Relying on friction stir welding as one of the cost saving methods.

Things started to go off the rails when the original engine spec'd was not usable for some reason, and they had to go with a larger and more expensive powerplant.

IIRC, the original price target was $800K in 1998 dollars. Never even came close.

There was no Garmin "panel" avionics when they started (~2000). At that time, they could have put a Garmin 430/530 in the panel with steam gauges. Oddly enough, that would have been better and those airplanes could now get G600 upgrades and be quite viable.


The Canada was a big mistake.

All One Aviation needed to do was put G1000 or G3000 in the existing airplane, not create a new aircraft that would require lots of certification work. New wing, higher weight, etc, all trigger huge amounts of testing and design.

As soon as the Canada was announced, they fell victim to the Osborne effect, too, killed what few new sales they had of the 550.

I don't understand the stupidity that seems to afflict aircraft manufacturers.

Mike C.

There's another version of the story which says the engine failure was an excuse they used to cover up the fact they were WAY over weight and there's no way the plane would have worked if the original Williams engine had been just fine. The original target gross weight was 4800 lbs and there was simply no way they could have made that weight.

Williams was never given the opportunity to refine the engine before Eclipse declared them a failure. It was a convenient scapegoat for the fact Eclipse was grossly incompetent at basic weight analysis.

Mike C.

Looks to be coming along.
https://www.flyingmag.com/epic-flies-se ... -prototype

Any plane can look stupid to some. It all depends on whats important to you.

I love the Eclipse and it is in its own class. If you do not care about cabin size and a lav its hard to beat. Its fast, efficient, flys high, and safe.

Honestly if I were to move up from my current plane it would be to an Eclipse. Its perfect for my mission and way faster than my other choice, Meridian. For $1M you can buy a really nice equipped Eclipse on a paid engine program.

personally I can not move into a $2M jet that burns 120gph so a $1M jet that only burns 60gph is the only jet I could do.

I think Mike is right they should have focused on what they had because what they had with the 550/500 is unique and just what some want. Ironically the biggest issue with Eclipse besides support is getting a loan. Lots of banks won't touch them and the ones that do want 30-35% down. If this rumor is true then the banks were smart LOL

If One was successful they could have changed that perception and made it possible for guys like me to own a twin engine jet.

Mike

True. But where will owners go for maintenance? There is a lot of integration between avionics and airframe and apparently quite a bit of unusual (limited to Eclipse) parts, etc. If One is toast will the owners be back in the maintenance hell they went to after Eclipse died originally?

Might a BK of One be good for current owners? Allow another push-down of costs of the (reincarnated) manufacturer as the debtors get screwed? Maybe the next reincarnation will kill the Canada and get back to focusing on the 550? And maybe a new avionics suite?

We weren't in "maintenance hell" during the 2008-2009 bankruptcy of old Eclipse. In some very important ways, we were actually better off. Suppliers became free to deal directly with us. The proprietary stuff was not an issue; if you broke an IS&S display, you sent it to them for repair. They and nearly all of the other major suppliers were very accommodating. And there was no shortage of qualified maintenance guys.

Where we might have been screwed in 2009 was that the planes didn't yet have FIKI, and there was no visible pathway to getting it without airframer support. But even that turned out to be less of a concern than we first thought it would be--Hawker Beechcraft signed a letter of intent to provide support and upgrades to the Eclipse fleet. We didn't wind up going that route, but it was certainly a viable one.

Today, anybody that wanted to has long since upgraded his plane to FIKI, so the only real worry we ever had doesn't exist any more.

Ken