Gear Trouble Obviates Oshkosh Appearance

In the words of the first person we contacted at Eclipse, to get more of the story, "Gee, you guys ARE good!"

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Thursday was supposed to have been just another development flight in the long series on the way to certification of the Eclipse personal jet. Things happen in development -- that's why you test -- and something happened on this particular flight.

On a clear Albuquerque morning at 7000', the idea, as always, was to get into the air before the runway's density altitude got too far into the Flight Levels, so it was early-up for the engineers and test pilot. As usual, CEO Vern Raburn was flying chase. "I was in the flare when the gear collapsed," he told ANN. "I just went around."

What happened?

Raburn explained, "We had an actuator failure, which caused the right main [gear] leg to collapse on rollout -- the actuator -- literally the casting -- split open." Vendor problem, in the qualification or acceptance cycle. "The good news is, we long ago terminated our contract with that company. We were just using the old one, because we had the parts," he said.

How bad?

"Damage was minimal," Raburn said. It was confined to the "...flap, flap track, the air data test boom -- beyond that, it was pretty minimal. There was zero damage to the structure or the skin -- and absolutely no fuel leak." The way the basic layout is set, that's the way it could have been predicted. "The plane pretty much rode on the flap and flap track," Vern noted. "If we had a right-hand flap in stock, we'd be flying again in a couple days."

How soon can they get it back together, and flying? That depends on when the damage assessment is complete, and then on what's in stock, etc. At any rate, damage is minimal. "Most of the repairs -- with the exception of the flap track -- it's mostly all bolt-on. We'll be flying again in the rrelatively near future," Raburn was certain.

Until roll-out, everything was according to Hoyle

"The flight had gone fine," Vern remembered, "--more envelope expansion, systems testing, flutter analysis." Then he turned philosophical on us: "This is why you do flight testing. It's unfortunate... I wish it hadn't happened." He added, with a great deal of relief in his voice, "Test Pilot Bill Bubb did a phenomenal job."

Oshkosh? Not this year.

The company and the exhibit will be at Oshkosh, of course; but not the airplane. "We weren't sure we were actually going to OSH anyway, the flight test program was so active," he noted, adding that the decision was to have been made on Friday, "... but this pretty much decided it for us."

What's next? "We're going to purge our inventory. This shouldn't have happened," the chief said.

FMI: www.eclipseaviation.com