A Sample Feature From Aviation News

Very Light Jets – the new reality

Above: British air taxi company Flairjet has just taken delivery of their first Phenom 100, seen here in test markings at the Embraer factory near Sao Paulo.

WHEN Vern Raburn launched his Eclipse 500 Very Light Jet (VLJ) in 1998, it promised to revolutionise private and business aviation. The Eclipse was a state-of-the-art small twin-jet which would fly fast and high - but cost the same as existing light piston aircraft such as the Piper Malibu. The VLJ concept caught the imagination of the aviation public - and new projects came thick and fast, including the Citation Mustang, Adam A700, Diamond D-Jet, the HondaJet and the PiperJet. They were joined by start-up companies which embarked on aircraft such as the ATG Javelin, Excel SportJet, Maverick SmartJet, Stratos 714 and Spectrum Independence. By 2005, there was a frenzy of development and widespread fear that VLJs would disrupt the world’s air traffic systems and that safety would be compromised by inexperienced pilots.

As 2009 draws to a close, the reality is a bit different. Most of the small projects have fallen by the wayside - and the instigator of the concept, Eclipse, has ceased production. Its early development was blighted by a choice of engines that could not deliver on performance and reliability, and there were problems with the complex avionics system. The first Eclipse 500 delivery was delayed to late 2006 and the major launch customer, DayJet, failed to gain sufficient momentum and collapsed, leaving its initial fleet seeking buyers. Eclipse needed to accelerate production to an ambitious 800 per year in 2008 but, perhaps inevitably, funding finally ran out. Most of the 267 aircraft delivered went to private owners who found themselves without any warranty or product support and with aircraft needing several post-production updates. Eclipse has now been restructured, reopening on September 1, 2009, and will manufacture parts for existing aircraft - but a restart of the production line is some way in the future.

Among the other projects, the twin-boom Adam A700 has been abandoned by the company’s new owners but several single-engine projects are making progress. The PiperJet is well advanced in development and should be able to benefit from the loyalty of existing Piper customers and, while it has suffered delay, Diamond’s D-Jet should reach production in 2010-11. The future of the single-engine Cirrus SR50 has been thrown into some doubt following the departure of company founder, Alan Klapmeier. However, the VLJ concept has been validated by Cessna’s strong performance with the Citation Mustang. With production heading towards the 300 mark, the Mustang has gained a good reputation for performance and reliability, with good corporate sales and a particularly good reception from the air taxi market.

Above: The longest-established UK operator of the Citation Mustang is Blink which has 30 on order. Their Mustang, G-FBNK is seen here at Blackbushe. (Photos, Rod Simpson) Below: Dayjet, which started up a network air taxi service was a major customer for Eclipse, but it collapsed before sufficient business had been achieved.

For the rest of this article please see the January 2010 issue.