ANN's Exclusive Interview With Eclipse's Vern Raburn

The man who conceived the market, and brought a small jet so close, so far, talked with us about what it took to make the decisions that led to the P&W 610F, and the abandonment of the Williams, such a key component in the original strategy.

First, Mr Raburn wanted to clear up some misconceptions in the rumor mill: "We had zero incentive to cancel the Williams program," he said. "We had every incentive in the world to continue that relationship." As for sniping from the sidelines, some well-known detractors were not mentioned by name: "There are some people who claim to know everything about jet engines; all they really understand is prop engines."

Getting down to the problem, Vern remembered a talk we had at the AOPA Expo. "It was October 24, in fact," he reminded me, as he checked his calendar. There was a press report that the Williams was delivering just 350 pounds of thrust on that first flight. Vern explained it to me at the time, in an interview that we never got to print. He said the same thing this week: "On our first flight, we were 'way down on thrust -- we effectively demonstrated single-engine performance."

It wasn't any kind of in-flight failure, or anything unanticipated; it was Summer, in Albuquerque. The air was hot; the ground was already a mile above sea level. "Turbine engines are intrinsically normally-aspirated," he explained. "You have to flat-rate a turbine engine to a very high altitude -- like in a normalized turbocharged engine -- you can increase fuel burn, and flat-rate it. You derate it, in effect, for sea level, and don't get to rated power, until you're at altitude."

The Williams, it turned out, has a steeper lapse rate curve than some other designs. That translated into lower performance than expected, though at the time (October), Vern said, "If it's this good on single-engine power, imagine the fuel savings!"

Sure, but a Ferrari with a Yugo engine would have relative fuel economy, too. A state-of-the-art jet can still achieve decent economy, without having to bend so low in the performance envelope. Still, there was a lot invested in that mutual development, between Williams and Eclipse. Aside from the relationship between the companies, though, was the obvious problem that Eclipse was into this design up to their neck; they realized the huge upset changing such a major component would bring, and they didn't want to do it. Mr Raburn told us, "Back when we talked (October 24), we were optimistic that Williams would solve their problems. We didn't make the final decision [to change engines] until about a month later."

It's not 'just an engineering problem,' either.

Vern continued, "Many said they didn't think we'd have the guts to change engines, this late in the program. We had the whole executive staff there, and I told them there was a real chance that we wouldn't survive [if we went with that decision]." On the other hand, "All we knew was, we couldn't keep going with Williams." It's one thing to know what you're not going to do; and another to know what you are going to do. "We didn't know what engines we'd be using," he said, underscoring the corporate vulnerability at that time, just a few months ago. "I don't think any other company could have done this, and survived," he ventured.

Change engines, though, became inevitable. Once the decision to look for a different engine was made, though, a whole 'nother problem cropped up: which one? "Eclipse has created a new market segment -- the hottest market segment in the industry, from the A380 down. The segment where people see real growth is our segment -- the 'light, light jet,' or whatever it's eventually going to be called. Eclipse has orders, and has proved it's actually building an airplane. All the engine companies in the world -- and I mean ALL -- are looking to enter this segment." Suddenly, Eclipse was faced with a different set of criteria.

Vern told us, "The deciding factor? That is impossible to really say. There are so many issues. Take technical validity -- to a certain extent, you can't fool Mother Nature, even Williams (EJ22 seen right) can't do that." [When the Eclipse was originally announced, one of the persistent arguments against its viability was the general feeling that the Williams claims were too optimistic; but Williams had done remarkable things in the past...] "There's also a lot of commercial considerations," Vern continued. "There were no differences among contenders that could be pointed to, where we could say, 'That's it' -- we looked at customer preferences, company support, name recognition in the segment we're building -- there was no one thing that made the choice easy for us."

Competition?

Vern Raburn sees Eclipse in front of a pack of contenders, leading the field in a market he identified. For instance, he sees Cessna's recently-announced Mustang as validation for the Eclipse vision, as more companies, pilots, and other customers, too, are now looking at the 'personal jet' segment. One other possible competitor, Florida-based Safire, also brought a comment from the Eclipse chief. Safire has been planning a composite jet, just slightly larger than the Eclipse, for several years now, and has just about announced its engine choice... a couple times. Vern was goaded into sharing his thoughts on that issue: "On one hand, I respect Safire, because I know how hard this [business of getting airplane made] is. On the other hand, they've never announced what they've announced they're going to announce [their engine choice]." [Note: Safire announced its engine choice, almost simultaneously with our interview. See story below --ed.]

The real victory is at home.

"One of the things that I'm most proud of," Raburn concluded, "...the team has kept their heads down, kept working hard -- they really do understand that what we've got here is really important," he said; "and that, occasionally, stuff's going to happen; we've got to ready for that." He is as confident in his team, as he is in his vision of the Eclipse itself: "It's impressive that the team has the attitude, 'OK -- we'll solve this problem, too.' I am so profoundly proud of them."

FMI: www.eclipseaviation.com