BeechTalk - BT

Username Protected · **Posted:** 25 Feb 2014, 21:14

Username Protected wrote:

The plane might be really cool and fun; however I wonder how Eclipse can be successful longer term. Rolling their own avionics and a lot of hardware with a very small base to spread the costs.

Well, the idea in the original scam was that there would be thousands of airframes to service.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 25 Feb 2014, 21:20

Username Protected wrote:

I know that, I was referencing the restart of production.

They probably dont have the money to re-certify the plane without all the proprietary crap.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 25 Feb 2014, 21:23

Username Protected wrote:

".... Composite airframes are still in their infancy and there is a lot of change and development going on ..."

As a supplier to Boeing's 787 and a frequent visitor at the Charleston plant I can tell you composite parts are no longer infants; they are clearly here to stay. My wife was very involved with the development of composite airframe parts in the late 80s thru mid 2000s. They had the process pretty well figured out more than a decade ago.

I'll partially agree... composites are here to stay in the jetliner world, but they are most certainly not low-cost and to date the methods that are in use by them today haven't translated well down to our Part 23 world in my opinion. Beech did some innovation, but failed in the execution and paid the price. Columbia and Cirrus used traditional techniques and tried valiantly, but I think we need another iteration to fully optimize production composite techniques for the smaller planes to make them significantly less expensive to produce. We need more radical structural integration to reduce part count and assembly time, as well as capable materials that can be processed out-of-autoclave.

FWIW, I've been in the industry for almost 20 years, and my first "job" was as an intern at Cirrus in 1994. I've worked on a lot of composite structure for Boeing products including the 787 fuselage, G650 propulsion structure, and now a composite bizjet. Needless to say, I'm a believer in composites, but want to see it advanced for the Part 23 world so we can hopefully reduce costs and improve performance and durability.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 25 Feb 2014, 22:50

Username Protected wrote:

I don't however give them points for trying to simultaneously create their own in-house flight deck and I think that sucked up a lot of resources and helped doom the plane the first time around. With Raburn and the gang coming from a software background, I bet they thought they could do better than what was available at the time. I wonder what would have happened if they just bought a G1000 or even Avidyne solution off the shelf and gotten the plane going a lot sooner.

I thing you're applying 20-20 hindsight on that one. The plane was originally designed with a customization of the Avidyne. Which added synoptics and moving map / fms (instead of being external like the 430 in Cirrus). At the time they were at the stage of deciding on architecture and suppliers Avidyne was pretty successful in the Cirrus and G1000 didn't exist. I don't think there was even a hint at the time that the G1000 was going to take over the world.

Byron

Username Protected · **Posted:** 25 Feb 2014, 23:38

Username Protected wrote:

At the time they were at the stage of deciding on architecture and suppliers Avidyne was pretty successful in the Cirrus and G1000 didn't exist. I don't think there was even a hint at the time that the G1000 was going to take over the world.

Even going with steam gauges would have been better. Both the TBM and the PC12 were successful with non-integrated avionics for the longest time (I believe they had EHSI systems).

Username Protected · **Posted:** 25 Feb 2014, 23:42

They would've been better off with a standard shelf avionics suite for sure. When I first flew one and they said you couldn't couple an approach I gulped pretty big. But, just imagine if a bunch of software engineers can't get the avionics right?! They had to do the avionics. It would be like Williams building a jet and putting Pratts on it. Doomed from the start.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 25 Feb 2014, 23:57

... so I took a quick look at Controller. How can a 1/4 share in fully upgraded Eclipse be $75K?

http://www.controller.com/listingsdetai ... 312539.htm

:scratch:

Username Protected · **Posted:** 26 Feb 2014, 00:02

Username Protected wrote:

... so I took a quick look at Controller. How can a 1/4 share in fully upgraded Eclipse be $75K?

http://www.controller.com/listingsdetai ... 312539.htm

:scratch:

Leverage

There's probably a note on the plane. Co-ownership arrangement pays the debt. So... total debt + $300K is the advertised value of the plane.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 26 Feb 2014, 00:44

Username Protected wrote:

I didn't think that the friction-stir welding process set them back at all. I could be misremembering or just plain wrong. But I thought that part worked out.

Plain wrong. The capital and fixed cost intensive nature of FSW makes it only pay off in very high production numbers, numbers that general aviation will likely never be able to generate. Automotive analogies just don't work - the auto industry generates the number of vehicles in a couple minutes that aircraft manufacturers put out in years. Different animal for designing a cost effective manufacturing process.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 26 Feb 2014, 00:55

Username Protected wrote:

I didn't think that the friction-stir welding process set them back at all. I could be misremembering or just plain wrong. But I thought that part worked out.

Plain wrong. The capital and fixed cost intensive nature of FSW makes it only pay off in very high production numbers, numbers that general aviation will likely never be able to generate. Automotive analogies just don't work - the auto industry generates the number of vehicles in a couple minutes that aircraft manufacturers put out in years. Different animal for designing a cost effective manufacturing process.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 26 Feb 2014, 01:00

Username Protected wrote:

It's worked very well for our Atlas V booster. So well in fact that we've switched the Delta IV to it. These are amongst the lowest production rates of anything out there,

Ok, well, perhaps you get more per unit for the Atlas than Eclipse is getting for the wee jet?

Username Protected · **Posted:** 26 Feb 2014, 01:03

Username Protected wrote:

It's worked very well for our Atlas V booster. So well in fact that we've switched the Delta IV to it. These are amongst the lowest production rates of anything out there,

Ok, well, perhaps you get more per unit for the Atlas than Eclipse is getting for the wee jet?

Username Protected · **Posted:** 26 Feb 2014, 01:05

It's used on some parts of the Embraer 450/550, Boeing 747 Freighter, Airbus 380, C-17, and ships and launch vehicles. None of which are high rate of course.

Byron

Username Protected wrote:

Plain wrong. The capital and fixed cost intensive nature of FSW makes it only pay off in very high production numbers, numbers that general aviation will likely never be able to generate. Automotive analogies just don't work - the auto industry generates the number of vehicles in a couple minutes that aircraft manufacturers put out in years. Different animal for designing a cost effective manufacturing process.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 26 Feb 2014, 01:22

Ted, just a little off topic here, but I was watching an episode of 'Dangerous Flights' and one of the ferry pilots is Pete Zaccognino. He's based in Utah and has an L39 himself. I figured that's a small community of pilots that own one. Familiar with him? Said he's also a test pilot, etc.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 26 Feb 2014, 01:29

Username Protected wrote:

Ted, just a little off topic here, but I was watching an episode of 'Dangerous Flights' and one of the ferry pilots is Pete Zaccognino. He's based in Utah and has an L39 himself. I figured that's a small community of pilots that own one. Familiar with him? Said he's also a test pilot, etc.

I did a Citation Type for Pete back in 04 or 05, sharp guy, had been to test pilot school.

My Eclipse Jet Saga ....