Eclipse 500 On Track for 2006 Certification, Deliveries to Be Accelerated
Vern Raburn, founder, CEO and president of Albuquerque-based Eclipse Aviation (Booth 9700), seems uncharacteristically relaxed at this year's NBAA Convention. "There's really nothing earth-shattering, nothing profound to report this year," Raburn said at Monday's press conference.
Actually, Raburn has plenty to crow about. He has 2,126 orders for the $1.32 million Eclipse 500 microjet in his sales book, 65 of which were signed since January. "We thought we wouldn't have any for the first half of this year because of the engine change announcement. We've booked 25 more just since EBACE," Raburn told Show News.
About one-third of the orders have come from owner-operators, half from air taxi and logistics firms, and the rest from corporate operators, which are "justifiably conservative" about buying revolutionary new designs, Raburn said. They're now looking at the Eclipse to expand their fleets, he claimed.
The Eclipse is on track to achieve March 2006 FAA type certification and customer deliveries. Although the first prototype has yet to fly with production PW610F engines, Raburn claims that one-quarter of all development work has been completed. Eclipse engineers have submitted 96 percent of its certification plans to the FAA and more than two-thirds have been approved, Raburn said.
All 65 key suppliers have been selected, eight of which Raburn recognized for "extraordinary performance" and response at the press conference. There have been several detail changes in the design of the aircraft, requiring rapid response from Eclipse 500 suppliers. "We've had some real challenges for our supplier base. They've had some tough, tough times," Raburn said. He wished all the suppliers could respond as well as the eight he recognized, including Fuji Heavy Industries, Aikoku, Argo Tech and Pratt & Whitney Canada, "the gold standard" in engines, according to Raburn.
Eclipse recently bought a third friction stir-welding machine in anticipation of opening 12 parallel assembly lines at its Albuquerque plant. All FSW processes on the first flight test aircraft have been completed.
Best of all for customers, the build rate will be ramped up to 260 units during the first 12 months of production and 880 units the following 12 months. This means that 99 percent of the current customers will receive their aircraft earlier than forecast and the lead time for the next new aircraft moves to February 2008 from September 2008.
Four production aircraft to be used in flight and ground test are in assembly, with three more slated for completion in early 2005. The static test article will be shipped to Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio for ultimate load testing first quarter 2005 with all required tests scheduled to be complete by April 15. After that, a fatigue test article will be inducted with so that at least one-quarter of the Eclipse 500's 20,000-cycle life will be completed prior to entry-into-service. The five flight-test aircraft will fly between 3,500 and 3,600 hours. The fourth and fifth flight-test aircraft will be used as beta test aircraft, intended to rack up more than 1,000 hours each in extended function and reliability testing to iron out all bugs before initial customer deliveries.
"We're moving out of the engineering phase and into the manufacturing and supply phase," Raburn said, "but we're not going to waste our precious capital on manufacturing [equipment]. We're taking a 100-percent outsourced approach. We'll spend it on test and assembly." The firm has spent a large part of its $325 million in capital, but Raburn claims it will take less than 10 percent more to reach certification. Once that's complete, customers' deposits will be increased and progress payments will help to finance full-scale aircraft production.
Raburn also announced that Eclipse will build a network of seven factory service centers by mid-2008. The first will be in Albuquerque and the second in Gainesville, Fla. The other five will be sited so that no operator in the lower 48 states will be more than a 90-minute flight from a service center. In addition, Raburn plans to appoint authorized technicians within corporate flight departments and fleet operators' organizations who will perform warranty work on behalf of Eclipse.
"We had to establish our own service centers, just as Cessna did with the Citation," Raburn said. "Too often, small aircraft get pushed to the back of the work schedule by major maintenance shops. And some don't like to write an invoice for less than $100,000," Raburn added.
