ANN Flies The Eclipse 500... and The Eclipse Lives (Part 5 of 7)

By ANN Editor-In-Chief Jim Campbell

• Read Part One
• Read Part Two
• Read Part Three
• Read Part Four

From the left seat, forward viz seems fairly good with only a little leaning necessary to pick up objects close to the nose. Lateral viz is fairly good to the left since you're right up against the window and only slightly limited by the junction of the cabin and the window.

Lateral viz to the right is a bit more constrained, especially with someone in the right seat… The upper junction of the cabin and window does  turn out to feel a bit limiting when trying to get a view out to the far right side of the aircraft and when banking hard over in that direction (such as on a right turn to final).

For an aircraft of this size, a little taller side window would have helped, but a little leaning cures most visual ills. One can occasionally cheat a bit by looking out the side cabin window, to augment those up front. The limitations in lateral viz are not out of line with other small pressurized piston twins, (and is better than some, like the Beech Duke… which should come with a periscope)  and the attendant need to minimize window dimensions for structural considerations.

Throughout the cockpit, there are subtle indicators of the thought that has gone into the most minute of control considerations. Switches follow their form and function… down is off and up is on (or the equivalent thereof). Everything that can be grouped according to function, is so grouped. Where the pre-flight and start chores for a number of turbine aircraft require small novels to document; the attendant checklists for the Eclipse are short and minimally taxing. To get up and operating, one turns on airframe power via a few small switches on the left side of the panel, checks for requisite power and then reaches up to simply (do you see how many times I'm forced to use that word?) turn on each engine. It's that, uh, simple.

Turning on the engine (via a single overhead three position knob that offers off, on and an ignition override that keeps things lit in the event of any engine issues), automatically turns on the attendant fuel pump, and engages the starter while the FADEC keeps a close eye on the proceedings. Once lit, the system brings on the requisite generator and turns off the fuel pump. If the FADEC doesn't like any aspect of the start, it shuts the whole works down and messages the pilot accordingly. After that, its your mechanic's problem.

Our starts went according to plan and in short order, we were cleared to taxi for departure on ABQ's Rwy 8. Eclipse Test Pilot Terry Tomeny played tour guide and was amazingly patient in keeping me up to date on what I should be doing at each step of the way (and not necessarily what I was actually doing, damn it). He was anything but a stick-hog and guided me expertly and good-naturedly throughout every phase of the flight, allowing me the honors of handling every aspect of the aircraft, throughout the programmed flight. I got a good feel for the bird, as a result.

And Away We Go...

Set for movement, I released the parking brake (once again, a simple pull handle -- out for deployed, in for release) and made sure that I was not about to run-down any member of Eclipse's test flight support staff (who were no doubt all lined up to see if I could, indeed, screw up the unscrewable start sequence. Sorry, folks, no show today). Idle fuel flows showed about 100 pph per side.

Slight throttle increases got us rolling readily and light braking helped me inch, nervously, to the barely-open electric gate that surrounds the Eclipse test facility… with not a whole lot of room off either wingtip to make me feel all that comfy (if I scratched the paint on this critter, I was afraid that Vern would send me the bill…). Directional control is adequate via the previously touted wide range of pedal actuation. It's quite generous and if you use it all, the turn radius seems to allow for decent maneuverability without a lot of overt differential braking… though I was deliberately avoiding that due to the one of the pre-flight caveats mentioned previously. It takes a good 20-30 pounds of foot pressure to motivate the rudder pedals under these conditions. Braking seems OK… though I was sensitive to the gear prohibition again and didn't stomp the suckers as hard as I might have. Brake deployment produces no noticeable nose-bobbing and a lack of grabbing or shudder. Taxi viz offered no surprises that I hadn't seen in the early cockpit survey. I've been told that the PW610F is still cranking out a bit more idle thrust than seems useful at the moment and that future FADEC iterations will nearly halve the idle thrust on production machines. I didn't find the idle thrust on the bird that I flew to be as excessive as this concern suggests.

With flaps set for takeoff, the entire length of Rwy 8 beckoning me with a "come-hither, you Jet-pilot, you" shimmer and the checklist complete; there was little to do but see if 'Vern's Folly' was a dream or a nightmare. The answer became evident quickly.

We had a ground temp of some 32 degrees C, a field elevation of 5355 feet and a density altitude pushing awfully hard at 8000 feet. I pushed both throttles to the stops, noted a solid spool-up that seemed a mite faster than expected, and fairly obedient acceleration. While not exactly a rocket ship, the little Eclipse is still no slouch. Initial acceleration on most light twins is likely to be faster but the Eclipse not only accelerates fairly well in the initial take-off phase, but picks up perceptibly from 60 knots on. Those toy motors do their job without reluctance, while the side stick lightened up and started feeling quite active once we had enough airspeed to register on AVIO's airspeed tape.

With 50-60 knots of airspeed, the stick started assuming what I thought was a fairly neutral  position as airflow finally gave it a lift. I cranked in another 10-15 pounds of aft stick pressure to rotate at 84 knots (please note that the trailing link gear sets the main wheel geometry well aft on the airframe… meaning that it sits far enough behind the CG to make one have to compensate for all that moment in the initial rotation). I lightened up on it a bit as we broke ground at about 100 knots and some 2200-2300 feet down the runway. Fuel flows showed about 440-450 pph, per side, and the aircraft felt quite responsive as we accelerated through 110-120 knots, climbing at over 2000 fpm and pulling the flaps as we went through 500 feet or so.

Comfy?

Some airplanes take a while to get used to… some don't. Neither is a real indicator of overall quality… but it is none-the-less reassuring when an airplane feels good right from the get-go. The E-500 feels just this way. I got to digging the E-500 in a hurry and it didn't seem to mind my ham-handedness much, either.

The climb attitude is not all that steep so viz remains adequate for most collision avoidance chores (though AVIO will help with that, down the line), and despite all that range of motion in the side-stick, little of it is actually employed. Modest movements of limited moment, and moderate to occasionally heavy stick pressures accomplish most of the initial chores in this airplane with moderate pitch and roll force onsets and fairly linear force gradients once the input is initiated-though that effect naturally diminishes as a function of airspeed. Quite noticeable early in the flight was the closely coupled nature of yaw-roll and some notable Dutch Roll issues-though the coupling is not an unpleasant effect and is occasionally downright useful. A forthcoming yaw damper will curb the negative side of things.

To Be Continued

FMI: www.eclipseaviation.com