Eclipse at Friedrichshafen

[scooter boy]

I just got back from Friedrichshafen and have fallen head over heels in love with a curvaceous little beauty called the Eclipse 500.
It was without a doubt the main attraction of the show and IMHO did not disappoint. I want one.

By comparison the D-Jet looks messy and was only present as a "mock-up". What the designer thought when he put those fairings under the wings I will never know - it has more gaps than seals.

No sign of the cirrus jet and the piper offering looks a total dog.

The TBM850 was beautiful also but twice the price of the eclipse.

I am hoping that the Eclipse will live up to the hype and deliver the performance that has been promised.

IMHO the presence of the Eclipse was a healthy two fingers to the nay-sayers who for whatever reason have been hoping the project would not succeed from the start.:=

Apparently it is succeeding and I predict it will revolutionise the jet taxi market.

I will be watching how the first few aircraft perform before putting down a deposit but I can definitely feel one coming on.

Here's to you Vern,:D they said you couldn't do it and you are proving them wrong.

SB

[sternone]

I totally agree with Scooterboy, i myself visited the Eclipse at Friedrichshafen en was impressed, it looked really solid, i felt good in it. The model they were showing was their test model who flew over 1000 hours already, the admided they were changing little things on the glass pannel.
I liked the glass cockpit of the D-jet, but ofcorse, the plane itself looks like a toy compared to the Eclipse and the Cessna Mustang...i found the seating of the d-jet bad.

[IO540]

I believe Diamond do have a flying D-jet - why not show it at the show?

The D-jet would fulfill a different role to the Eclipse.

The former is a high performance piston replacement, with a 25k ceiling and a ~ 200kt TAS speed. It's for the lower airways, just like a piston. It would be far cheaper to run than an Eclipse, which is an upper airways machine with two engines and loads more systems to keep going. With the SE stall speed requirement (< 60kt) it would be a piece of cake to fly and should do the 500m-600m tarmac runways that are so common around Europe.

The TBM850 is a nice machine which I predict will do very well from the zillions spent on advertising the VLJs - anybody with a brain will "discover" turboprops while they are looking at the VLJs and will "discover" that a turboprop will carry more, further (much further actually), and probably with a lower DOC. In Europe, a 250kt TAS machine is as fast as a 300kt TAS machine, in practice, and if you have 1500nm range then you will be doing fewer fuel stops, and a 300kt machine with one fuel stop won't be much quicker than a TB20 without a fuel stop by the time you have paid the bowser man at Mykonos with a wad of cash, an hour after you landed.

Of course the VLJs will sell because lots of people would like a JET. But IMHO they don't really stack up for European missions against a TBM or (for 2 people, mostly) a Meridian.

The TBM850 is very expensive but you have to see the build quality close up. Nothing gets even close. It was like comparing a TB20 with an SR20 or a DA40, back in 2002 when I was looking at these. The last two were finished like an IKEA kitchen, sharp edges everywhere.

The degree to which price matters in this market is an interesting Q. A lot of people think it doesn't matter all that much - once you are above $1M people want the comfort and mission capability first and look at the price afterwards. This, I suspect, is why there are virtually no unpressurised turboprops; they would be priced in the $1M area and there seems to be little interest.

[scooter boy]

IO, I think we will see people vote with their feet (and money) over the next few years wrt the VLJ/turboprop market.

TBM 850 sales are strong and deservedly so.
The Eclipse stand was constantly buzzing though, far more so than any other manufacturer, so I wouldn't be surprised if the show generated a few more orders for big Vern.

Apparently most air taxi missions are less than 1000nm and involve carrying the pilot, a wealthy individual and said wealthy individual's accountant/lawyer. I don't think the TBM's load hauling capacity or range would be necessary for most trips.

I agree the TBM is beautiful and built like the proverbial brick outhouse.
(It was part designed by Mooney so it definitely gets my seal of approval.)
I know the VP of Socata who is in charge of TBM 850 sales as a personal friend and would love to buy a plane from him but at double the price of the Eclipse? Even a zillionaire (and I am definitely not one) would probably take 2 Eclipses. The advantages are that it has 2 engines (debatable benefit I know but lets not get into that one), higher svc ceiling, 50kts higher max cruise speed, most gizmos as standard (unlike the TBM where you pay for the wx radar as an extra and lose 5kts in cruise) and it is half the price.

Like any aircraft it depends what you want to use it for.

SB

[eglk01]

hi all ive just got back from sun and fun in Florida grat event both the Eclipse
and Citation Mustang took place in daily airshow!,both very smart quite
and fast,btw Eclipse are coming to U.K. IN JUNE for demos TBC.

[IO540]

Apparently most air taxi missions are less than 1000nm and involve carrying the pilot, a wealthy individual and said wealthy individual's accountant/lawyer. I don't think the TBM's load hauling capacity or range would be necessary for most trips.

I've read this too (w.r.t. the US air-taxi market) but if you offer an air taxi operation you can't restrict it in advance to the head of some Russian mafia and his bodyguard. You just might get a handful of fat blokes and their golfing gear. And fat Americans are even bigger than fat Brits or Germans...

This is one problem which piston twin (e.g. Seneca) charter operators (who also rent the plane out) over here have; they have to make sure any renter returns the plane with nearly empty tanks.... occassionally this gets cut rather too close. But hey, they have an AOC so nuffing can go wrong.

And a few fat Americans and golf gear won't go in an Eclipse, well not for 1000nm in the upper airways.

TBH I don't know how this will be reconciled. I am sure the Eclipse will make a great 2/3-person jet for serious travel all over Europe, and that's what most owner-pilots want, but air taxi??

[IO540]

In europe you require 2 crew by law for AOC work

That's definitely not correct, as stated. Plenty of G-reg piston twin charter work is done single pilot.

There are also other AOC-required ops such as traffic spotting for a radio station; again single pilot.

[scooter boy]

"In europe you require 2 crew by law for AOC work

That's definitely not correct, as stated. Plenty of G-reg piston twin charter work is done single pilot."

There are also other AOC-required ops such as traffic spotting for a radio station; again single pilot.

AFAIK it depends on whether the particular aircraft is certified for single crew, the type of flight being undertaken and also the rules of the jurisdiction that the aircraft is operated under (N or G reg) and in (based out of USA, UK etc...).

I thought the Eclipse was going to have single crew certification under part 135? I may be wrong.

SB

[sternone]

Scooterboy, how will you build your twin hours to get your insurance on the eclipse ?

[421C]

AFAIK JAR-OPS permits single crew AOC on some single-pilot aircraft (sometimes with operating limits, eg. single crew IFR requires operating autopitlot, even if that's not a certification requirement on the aircraft) but requires 2 crew for all jet AOC work irrespective if the jet is single-pilot.

I think the FAA system is much the same, and that the FSDOs that approve 135 operators tend to require 2 crew for jets.

Whether EASA and the FAA permit single-pilot AOC work is a significant issue for the cost and utility of the Eclipse in air taxi work.

[IO540]

Sorry CJ, not being pedantic deliberately; I didn't know the jet requirement.