Developing a new airplane is one of the fastest and most reliable ways yet discovered to dispose of excess wealth. The lesson of the current generation of very light jet (VLJ) aircraft is simple. Airplane development is like crossing a fiscal Death Valley. The slower you go and the harder it gets, the faster you're going to burn money, and the less likely you are to find new investment. The surviving projects today are those that started with deep-pocketed sponsors.
Cessna's Mustang is "coming along really well," says CEO Jack Pelton. The first of three flight test aircraft is on track for a May 2005 first flight, leading to deliveries late in 2006. The Pratt & Whitney PW615F engine made its first flight on a Citation test-bed at the end of April and had flown for more than 80 hours by September. Basic operability tests have been completed, together with fan envelope expansion and restarts. Wind tunnel tests have been finished, and Cessna has selected the Garmin G1000 integrated avionics suite for the aircraft.
The company has selected 80% of suppliers for the Mustang, and expects to name the remaining 20% by the end of the year. Final assembly will take place in Independence, Kan., 125 miles from Wichita, and the wings will be built in Columbus, Ga.
Customers have placed firm orders for 230 Mustangs, despite a price tag that is twice that of the slightly smaller Eclipse—confirming that purchasers place a value on Cessna's track record of delivering aircraft on time and on specification.
Eclipse's irrepressible CEO, Vern Raburn, threw down the gauntlet in March by announcing a commitment to "transparency". Eclipse now its development schedule and forthcoming milestone events on its website, and Raburn challenged other VLJ builders to do the same. For example, Eclipse has changed the order in which the first two conforming aircraft will fly, but has not changed the milestones on the site—so some events for what was to have been the first aircraft show up as late on the log, and others show up early, and links point to an explanation.
The PW610F engine for the Eclipse made its first run in May, and the first Eclipse with the new engine should fly on New Year's Eve, marking the start of the certification flight-test program. Certification is due at the beginning of 2006.
Since early 2003, Adam Aircraft has claimed that it will be first to market with a light jet, by modifying its push-pull, twin-piston A500 into the A700 with two Williams FJ33 engines. In May, Adam announced a 75-airplane order for the A700 from Pogo, a new-start company headed by former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall.
But the Adam project has been substantially delayed and its lead has eroded—the A700 will not be certificated before the third quarter of 2005, at best, not that far ahead of the Mustang and Eclipse. The A500 has not yet been certificated—the latest date is November—and no conforming A700, built to production drawings, has flown.
Also running late is the single-FJ33 Diamond D-JET from Austria—due, says Diamond North America CEO Peter Maurer, to the fact that the diesel-powered DA42 Twin Star absorbed a larger-than-expected share of the company's engineering resources. A year ago, first flight was set for April 2005, but now it may not happen by the end of the year. The overall goal is to have "significant customer deliveries" in 2007, even if certification misses the end-2006 target.
Diamond has selected an avionics package for the D-JET, but not announced it. (The DA42 Twin Star has the Garmin G1000 suite.) The company has taken deposits on 150 D-JETs at an estimated price of $850,000.
The sporty, tandem-seat ATG Javelin has stayed relatively well on schedule. Last year, Advanced Technology Group president George Bye predicted a "late summer or early fall" first flight; the prototype was rolled out on October 5 at the Soloy Industries facility near Seattle. The second aircraft, the first conforming civil prototype, will fly in mid-2005, with the third some six months behind it; and by mid-2007 there will be six aircraft in flight tests.
ATG's big NBAA news is that it has signed a strategic agreement with Israel Aircraft Industries, which will partner ATG on the Javelin Mk20 AJT trainer and other military versions of the airplane. The first aircraft will have Martin-Baker Mk16L lightweight zero-zero ejection seats, which will be standard on the trainer version. Other partners include Avidyne, with the avionics, and ArgoTech for the fuel system. More production-related agreements are likely to be announced here.
The company has 50 staff, is in the process of adding ten more, and should be above 70 by the end of the year. Chris Herzog, formerly of Pilatus and Eclipse, has joined ATG as vp of supply-chain management. Bye says that ATG "has been well funded to date" and expects to remain privately held and supported through "strategic friendships".
IAI is also involved in the Avocet ProJet, unveiled in August 2003 as an up-sized Eclipse, to be designed and built by IAI for the air-limousine market. Avocet said in September 2003 that it expected to select an engine and sign a development contract with IAI by the end of the year, none of which happened. In April, CEO David Tait was quoted as predicting that Avocet and IAI would sign a contract within weeks. By the end of the month there was no contract and Tait was gone.
However, new CEO Mark Biagetti says that the company is continuing to make progress. Ofer Shifris, Avocet program manager in IAI's commercial aircraft group, tells ShowNews that "efforts are continuing within IAI to launch the program soon." IAI is concluding its evaluation of suppliers for the engine and other systems, and is "very close to a selection decision," and plans to fly the aircraft by the end of 2006 and earn a Type Certificate by the end of 2007.
One key decision will the choice of a U.S.-based company to provide a final assembly, completion and support facility for production ProJets. That company need not be a full-scale airframer, says Shifris, because the Avocet is being designed for Airbus-type final assembly: airframe modules, "stuffed" with systems and tested, will be delivered to the final assembly facility and put together with minimum work and manpower.
Do not expect disclosures here, but the next stage of the program could be announced before the end of the year. The plan is to reach major agreements, with suppliers and the U.S. assembly partner, before the formal launch. "The challenge is to come to market with a full package in place for production and support."
Still alive, but scaled-back, is the Aerostar Jet project. Aerostar Aircraft vp Jim Christy says that the company has suspended its search for enough money to launch a new-production, jet-powered development of Ted Smith's high-speed twin-piston design. Too many potential investors, says Christy, "have bought the Eclipse story hook, line and sinker" and consequently do not believe that Aerostar's new-build airplane would be attractive. "I'm a non-believer in Eclipse," says Christy. "I didn't believe the $837,000 price, and if it happens it will be $1.6 million to $1.7 million."
Aerostar is forging ahead with plans to fit FJ33 engines to existing pressurized Aerostars. The aircraft will get a new cruciform tail—designed and tested as part of the Aerostar 800 program in the 1970s—and new avionics. The conversion will be priced "in the mid-$900,000 range" and a good Aerostar airframe costs $150,000-$200,000 today. Aerostar hopes to take delivery of a pair of FJ33 engines next summer and fly three months after that. Christy believes that "at least 200, maybe 300" of the 600 conversion candidates will be modified.
Sino-Swearingen is continuing to exhale and inhale, and certification of the SJ30-2 high-performance twinjet is "very close—in the second half of next year," according to svp for marketing Gene Comfort. Comfort, along with CEO Carl Chen, joined the company in 2002 after helping lead the AASI JetCruzer project. Static and pressurization tests are complete, and a number of major milestones—high-speed dives, high-altitude envelope expansion and stall tests—have been accomplished in the past year. The company has 420 employees, and is preparing to build the aircraft at a rate up to 120 per year.
Florida-based Safire, meanwhile, found its piggy bank empty in June. The 100 employees were laid off—temporarily, according to the company, which said at the time that it could fly a prototype in September if it had the money. There is no sign that any money has been found, and phone calls to the company's headquarters were not returned as the company had been evicted for not paying the rent.
But there are still other VLJ projects in the wings. There is no indication that Bombardier or Raytheon plans to jump into the VLJ market—but Embraer apparently does. The company is identified as one of two or three potential launch customers for the new GE Honda turbofan engine. Moreover, GE Honda is not the only engine builder to be looking at a new small engine: Williams will announce a "previously undisclosed" small engine here, and presumably has an application in mind.
But as the certification dates for some of these new projects get closer, the question that arises is this: who and where are the customers? Owner-pilots? There are only so many people out there who can afford the thick end of $2 million for a personal conveyance, and not all of them have to time to qualify to fly a jet at all, much less to become insurable. (Actuaries know what high-net-worth individuals do with high-performance aircraft.)
VLJ backers—particularly Eclipse's Raburn and Rick Adam—predict a massive growth in the air-taxi business, with VLJs zipping around on computer-controlled adaptive networks and restoring convenience to air travel, and say that there are more active, funded projects in this area than meet the eye. But if these projects are staying under the radar, how are they doing their market research, at a time of massive change in the air-travel market? As Boeing discovered with the Sonic Cruiser, it is not easy or safe to guess whether business travelers will value your new secret project.
Only two things are certain. The next two-to-three years are going to be entertaining in a "fasten your seat belts—it's going to be a bumpy night" fashion. And a few people are going to find themselves relieved from the burden of excessive wealth.
