Eclipse Aviation News

MORE than 60 years after jets took to the air, the dream of using them for personal transport has come closer to reality with a new type of small aircraft that will begin filling the skies this year.

The era of the relatively affordable very light jet was proclaimed by the US Federal Aviation Administration this week when it forecast that thousands of the winged limousines would be taking up airspace within a few years. Policing the traffic could be a headache, the administration said.

Five firms are behind the first wave of the high-tech aircraft, which seat four to eight passengers. With engines of a type developed for military cruise missiles and drones, the jets cruise at about 400mph (645kmph) — 100mph less than an airliner, but double the speed of propellor-driven craft. They cost upward of 800,000 pounds, far below the millions of current light jets. The smallest piston-engined propellor aircraft set buyers back more than 100,000 pounds.

The microjets, which will reach US customers in the second half of the year, are being bought by businesses, wealthy amateur pilots and US air taxi firms that aim to offer on-call flights at the price of an airline seat. “We will steal traffic from cars, lots and lots,” predicted Donald Burr, the chief of Pogo Jet, one of the new on-demand US air taxi services that have sprung up.

In Europe the microjets have been ordered mainly by charter companies seeking to offer services for executives in businesses that cannot now pay for jet hire. “This is a significant development because it makes individual jet travel more affordable,” said Marc Cornelius, of London Executive Aviation (LEA), which has led the European field by ordering a fleet of four-passenger Cessna Mustangs. LEA also expects that its very light jets, which will arrive for 2008, will expand the leisure market, with customers using them to head for the ski slopes and beaches on the Continent. Cessna boasts that the Mustang cockpit resembles that of a car, complete with cup-holders.

After years of false dawns and failed start-ups, the very light jet is arriving now because the economics are thought to be right. With airline travel saturated and slowed by post-9/11 security, business and private charter is booming in the US and Europe. Composite materials, light engines and “glass cockpit” electronics have opened the way to the relatively affordable craft.

The aviation administration predicts that well over 4,500 very light jets will soon be in service. “We are on the cusp of a new business model,” an administration director said this week. Eclipse Aviation, of New Mexico, is leading the race with 2,350 firm orders for its 500 model, to be certified by June. Among newcomers is Honda, which has made only land-based vehicles until now. Another leading model is the A700 produced in the US by Adam Aircraft, which has a twin-boom tail.

The prospect of skies thick with tiny jets, sometimes likened to flying SUVs, is worrying airlines. Some experts fear accidents, since the fleet of untried craft will create new demand for pilots with the high skills required for handling jets.Some makers, such as Cessna, also believe that the market will remain more limited than the enthusiasts claim.

The very light jet crowd say that the jams will not happen. The jets will be used mainly to hop among the 3,000 smaller US airfields that do not service airlines. They will also be helped by an air traffic control revolution, now under way, which uses satellite navigation and computers to break out of beacon-based corridors.

The makers are insisting on high training standards. Eclipse is refusing to hand over its aircraft to any pilot without jet experience who has not completed a course at an airline training centre in Denver.

Vern Raburn, the founder of Eclipse, recently ridiculed the fears. The airlines and old-school makers believed that “if it hasn’t been done before, it can’t be done or it won’t be done or it shouldn’t be done”, he said. “We are going to offer service where airlines don’t.”

WHY THE ECONOMICS ARE RIGHT

AIRBUS A-380-800
entering service 2007.

-World’s biggest commercial aircraft

-555 seats with capacity up to 800

-590 tonnes max loaded weight

-Range 5,620 nautical miles

-Wingspan (80m)

-Powered by four Rolls-Royce Trent engines, total thrust: 280,000lb. Speed: 560mph

-List price 172 million pounds

ECLIPSE 500
first very light jet.
Due to enter service autumn 2006.

-Five or six seats (including those of one/two pilots)

-2.6 tonnes max loaded weight

-Range 1,280 nautical miles

-Wingspan 11.4 metres

-Powered by two Pratt and Whitney 610 engines, total thrust: 1,800lb. Speed: 410mph

-List price 800,000 pounds