Posted on 06/30/2006 3:51:50 PM PDT by phantomworker
The idea that small is beautiful seems to have been lost on the aviation industry. But while most attention is lavished on the Airbus A380, the giant pterosaur of the skies, many think that the new, diminutive Eclipse 500, a mere bumblebee by comparison, is the aeroplane with the real potential to transform air travel.
The Eclipse 500 is the first of a new kind of small aircraft called the very light jet (VLJ). It seats five passengers and a pilot, weighs 3,536lb (1,603kg) when empty and is so petite that seven of them could fit along the wings of an A380. The craft should receive final approval from America's Federal Aviation Administration later this month, and the world's first VLJ will be delivered to a customer.
The Eclipse 500 is built by Eclipse Aviation, which is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is the first of many varieties of VLJ. Two aircraft firms--Cessna, from Kansas and Adam Aircraft, from Colorado--are developing VLJs that should arrive later this year. Another, Embraer, which is based in São Paulo, Brazil, plans to start selling its Phenom 100 in 2008. But at $1.4m the Eclipse is the smallest and cheapest to run. The others cost between $2m and $3m.
So who will buy these new craft? The keenest buyers could be individuals who already buy small, propeller-driven, piston and turboprop craft, a variety that now sells 600-700 planes a year. The Eclipse VLJ is faster and cheaper to buy and operate than many of these craft. Companies are likely to want to expand their fleet of jets, possibly to provide better mobility for technical and engineering teams. Smallish firms may seize the opportunity to buy a jet for the first time. Most businesspeople, though, are likeliest to experience a VLJ as part of an "air-taxi" service. Charter companies plan to buy VLJs and offer people the ability to get from any A to B they choose.
The Eclipse is able to operate on runways as short as 2,300ft (701m). In America this opens up about 5,000 small regional airports to jet aircraft. It also contains advanced avionics equipment, GPS navigation and engine-management software that make it particularly easy to operate. Many people in aviation now see a future where thousands of tiny jets fly directly between smaller cities. Because it is a jet, the Eclipse is likely to be much more reliable than other aircraft of its size. But extra safety features have been built in just in case. It has a low landing speed and an advanced avionics suite of the sort normally found in larger, more expensive jet aircraft.
Vern Raburn, chief executive of Eclipse Aviation, says he already has over 2,500 orders for VLJs, most of which required a non-refundable deposit of $125,000. Over the past five years, his aircraft has attracted a lot of scepticism. Mr Raburn is an outsider who arrived from the software business to launch an entirely new kind of vehicle in an industry with a long history of grand schemes gone awry. But the Eclipse has silenced many of its critics. Most agree that its VLJ is an exceptional vehicle. Where opinion remains divided is over the true market potential of the Eclipse in particular and VLJs generally. The Eclipse has been designed for mass-production, and must sell in high volumes for the company to thrive. Mr Raburn has said that he needs to sell a minimum of 500 planes a year and 750 to be decently profitable.
Such ambitions amaze aviation analysts such as Richard Aboulafia, of the Teal Group, an aviation consultancy in Virginia. He acknowledges that VLJs are "one of the best achievements in aviation for decades" and could open a thriving new market. But he is aghast at the idea that Mr Raburn hopes to sell 750 a year, which equals roughly the total output of all American business-jet manufacturers.
As well as private individuals and companies, Mr Raburn is optimistic about foreign markets. By 2011, half of his firm's aircraft could be sold to people abroad--he has particularly high hopes for India. But the biggest unknown is the degree to which VLJs will create a whole new business of air-taxis. DayJet, an air-taxi firm in Delray Beach, Florida, has ordered 239 Eclipses, and Linear Air, a charter company based in Lexington, Massachusetts, has ordered 30. VLJs have a range limited to around 1,200 nautical miles (2,200km or 1,380 land miles), but this is more than enough to serve the market for regional travel, says William Herp, Linear Air's boss. Mr Herp says he founded Linear when he realised that VLJs cut the cost of private jet travel in half. With two or three people in a VLJ, he says, the cost would only be marginally more than on a scheduled airline. But people would find the air-taxi experience much better and faster, he adds.
Today, of course, business and leisure travellers have either to get in their cars or put up with long waits at hub airports. The effective speed of air travel has been steadily declining in the last five years. A change would be welcome. Although most people agree the VLJ has arrived just in the nick of time, it is still unclear just how radically it will change aviation.
The anti-A380?
The future of transportation
Smaller, quicker, more efficient and more flexible
To answer the question in the title : NO!
They will, however, add more congestion to the airspace system.
Agreed that the need for the A-380 is questionable, how does a bigger market for small private jets soften the need for larger passenger and cargo airliners?
The price keeps rising but still the best bargin in avaition!
The projected delivery date if I came up with the money today would probably put me too old to fly it since i'm 69 now!
yet to be seen... in no sense do VLJs have the capacity to replace the transport category of aircraft, but rather will only serve to enable growth in demand. It takes dozens of these aircraft to move the same number of people as a narrow-body airliner (and they don't have the range to compete with wide-body routes). Even if they target the commuter market, you'd need roughly a dozen VLJs for the same pax capacity. That is somewhat offset by going point-to-point and removing connecting passengers through hubs. A core problem is that demand for air services, much like demand for ground transportation, is heaviest in population centers. Until the population follows the capabilities (reversal of urbanization), VLJs will only serve to supplement growth (at best) in the busiest areas, and congest it (at worst). If these companies are counting on the modesto-eugene model to sell 500 aircraft per year, they will likely be dissapointed. And if metropolitan travelers think it will solve their hour-long security line problem at a reasonable price, they will be sorely dissapointed... the air traffic system is not prepared to manage an order of magnitude increase in the number of aircraft in the skies surrounding big cities, and until they are, who's gonna be held on the ground? a 5 passenger VLJ, or American Airlines 206 Heavy with 352 passengers aboard?
Aside from that, the thing was perfectly safe using hydrogen, the only real problem having been the aluminim oxide paint.
When they build a light, small jet that I can buy for $20,000 and fly to the gorcery store, then it will change aviation.
I wish there were an airline that would fly CRP-AUS. Due to congestion on I-35 it is very difficult to drive between those two cities in less than four hours via I-37 and I-35 which is about the same time it takes to drive to Houston. Southwest only flies CRP-HOU-DAL and the reverse flight. To connect to AUS requires a change of planes. By the time you get to Austin, it takes just as much time as driving. I wish JetBlue would tag on a CRP-AUS leg to its AUS-JFK flight. The actual distance between airports is only 167 miles according to the great circle mapper web page.
But how much would it cost just to get a pilots license to fly it?
In America this opens up about 5,000 small regional airports to jet aircraft....
Being able to make a day trip from up here near Placerville (PVF) to say, Reid-Hillview (RHV) in San Jose in 1 hour (or less), round trip, would be a better use of my time than a 6-hour (or longer) round-trip road trip.
And I'd be willing to pay for that service level.
I'd bet that, with more affluent retirees moving up to these hills, the service would be marketable. Whether for personal or business related travel, ground transit (cars) is becoming increasingly more expensive with respect to both time and dollars.
As noted, the impact on the FAA system capacity IS an issue. Particularly with the recent stories about ATC-retirement related staffing problems.
If it's to fly at all (pun) the VLJ air taxi folks will also need to get some breaks on the FAA air carrier registration/certification fees and requirements. It currently costs almost $2,000,000 to start up a scheduled carrier thru the FAA system - almost the cost of the VLJ itself!
~GCR~
for just a private licence if you're smart and a quick learner about 7-8k.
As far as the Eclipse 500, training is included in the price but you already have to be a pilot with instrument training.
There's that Aboulafia guy again. He seems to know the pulse of the market.
Airspace within the ATC system isn't a problem but today if you fly to a major airport you wind up with gate hold not for airspace but for the designated airport.
If I was going to SF or SAC from BUR, I would always go IFR to VFR on top and then get a clearance from L.A. Center after I got out of the L.A. basin and never got delayed.
So how much does it cost to go from being a novice to being licensed to fly an Eclipse 500? What percent of the population is smart enough to pilot a plane anyway?
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