It certainly won't be good. I looked at some of the asking prices for 500/550's the other day and many of the newer ones are still be advertised with things like "factory warranty" etc. It's either broker malpractice, unbelievable optimism or laziness. You pick. What is also interesting is that asking prices don't seem to have moved much in a while. I wonder how many are actually selling?

All of this was obvious to me a couple of years ago just before the Canada announcement after I spoke at length to their CFO. I'm sorry it turned out like this but there could be an interesting book written about the relatively long lasting series of poor business decisions made after they got the phoenix out of the ashes. It's a great little plane and if someone can figure out how to support it's computerized complexity maybe it can live on. But, unlike most other aircraft which are bolted together from other OEM's parts, this one needs some serious dedication to keep flying.

Some will buy the planes going forward with the approach others have taken to ancient Cessna's, which is to fly them till they break and then park them on some abandoned ramp forever. Others may buy them in ignorance or optimism. But current owners look screwed and future purchasers like gamblers.

This is a discussion deserving of its own thread. Won't this be the case with just about all new aircraft? Or is it unique to Eclipse?

Prices have not moved much at all in the last year. And shocker, not many have sold.

There was one I was looking at that was well priced, about $150K less than others like it and it sold in a month. The rest of the fleet as stayed pretty much the same since I was looking at them 6 months ago.

Although to be fair there are still Mirages for sale that were 6 months ago. Each model has its planes that people are asking too much and willing to sit on them. The Eclipse market seems to have a lot of those.

It may just be the type of owner. If I guy is buying an Eclipse he is doing so to save money, or he would buy a Mustang or Phenom 100. Maybe the guy that wants to save the money is not in a position to take a big hit on the sale? So he sits on it paying the payment hoping someone will come along and pay his high price. Or he is hoping the market will get better.

The Market is about to correct itself real fast if One is done.

Mike

It's kind of amazing how hard it is for new airplane companies to survive and make a profit for their owners. No criticism of the Klapmeiers, but how much collective investment has been lost in Cirrus, Kestrel, ONE, etc? Then add in Adam Aircraft, Eclipse, Lancair, and a few others?

I can't imagine investing in a new airplane company.

What would stop someone from tearing everything out of the little jet and replacing it with pretty basic garmin gear?

I spend 75% of my awake life thinking, dreaming, working on, or flying airplanes. It's a passion and an obsession. I'm sure many of us here do the same thing. That's why new airplanes get made; it's an insane dream that "I'll be the one to make money where no one else has". Of course no one makes money doing this but a few neat airplanes get produced in the process at the expense of investor money. The list is long with maybe Jim Bede at the top of the list. Without these dreamers we wouldn't have BD-5 jets, Long EZs and the host of other neat projects that never made a cent. The Eclipse was a magical dream of a $800K twin engine jet. I'm glad some of us are willing to dream like this but sometimes dreams turn into nightmares. Hopefully, the Eclipse owners group will pick up the pieces and have a little support group like Navions, Meyers 200s or even Widgeons for that matter. Somebody said it earlier, there's not enough critical mass to support a profitable New New Eclipse, the suppliers, or the owners so pick any two combinations.

You would need a type rating to understand why this is impossible. The reason being is that EVERYTHING from the startup, gear, flaps, a/c, pressurization, circuit breakers is controlled by computers. Everything a pilot selects runs through the computers which are integrated with the avionics. You'd think a gear handle would run to the gear motors but it doesn't. The gear handle is a mouse click that looks like a gear handle. There are no circuit breakers, pressurization controllers, air conditioning controllers, etc. All this stuff is integrated into the avionics.

I guess you could tear every system out and wire it like a regular old airplane but by the time you were done you probably could by a new Citation.

STC a rewire/re-motor kit and basic Garmin panel. Circuit breakers included.

3 Screen G3X touch mod with real circuit breakers, fuel sensors, gear and flap switches. Lets do it.

Interesting thing about controller, is that not all the planes there are for sale. I even saw one of mine or sale at least 6 months after I bought it.

Quite simply put, the reason behind the bankruptcies is there just isn't a market for the Eclipse at the price point required to manufacture and sell them.

Vern said he could build them and sell them profitably at 850k a piece. At that price point orders flooded in.

Today, the market hasn't changed. 850k is what they are selling for.

At over 3 mil, there is no way the present company could sell airplanes in numbers that could sustain the production line.

Simple economics, no matter how good a product is, if the market doesn't support it, the business is bound to fail.

Mason Holland made money because he bought the assets pennies on the dollar, extorted the owners to upgrade, took the money, and then sold out to One. I think he and Mile Press were the only ones that profited from the little jet at the owners expense.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2020/march/12/us-clears-bankrupt-one-aviation-for-foreign-acquisition?utm_source=epilot&utm_medium=email

Bankrupt One can be sold to Citiking, of China.

How in the world is Kestrel still around? I thought they was a pyramid scheme 20 years ago when they was in Norman, OK building that abortion that looked like a composite overweight 172. They seem to do just enough development work and get an airplane to prototype stage before they run investments dry, and then relocate to do it all over again.

In this case it is the Kestrel K-350 single-engine turboprop; looks a lot like the Epic E-1000 turboprop. Alan Klapmeier was the proprietor of it before merging it with Eclipse. The C172 knockoff was the Kestrel K-1. Two very different airplanes from different companies, but interestingly similar outcomes so far.....

3 Screen G3X touch mod with real circuit breakers, fuel sensors, gear and flap switches. Lets do it.