it has started to fill the first of 2,400 orders for its Eclipse 500 jet, more than five years after the fledgling company's 20 employees moved their operations to New Mexico.
"It's the beginning of a whole new era in aviation," Eclipse President and CEO Vern Raburn said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Raburn said he envisions small businesses using the $1.5 million twin-engine, six-seat aircraft to fly when they used to drive and to access smaller airports away from the hubs commercial airlines frequent.
Business owner and pilot David Crowe, who placed his order in May 2000, will receive his Eclipse 500 this summer. The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to certify the aircraft in late June.
"We have already been doing FAA testing, so we're pretty confident that any changes will be minor," Eclipse spokesman Andrew Broom said, adding that the test fleet has completed 1,300 flight hours.
And as it ramps up production to 130 jet planes this year, Eclipse will nearly double its work force to 1,000 employees by the end of the year, Raburn said.
The FAA has estimated 100 "very small jets" -- also called VSJs, ultra light jets or microjets -- will be produced by the end of the year and in a decade there will be nearly 5,000 such jets in the skies, an estimate the FAA says is "relatively conservative."
Broom agreed. By 2008, the company plans to be producing 1,000 aircraft annually, he said.
"It depends on what the market bears. We feel very comfortable that we can sustain that," he said.
Aviation consultant Michael Boyd of Evergreen, Colo.-based Boyd Group predicted a bright future for Eclipse, if its jet plane is produced as advertised.
Eclipse right now is the front-runner in the new "very small jet" industry, which Boyd predicts could grow to 15,000 aircraft globally over the next two decades.
"There's going to be a stampede to buy these things," he said. "Eclipse will probably have a wonderful time of trying to meet demand."
But, he added, future U.S. skies will not be filled with air taxis, as some have predicted. Future users likely will be businesses replacing older and more expensive aircraft and small businesses that have been unable to purchase jets until now. With the cheaper price tag, small businesses will be able to buy a share of flying hours -- called fractional ownership -- in such jets, he said.
But judging from Eclipse's customers, air taxis and fractional ownership will become more popular. Half of Eclipse's customers come from companies that will provide such services, while a third of the customers are individual owners and the rest are from training organizations or freight operators, Raburn said.
In addition to Eclipse, Englewood, Colo.-based Adam Aircraft and Cessna hope to have similar jets FAA-certified by the end of the year.
Cessna has 200 to 300 orders for its Citation Mustang jet, which is sold out through mid-2009, spokesman Doug Oliver said.
And Adam Aircraft has 300 orders for its A700 AdamJet, which it expects to have certified by the end of the year. Spokeswoman Shelly Simi said the company hopes to eventually command 25 percent of the market share in the "very small jet" industry.