Back atcha- now watch it this way.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/fsgWUq0fdKk[/youtube]

Smoke screen.

The real story is that he wants to sell new jets to the owners of older Eclipse.

If he was that worried about the early Eclipse, he could find a way to upgrade them for a reasonable sum and still make money. Otherwise, a plane that the pilots avoid ice doesn't sound more dangerous than one where they are told they can fly through it. In any case, the accident record suggests this is a ridiculous worry.

Withholding the life extension is a purely business decision and has nothing to do with safety or technical concerns. This should tell any prospective Eclipse buyer all they need to know about the company and how it will manipulate the rules to their advantage and not the owners. You don't buy an airplane, you buy an airplane ecosystem, and the company behind it is important.

They have only one reliable source of revenue, the existing captured owners, and they can manipulate the rules to extract revenue as needed.

Mike C.

Except they aren't captured. There's probably a bigger chance the owners of the orphaned aircraft are so pissed off they will never give Eclipse their new business, just out of pure principle. So if the CEO thinks he'll get their business by forcing them to buy a new one, he's gravely mistaken.

It sounds like he doesn't care if the current owners buy new Eclipse jets, only that he gets their airframes to rebuild and sell to someone he hasn't already screwed.

Your comments might make sense if you actually owned an Eclipse or had a bad experience with them.

Let me tell you Eclipse's latest action. It turns out that part of the landing gear has been defectively machined in some airplanes.

Eclipse's response to this news is that they will inspect the whole fleet and make any repairs required for free.

1st class and I would like to know what other manufacture would treat the owners this well.

I would say all of them. The case as you've described it seems like a very basic level of product support.

Jeff,
Can you site a case where a company bought the assets of a bankrupt company and then spent money on the product produced by the bankrupt company?

As far as I know that's why you buy just the assets you lose all the liabilities the old company had.

yes, the company I work for has done that with dozens of acquisitions that I'm aware of and surely countless more that I don't know about. Remedying a manufacturing defect is as basic as it gets. I would expect that and a lot more.

Jeff,
Please give me the details I want to learn. I have never heard or read about what you are describing happening.

I don't know what you are asking for. Why don't you ring up your local yellow dealer about a problem with your mining shovel, locomotive, or ship engine and tell us what kind of service you get.

Any manufacturer who didn't want to deal with class action lawsuits and/or liability issues down the road. What you describe makes sense whether you are customer focused or incredibly self-centered.

I don't know what you are asking for. Why don't you ring up your local yellow dealer about a problem with your mining shovel, locomotive, or ship engine and tell us what kind of service you get.

Any manufacturer who didn't want to deal with class action lawsuits and/or liability issues down the road. What you describe makes sense whether you are customer focused or incredibly self-centered.

OK, now I'm on board (must have been too much turkey). No, New Eclipse would not be responsible for Old Eclipse's defect.

So, why then do they care about the lifespan of the Old Eclipse airframes?

SkyStar did that (kitplane company, held the rights to the Kitfox line for several years). They filed for Chapter 7 (liquidation) and went out of business, leaving me and a lot of other customers high and dry with fully-paid but partially-delivered kits.

Another company bought up their tangible assets and intellectual property and then brought most of the product line back to market. I'm pretty sure the new company didn't assume any of the liabilities (financial liabilities; non-financial, well, that's probably case-by-case up to the legal system) but they have done a pretty good job supporting the grassroots customers.