Agreed that it will be tough to make any money here. It does appear that they have done a "preferred buyer" type deal that will do exactly what you have noted, that is get rid of the debt and start fresh. Not sure if they can, in that situation come up with a way to be profitable with a smaller sales volume.... Maybe they will continue at a very low production volume, just enough to satisify the FAA and keep a production certificate. Eclipse has proven the old saw.... "As a way of turning a large fortune into a small one, aviation has no equal"....
Eclipse just voided all the warranties, and promised upgrades (all on "time and materials" now). No surprise, but not exactly likely to build customer goodwill. They also voided their maintenance by the hour program (which required an upfront payment).
Eclipse also received a directive that they are no longer allowed to FL410 anymore, FL370 and ONLY for 1 hour. I do have to say that they accomplished alot in a short amount of time. I still wouldn't ride in one of their aircraft though. BJ
I wouldn't blame that directive on Eclipse. The problem is that the combustors of the engine are suffering a carbon buildup that occurrs above 37k... The carbon chunks are big enough that if they break loose they can block the turbine nozzle and change the engine match, which will cause the engine to surge. This is strictly an engine problem. I would imagine that PWC will solve this and offer an upgrade to address this issue. Moreover, were I in charge of PWC I'd be offering the upgrade for free. Eclipse sold the aircraft based on a certified capability of up to 41,000, and PW, as the engine supplier, has the responsibility to make sure that the engine they sold you does what they said it would. If the engine doesn't have that capability due to a design defect, that is PW's problem. I would have a hard time buying an airplane with an outstanding restriction like that on it. Let's see what PWC has to say about it....
True, although in that case why isn't the Mustang also having this issue? Of course, there are politics at work here-- do you think fixing an engine for a bankrupt OEM who is unlikely to buy significant numbers of new engines in the future is high on Pratt's priority list? Particularly one who probably will end up stiffing Pratt for $30MM in their bankruptcy?
If the engine is incapable of operation at altitudes where it was supposed to be, the owners would be (rightly so) capable of filing a class action lawsuit and that's the last thing PWC would want. My guess is that PW will make it right. No engine company wants to get a bad rep for not fixing their problems, and everybody has teeting problems...... I was in a meeting with Cessna when we were selling them the 3007 for the Citation X... Our sales guys were telling them how wonderful the engine was going to be, even though it was a new engine, it was based on all this existing hardware, yada, yada, yada...... Ellis, cut him off and said... Don't give us any more BS about how reliable this is going to be out of the box, you know you are going to have problems, we know you are going to have problems, it's a new engine, you're gonna have problems,... Just tell us how you are going to address them and how fast, that's what counts to us... He was right then, we had problems, and he is still right, to this day, every new engine has teething problems.... You are right in wondering why the Mustang isn't having the problem, or maybe it will later rather than sooner. Combustor buildup is a funny thing and maybe they are running the engine harder up there with higher temps that will burn off the buildup... It is unfortuante that this happened to Eclipse, they didn't need any more trouble, they had enough of their own making....
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe the Eclipse and Mustang have the exact same engine...
No, not the same engine, but from the family, a lot of common hardware, but you would have to know the engines intimately to know what was exactly the same... May or may not be an issue.
Unfortunate, but not a surprise. The interesting thing will be if anyone picks up the pieces and offers support to the existing airplanes in the field. I suspect someone will-- there is some money to be made there. Not a lot, but some.
A type certificate is a valuable thing. Somebody will pick up the pieces, but as for making money out of it, that may or may not happen for a while, if ever. If you go to the FAA type certificate data sheet site you will see literally hundreds of type certificate holders that are no longer in business. Not shure why, but for every successful manufacturer, there are literally hundreds of failures, most of those due primarily to not having sufficient capital to get to a level of cash flow where they can sustain the business.
I think many of these would have done better without Cessna, but last minute Cessna came in and ended up first to market with a great plane that no one has been able to compete with yet.
True, but I'd rather fly in the Cessna product any day of the week. Even in our market validation study for our company people clearly identified client's need for a safe aircraft and even went as far as asking if the Eclipse was experimental?
yep, first to market and a "great plane", the others can't even compete except at least last year the demand exceeded supply.
Amen to that. They were never going to get the cost down to where they could make money, they got caught in the "death spiral" of increasing weight, needing more power, which increased fuel burn, which increased weight..... If the Williams engine would have worked as advertised they might have made it, but as soon as they needed more power it all went in the toilet. The idea that they were going to save a bunch of money with "friction stir welding" didn't work out either, look at the inside of the airplane, it is loaded with rivets... The whole thing was an example of "wishful engineering" which happens when your initial estimates aren't conservative enough and pretty soon it all goes to heck...
