Looks like we are close to the end of One Aviation:

Albuquerque Serves Eviction Notice to One Aviation

Officials in Albuquerque, New Mexico, have ordered One Aviation and partner company Eclipse Aerospace to reimburse the city for more than $895,000 in back rent and prior default obligations by Tuesday or vacate all company-leased properties at the Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ).

"The city has been very patient with Eclipse,” reads the April 26 Notice to Surrender Property or Cure Default, sent by the Albuquerque city attorney's office. “However, the city has been approached by other companies to lease the premises being occupied by Eclipse."

“We’re working with the city” to resolve the matter, One Aviation COO Kevin Gould told AIN. Should the parties fail to reach an agreement for Eclipse to remain at ABQ, the notice also requires One Aviation to surrender one of the original Eclipse 500 prototypes under a security agreement.

This latest development comes as Kestrel Aircraft faces legal action by the state of Wisconsin to recover an estimated $3.6 million in combined delinquent state, county, and local loan payments made to the company since 2012. Last month, One Aviation entered into a voluntary agreement with officials at Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) to vacate its company-owned Eclipse maintenance, repair, and overhaul facility on the field.

The company subsequently earned approval for an operator’s agreement with the city of Aurora, Illinois, to relocate those facilities to a hangar at Aurora Municipal Airport.

No factory at ABQ, no service center at PWK. Not clear what the scope of the facilities will be at ARR yet.

When they announced the Canada project, and the extensive changes it would require, they nailed their coffin. That was both the Osborne effect, nobody would then buy an EA550, and a huge certification project that would suck up lots of capital. They can't pay the rent much less develop a new plane.

Mike C.

Incredibly sad. Not many owner pilot oriented OEM's left. Seems like Cirrus, Piper, Diamond, and Socata are pretty much all that is left to support mostly owner flown cross country aircraft. There are some specialty OEM's and of course the Cessna high wings, that fill a nice niche.

Don’t forget Gregg Cadieux and the BT T-bone guys.

I wish they built the Canada plane first back in the day.

I can't imagine what that's going to do to the resale value of the existing fleet. Ugh...

What does this mean for owners of EA50 aircraft?

Are these aircraft now orphaned?

Any FAA interference/mandates likely to emerge relating to the EA50?

Hopefully the Eclipse owners are not stranded

Mike

They may not have manufacturing support, at least for a little while.

They have been through this before when Eclipse #1 failed.


Depends. Likely not forever. Some organization will pick up the TC and parts from the bankruptcy sale. At the last one, there was an owner's group trying bid on the stuff, maybe that works this time.


Doubtful. If you can maintain the airplane in airworthy condition, you can keep flying it. When Eclipse #1 failed, the FAA specifically sent out a notice saying the planes could fly (alas, can't find a copy of that right now to link to).


I think they have always known this was possible, even probable.

Mike C.

This sux.

This is sad but predictable. I wrote about this months ago that BK was imminent. The Eclipse is an awesome little airplane. I still feel sad parting mine out at 400 hours. It's a happy, feel good airplane and very economical to fly. But, it's overly-computerized machine that immediately stamps it into planned obsolesence just like a G58 or G36 (to a much lesser extent). You cannot have an airplane that depends on a computer and expect it to still be flying in 30 years. Software is great but a totally integrated airplane is not capable of being supported after a certain amount of time. An airplane built with common parts available from Aviall or Spruce is capable of being flown and supported indefinitely.

Bad decisions compound this issue:

1) Failure to support ALL existing Eclipses without demanding/extorting unwanted upgrades.
2) Merger with a vaporware company like Kestrel
3) Failure to allow customers to purchase parts or service from third party vendors
4) An arrogant view on "intellectual property" effectively not allowing others access to create upgrades or parts
5) Choosing a third tier avionics platform such as IS&S
6) Selling a new product (the 550) that is virtually no different than used products priced $2 million cheaper. They competed with themselves and the new car smell isn't worth that.
7) Pursuing the Canada when they were clearly out of money with little hope of a market in light jets.
8) Demanding I replace my 100 hour windshields for $50K and then giving me broken used windshields and then giving me back my old windshields with 1 inch holes drilled in them. OK, that one's personal.

This failure is a case study in bad business decisions. I love this airplane but have always hated the company. I hope someone picks up the pieces and re-emerges as an MRO to support the existing owners.

Sad...



What does this mean??? Surrender a prototype to who and for what purpose?


EDIT

Ok, I saw the original AIN link... I get it now. Looks like they put a lien against the EA700 prototype...

Should the parties fail to reach an agreement for Eclipse to remain at ABQ, the notice also requires One Aviation to surrender one of the original Eclipse 500 prototypes, identified as N503EA, "under the Aircraft Security Agreement which secures performance of Eclipse's obligations to the city." That experimental aircraft was reregistered last year as N990NE and currently serves as a flying testbed for the new wing intended for a larger Eclipse 700 follow-on aircraft under development.




Warren

Numbers 1, 3, and 4 were little doubt an attempt to correct for problem 6.

If you are a dreamer, you dream. If you are an operator, you operate. Jobs & Cook are perfect examples (in several ways).

Alan K was a dreamer that believed in "go big or go home". But the idea of an underfunded start-up developing two airplanes at once - that's some crazy %#$@!

Here's what I'd do if I were king:

1) Create an hourly parts program (like Cessna's) and sell the crap out of it. I'd extract as much money as I possibly could for it and I'd make buying parts outside of the program even more expensive so that owners would be forced to join (AKA Williams). To join the program, you'd need to be "accepted" - this would mean a factory inspection and update where needed (I don't want the program to cover all the likely deferred maintenance out there, instead I'd want to profit from this)

2) If #1 created a chance of someday having predictable positive cashflow I'd continue with #2, otherwise I'd quit here.

3) I'd do a really excellent job with this program. I'd want owners to say "it is brutally expensive but it is really good".

4) Once I had these two things working and I'm creating some volume for vendors, I'd go back to them and look for savings or look for new vendors where possible.

5) Optimize/computerize my internal operations

6) Maybe I could eventually return the capital that I used to buy and build this and net some cashflow.

I'd need to be lucky and damn good to get to #6. It would take a long time. It would be a giant risk. It would be a giant headache. After all this headache, effort and risk, the reward would be that the majority of owners hate me.

Yep.

3 guys in a warehouse selling parts is the way to save the existing fleet; that is my salvation idea. The problem is with all the computerized one off parts non of the suppliers are going to want to build the parts in such low quantities.

I think if One was out of the way the suppliers would be in a better position to support the fleet.

One was marking up parts and upgrades at a High rate to stay alive. And its my understanding that some of the suppliers would not work with One at all.

I think this will have a big impact on fleet value. The ADS-B issues for part of the fleet is a big problem. But the fleet is big enough to hopefully sustain itself if One was out of the way. Its not big enough to sustain the fleet and sustain One.

The Eclipse owners group, which I am a member of is a great group of very smart guys. I am sure they will work it out. I just need to wait until the market drops then right when they solve the vendor issues buy me a jet :-)

Mike