ANN Flies The Eclipse 500... and The Eclipse Lives (Revised, Part 1 of 7)

By ANN Editor-In-Chief Jim Campbell

We Jet-Jockeys Are SO Screwed… Pity the poor jet pilot of the not-too-distant future. Used to regaling various oh-so-impressionable sweeties with feats of derring-do, of tales wrestling those fearsome jet devils through the skies with incredible skills bequeathed to the very few whom God has looked upon with favor; we self-aggrandizing jet-jockies are about to get a wake-up call (and may never get lucky again, unless we come up with a better shtick...).

[Note to our female readers... and don't even think of telling me that those of you working in jets have never tried to impress a guy with such tales... I've seen more than a few of you do it, and the only difference is that you're usually FAR better at it than we are... damn it.]

At any rate, jet flying seems to have just gotten a lot easier... and (dare I say it) potentially, a lot safer. Yup, "Vern's Folly" is for real... and the dream of a modern, affordable, (much) easier-to-fly turbine transportation system is looking like it just mighta, sorta, kinda could be for real.

Gulp.

It was an interesting week as we made the rounds of a number of GA manufacturers to get updates on the progress of various new and fairly new aircraft development programs. But NO flight has been as eagerly anticipated as ANN's first flight in the Eclipse 500.

Over the course of a few days, ANN got thoroughly briefed about what was going right, what wasn't, and had excellent access to the factory, its staff (who is turning into a force to be reckoned with) and CEO Vern Raburn -- and for the better part of two delightful hours, the (then, it has since gotten a new sibling) youngest member of the E-500 fleet, N504EA.

ANN's full flight test report and profile of the current state of the art E-500, still maturing slowly (and a bit behind schedule) warts and all, is a monster… try as we might, there was no way to compress the information we gathered, and the enthusiasm we have come to have for this exciting program. And nearly ten thousand words later, we think we can finally give it a rest -- for a few weeks -- maybe.. or at least until we fly it again. Thank God we're all electronic now because if we had to print the whole story out, the arboreal casualty stats (for the requisite paper) would scare the tree-huggers into catatonia.

After flogging the Gods of Aerodynamics for the better part of two hours, we peeked into each corner of the envelope on a warm Albuquerque morning that was at least ISA +10 and a near full load (full of gas, Eclipse Test Pilot Terry Tomeny, yours truly -- after breakfast, God help them -- and a few racks of test gear). We worked a test profile that took us right up to the ceiling of our flight test area at 18,000 feet. The test profile included stability and control checks, basic maneuvering and performance evals, approach mode maneuvering at 85 knots with everything hanging in the breeze, throwing the gear out at all of 200 knots, engine cuts and throttle slams at 200 knots, 230 kt speed runs, steep turns up to and including 60 degrees, a half dozen take-offs and landings using a number of normal and quasi-abnormal profiles (full flap, no flap and simulated flame-outs), a pseudo-ILS to ABQ's Rwy 3 (including my amazing drunken sailor localizer performance after having to fly it using the right side PFD after tumbling the left side PFD whilst investigating steep banks/screwing around). The best part of it all is that Terry is NOT a stick hog (a brave man, a USAF veteran no less), having let me play PIC with nary a hint of interference (a well-insured man, no doubt) while I did my best to scare the bejesus out of him for nearly two full hours with the exception of one flawlessly executed SFO (Simulated Flame-Out) that HE demo'ed just so that folks down below could see that the aircraft really was under the control of a pilot who knew what he was doing. There was more... but you get the idea.

The amazing upshot of it all is this… the Eclipse lived, we had a ball the entire time, and the reality of this critter is beginning to set in… that this crazy-ass Raburn guy just might actually pull this project off!

Time For The Nitty-Gritty

The prep for ANN's first test flight of the Eclipse 500 was thorough and brutally honest - a totally unexpected situation for just about any company outside of Eclipse… who has set a new standard for openness and honesty as this project came together - and even as it stumbled, fell and picked itself up. As Eclipse pushes toward certification with barely more than half a year left before the targeted TC for the E-500, there is no doubt that the Eclipse folks are starting to feel the pressure (though that 55 gallon drum of Maalox hidden in the employee cafeteria was a dead give-away). With the TC already rescheduled, some time ago, after the Williams powerplants were abandoned as uncertifiable or usable at the present level of technology, Eclipse has been under the magnifying glass ever since as the nay-sayers look for every chance to point out the obligatory slippages and problems such an immense undertaking is bound to encounter.

Mind you; it's ridiculous to assert that this program is without problems or challenges, but for some reason, every possible difficulty is looked upon with delight by those who are convinced that Eclipse will fail because no one has yet been able to do what they have promised. If this industry had listened to such nay-sayers over the years, we'd all still be flying biplanes and hand-propping our birds…

At the time I flew, the flight test program was several weeks and hundreds of flight test hours behind where they'd hoped to be… and that's the least of their problems (though the gap is now being narrowed rapidly). With four aircraft now in the flight test program and a fifth on its way, a more aggressive schedule and a renewed commitment to getting back on track seems to be a winning strategy. Over the next few months, the flying activity at Eclipse is going to be frenzied… though expertly managed under the careful eye of a number of industry vets, including USAF Vet test-jock Terry Tomeny, a former F-22 and F-16 jock who has a strong GA bent, to boot. This group is obviously bound and determined to bring even more discipline to a program that wasn't exactly slouching, to begin with.

It's not the test program, though, that's putting the pressure on CEO Vern Raburn's highly motivated troops… it's the inexorable minutiae of designing, building and certifying every aspect of a complex aircraft that is being configured to be even simpler to operate than a number of popular piston twins… no small order, that. Its one thing to build a complex machine… it's another to simplify a complex machine for an end-user who may not exactly be a brain surgeon - even on TV.

Jets For Dummies… Indeed.

To Be Continued...

FMI: www.eclipseaviation.com