ANN Readers First To Be Invited to Track The Progress of the
Eclipse 500
It's been a long, hard
road for the Eclipse 500. It was bad enough that this bird
challenged conventional thinking in terms of what it would cost and
who might buy it, but it also wound up taking a lot of industry
flack from nay-sayers who (frankly) didn't take the time to look
closer at one of the most revolutionary aircraft development
projects since the original Learjet.
Interestingly; the development of the Eclipse 500 has produced a
number of competitors of varying strength and validity. With mighty
Cessna having announced their upcoming Mustang (which will
apparently become a series of entry-level jets, from what we
hear...), and new kids-on-the-block, Adam Aircraft, Safire and even
Avocet (which has some potentially heavy-duty backing), the Eclipse
500 pretty much defined a new market segment even before the first
flight of the production airplane. It also spawned a war of words
-- some of them ridiculous -- especially that of the
now-idled Maverick Twinjet program, which sought (bizarrely) to
equate the experimental prototype multi-engine homebuilt jet with
the Eclipse 500... which was always designed to be a certified
bird.
The E-500 was always
designed to be a revolutionary aircraft, not just in terms of being
a sub-million dollar hot-rod, but in terms of how it was to be
designed, built, and be presented to the public. ANN has had
unprecedented access to this program... even when everything seemed
to be going straight to hell (we were aware of the Williams
difficulties months before the ax fell and, to their credit,
Raburn's folks never BS'ed us once over it). That access has
revealed a growing unrest in the ranks of Eclipse over the war of
hype that was being waged in the Very-Light-Jet market by companies
that they felt were not meeting the standards they sought to set
for themselves. Mind you, that's a pretty tough position to take...
even somewhat arrogant, on the face of it... but the fact of the
matter is that (win or lose), Eclipse has set the bar very high for
itself... and is challenging others to do likewise -- in a way that
makes it all very visible and very public. Call it "corporate
accountability" on steroids, if you will.
ANN has had early access to a new section of the Eclipse web
site (www.eclipseaviation.com)
that will break the coming challenges and milestones into fine
detail and show their progress to "God and everybody." Dozens of
engineering and certification milestones are being detailed,
publicly, with the proposed completion time... AND, as the project
progresses, the ACTUAL completion time. Talk about airing your
laundry in public... this is one of those challenges that could
(easily) come back to bite the Eclipse folks, big-time... but it's
a breath-taking challenge to an industry that seems to be too
willing to ignore missed deadlines (how many times has the
"XYZ2000" supposed to have been certified by now???) and is sure to
stir things up in no small way... especially if Eclipse's challenge
is taken up by other manufacturers. At the very least, it's going
to be an exciting way to peak inside a dynamic aircraft development
project, and the industry wags are sure to have a field day if
target dates start slipping.
So... ANN readers are now invited to be the first to be directed
to an interesting part of the Eclipse site that plainly invites one
and all to "Track (Their) Progress." Formal announcements of this
program will be made later today... but you get first dibs on
checking it out.
Sure; it's something of a PR stunt, but it's a good one, in our
opinion. It tends to eliminate some of the hype and allows
interested parties to see, step by step, if the Eclipse program is
meeting it's milestones (though we must note that NO aircraft
certification project EVER finished on time or without difficulty)
and just how involved this process REALLY is. We're looking forward
to seeing this program progress... and also seeing if this kind of
"transparent" aircraft development is adopted by anyone else hoping
to compete in this oh-so-competitive market.