Absolutely! But I 'cheated' in the way that I maintained the plane, which saved a lot of $. Of course, it was completely legal in my FSDO's opinion just not in the opinion of the manufacturer. I also didn't really have any big failures. The planes were extremely reliable. My friend spent $70k on windshields and $30k on some power control module all within 2 months. If I had flown 100 hours per year (still a lot of ground covered in the jet) and had any big ticket items to repair, that $1k per hour could easily have been double. If I wanted the plane to be eligible for the life extension (so it didn't turn into a pumpkin, that's a minimum $100k to have the 48 month inspection done at EAI.

But yes, a jet for $1k per hour all in! The L-39 drinks that much per hour in fuel alone! Even the citation mustang has about 40% higher fuel consumption block to block. The Eclipse is such a great little jet that it really is sad to watch the company do what they are doing. I wish Cessna would buy the TC and throw a G3000 in it.

It is possible that I could own another some day, but for now I had to make the decision to sell. It's a great airplane (even with it's shortcomings), but I would rather do business with the Mafia, a Columbian Drug Lord, and Bernie Madoff before EAI.

Oh, and I just signed the purchase agreement for a very nice legacy Citation an hour ago. It looks like an extremely good deal, I am a bit surprised they accepted my offer. Fingers are crossed that the inspection and acceptance flight goes well. Now, time to book another type rating school ...

Good Lord! That didn't take long. WTH it's only $$, right?

It sounds like your luck and creativity allowed you to realize the relatively low costs, then Ted.

That being said and realizing there can be quite a bit of variability, what would you tell a prospective Eclipse owner to expect for all-in hourly costs, assuming they do things the 'proper way'?

Hello Ted,

Thanks for the excellent write up. I thought the Eclipse had a 10,000 hr. life limit initially that was increased to 20,000 hrs recently. I didn't know it had a 10 year life limit as well. Is this the case?

Best regards,
Jim Christy

Yep, 10 calendar years. Suspect this is on the TCDS though I'm not feeling like looking it up.

This was one of the major certification IOU's left undone by Eclipse 1. It's certainly a nice pillar supporting the business plan of Eclipse 2.

It's a shame that the company doesn't just offer an all-inclusive support plan. That's what the company needs - a monthly tribute from each airframe. And in return they ought to be able to provide whatever parts are needed. EA gets it's money and the owners get predictability.

I would tell them "It depends." There are just too many variables. I think $850 per hour (not counting cost of capital) is the absolute best you could ever do. That's flying a lot, never having anything go wrong with the plane, cheap hangar, shopping hard for fuel and using contract pricing, etc. If you fly 50 hours in a year, hangar it near LA or NYC and have your windshield heat sensors fail (which happens as lot and requires replacing the windshields. It's such a problem that the 550 windshields will have extra sensors in them so when they fail you have a backup), you could easily spend $4k per hour.

It's the most efficient jet there is. Not much more expensive than the piston twins I have owned per nautical mile, cheaper than some. It's a great airplane, it really is! However, there are a lot of idiosyncrasies. Bugs that haven't been worked out and maybe never will be. The company holds you hostage for $8,800 light bulbs (that was for 1 of the wingtip LED position light bulb assemblies) that you aren't allowed to buy anywhere else. The CEO originally promised to support the airframes, then changed his mind and said that he would only support those airframes whose owners wrote EAI a big check. Currently they support 1.5, 1.7 and iFMS, but who knows when they will decide they don't want to support the 1.5 and 1.7 any longer?

Some day...if I work really really hard, I hope to have you guys' problems.

Didn't think you had any complaints about your plane. You researched it throughly, so have totally realistic expectations as to what it can and cannot do. As it should be.
At least I haven't heard anything to indicate you were unhappy with the plane????

Can you be more specific about which Legacy Citations you're looking at? Not the actual one, just which model.

It's an early 500 but with the longwing and some nice mods. Great engine times, good avionics, pt 135 maintenance.

Thank you for your insights !

It's an early 500 but with the longwing and some nice mods. Great engine times, good avionics, pt 135 maintenance.

I have 2 local friends with eclipses. One of their brothers just bought a 1.3 version and after getting typed, eclipse would not permit a mentor pilot to fly in it because it was not upgraded. They forced him to buy an ifms plane and he put the the 1.3 up for sale.

They also make getting parts for the early versions almost impossible.

Then there are the 8000 light bulbs.

Cool plane but no thanks.

Mike

If you can operate a jet for close to the per mile cost of a piston twin, or less, you'd think there would be a huge market. If the choice is a $1.5 million King Air C90 or a $1.5 million jet at the costs per hour your talking a King Air doesn't make a lot sense.