ANN Flies The Eclipse 500... and The Eclipse Lives (Revised,
Part 1 of 7)
By ANN Editor-In-Chief Jim Campbell
We Jet-Jockeys Are SO Screwed… Pity the poor jet pilot of
the not-too-distant future. Used to regaling various
oh-so-impressionable sweeties with feats of derring-do, of tales
wrestling those fearsome jet devils through the skies with
incredible skills bequeathed to the very few whom God has looked
upon with favor; we self-aggrandizing jet-jockies are about to get
a wake-up call (and may never get lucky again, unless we come up
with a better shtick...).
[Note to our female readers... and don't even think of telling
me that those of you working in jets have never tried to impress a
guy with such tales... I've seen more than a few of you do it, and
the only difference is that you're usually FAR better at it than we
are... damn it.]
At any rate, jet flying seems to have just gotten a lot
easier... and (dare I say it) potentially, a lot safer. Yup,
"Vern's Folly" is for real... and the dream of a modern,
affordable, (much) easier-to-fly turbine transportation system is
looking like it just mighta, sorta, kinda could be for real.
Gulp.
It was an interesting week as we made the rounds of a number of
GA manufacturers to get updates on the progress of various new and
fairly new aircraft development programs. But NO flight has been as
eagerly anticipated as ANN's first flight in the Eclipse 500.
Over the course of a few days, ANN got thoroughly briefed about
what was going right, what wasn't, and had excellent access to the
factory, its staff (who is turning into a force to be reckoned
with) and CEO Vern Raburn -- and for the better part of two
delightful hours, the (then, it has since gotten a new
sibling) youngest member of the E-500 fleet, N504EA.
ANN's full flight test report and profile of the current state
of the art E-500, still maturing slowly (and a bit behind schedule)
warts and all, is a monster… try as we might, there was no
way to compress the information we gathered, and the enthusiasm we
have come to have for this exciting program. And nearly ten
thousand words later, we think we can finally give it a rest -- for
a few weeks -- maybe.. or at least until we fly it again. Thank God
we're all electronic now because if we had to print the whole story
out, the arboreal casualty stats (for the requisite paper) would
scare the tree-huggers into catatonia.
After flogging the Gods of Aerodynamics for the better part
of two hours, we peeked into each corner of the envelope on a
warm Albuquerque morning that was at least ISA +10 and a near full
load (full of gas, Eclipse Test Pilot Terry Tomeny, yours truly --
after breakfast, God help them -- and a few racks of test gear). We
worked a test profile that took us right up to the ceiling of our
flight test area at 18,000 feet. The test profile included
stability and control checks, basic maneuvering and performance
evals, approach mode maneuvering at 85 knots with everything
hanging in the breeze, throwing the gear out at all of 200 knots,
engine cuts and throttle slams at 200 knots, 230 kt speed runs,
steep turns up to and including 60 degrees, a half dozen take-offs
and landings using a number of normal and quasi-abnormal profiles
(full flap, no flap and simulated flame-outs), a pseudo-ILS to
ABQ's Rwy 3 (including my amazing drunken sailor localizer
performance after having to fly it using the right side PFD after
tumbling the left side PFD whilst investigating steep
banks/screwing around). The best part of it all is that Terry is
NOT a stick hog (a brave man, a USAF veteran no less), having let
me play PIC with nary a hint of interference (a well-insured man,
no doubt) while I did my best to scare the bejesus out of him for
nearly two full hours with the exception of one flawlessly executed
SFO (Simulated Flame-Out) that HE demo'ed just so that folks down
below could see that the aircraft really was under the control of a
pilot who knew what he was doing. There was more... but you get the
idea.
The amazing upshot of it all is this… the Eclipse lived,
we had a ball the entire time, and the reality of this critter is
beginning to set in… that this crazy-ass Raburn guy just
might actually pull this project off!
Time For The Nitty-Gritty
The prep for ANN's first test flight of the Eclipse 500 was
thorough and brutally honest - a totally unexpected situation for
just about any company outside of Eclipse… who has set a new
standard for openness and honesty as this project came together -
and even as it stumbled, fell and picked itself up. As Eclipse
pushes toward certification with barely more than half a year left
before the targeted TC for the E-500, there is no doubt that the
Eclipse folks are starting to feel the pressure (though that 55
gallon drum of Maalox hidden in the employee cafeteria was a dead
give-away). With the TC already rescheduled, some time ago, after
the Williams powerplants were abandoned as uncertifiable or usable
at the present level of technology, Eclipse has been under the
magnifying glass ever since as the nay-sayers look for every chance
to point out the obligatory slippages and problems such an immense
undertaking is bound to encounter.
Mind you; it's ridiculous to assert that this program is without
problems or challenges, but for some reason, every possible
difficulty is looked upon with delight by those who are convinced
that Eclipse will fail because no one has yet been able to do what
they have promised. If this industry had listened to such
nay-sayers over the years, we'd all still be flying biplanes and
hand-propping our birds…
At the time I flew, the flight test program was several weeks
and hundreds of flight test hours behind where they'd hoped to
be… and that's the least of their problems (though the gap
is now being narrowed rapidly). With four aircraft now in the
flight test program and a fifth on its way, a more aggressive
schedule and a renewed commitment to getting back on track seems to
be a winning strategy. Over the next few months, the flying
activity at Eclipse is going to be frenzied… though expertly
managed under the careful eye of a number of industry vets,
including USAF Vet test-jock Terry Tomeny, a former F-22 and F-16
jock who has a strong GA bent, to boot. This group is obviously
bound and determined to bring even more discipline to a program
that wasn't exactly slouching, to begin with.
It's not the test program, though, that's putting the pressure
on CEO Vern Raburn's highly motivated troops… it's the
inexorable minutiae of designing, building and certifying every
aspect of a complex aircraft that is being configured to be even
simpler to operate than a number of popular piston twins… no
small order, that. Its one thing to build a complex machine…
it's another to simplify a complex machine for an end-user who may
not exactly be a brain surgeon - even on TV.
Jets For Dummies… Indeed.
To Be Continued...