Eclipse Owners & Depositors Screwed

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john smith

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Eclipse Plan Approved, Factory Doors Still Open
By Matt Thurber AINalerts
December 2008

Just one day after filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy last Tuesday, a group of investors, including European distributor Etirc Aviation, received court approval to provide interim financing to keep the very light jet manufacturer open and its 954 employees working...

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For more, see http://www.ainonline.com/news/singl...lipse-plan-approved-factory-doors-still-open/
 
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Uh, how does this square with the abrogation of virtually anything resembling a contract or an agreement they announced last week?

As I understood it, the new Eclipse won't warranty work, won't fix what's broken, won't improve what's crappy, won't upgrade what was promised to be upgraded. In short, they've given a very big, fat middle finger to anyone who had the temerity, the gall, the impudence to buy one of their products.
 
flyersfan31 said:
Uh, how does this square with the abrogation of virtually anything resembling a contract or an agreement they announced last week?

As I understood it, the new Eclipse won't warranty work, won't fix what's broken, won't improve what's crappy, won't upgrade what was promised to be upgraded. In short, they've given a very big, fat middle finger to anyone who had the temerity, the gall, the impudence to buy one of their products.
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...and the temerity, the gall, the impudence, the ignorance, the misguided faith to stick with them and possibly get in deeper, through the repeated broken promises.
 
mikea said:
...and the temerity, the gall, the impudence, the ignorance, the misguided faith to stick with them and possibly get in deeper, through the repeated broken promises.
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What's legal is not always moral. That seems to be the lesson here.:frown3:
 
flyersfan31 said:
What's legal is not always moral. That seems to be the lesson here.:frown3:
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Very true. It will be interesting to see what the market says about the value of used Eclipses. A used, low-time VLJ with no FIKI, poorly integrated avionics and no warranty...hmmm...$200k?


Trapper John
 
I was surprised about the sheer number of bad decisions Eclipse made. If you're a new player in the market, I'd make sure to hire people who have been involved in building jets at Cessna or similar. Mistakes like that windshield or the avionics just shouldn't have happened...

Very sad. Now investors will be even more suspicious of my attempt at an aviation company ;)
 
Vern was a snake oil salesman -- very likeable but you quickly learned to be skeptical of everything he said. Roel is more like Ernst Blofeld; I would hesitate to give him my car keys if he were a parking valet.
 
AdamZ said:
They have two and Wings. Wonder what will happen there?
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I think in 5 years some other company will own the Eclipse TC and will continue to support the aircraft out there, even if manufacturing shuts down. The market value will plummet and initial owners will be burned, but hey, people still own and support a lot of orphan aircraft, so it's logical someone will own and support Eclipse 500s rather than scrap $200 million+ worth of hardware.
 
Trapper John said:
Very true. It will be interesting to see what the market says about the value of used Eclipses. A used, low-time VLJ with no FIKI, poorly integrated avionics and no warranty...hmmm...$200k?


Trapper John
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Actually, the latest serial number planes were FIKI; a fella I know has one. You are certainly correct about most of the birds and even his doesn't allow GPS direct flight.

Best,

Dave
 
Trapper John said:
Very true. It will be interesting to see what the market says about the value of used Eclipses. A used, low-time VLJ with no FIKI, poorly integrated avionics and no warranty...hmmm...$200k?
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Sell the engines for three times that and dump the rest in the boneyard?

Oh, wait, no other aircraft uses them!
 
Trapper John said:
I wonder if any of these have sold yet?

http://www.eclipseaviation.com/specialSale/


Trapper John
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There are some optimistic souls marketing 2009 delivery positions AT A PREMIUM over deposit on Controller.com!!!

Lowest published asking price $1.4MM for an 07 with 250 hours. A July delivery with 30 TT can be had for $1.6MM (asking).

Anyone want to put odds on those numbers going down by 20% in the next 4 weeks?
 
Ken Ibold said:
There are some optimistic souls marketing 2009 delivery positions AT A PREMIUM over deposit on Controller.com!!!

Lowest published asking price $1.4MM for an 07 with 250 hours. A July delivery with 30 TT can be had for $1.6MM (asking).

Anyone want to put odds on those numbers going down by 20% in the next 4 weeks?
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$1.4 mil less 20% is $1.12 mil. I could buy an MU-2 with decent remaining times for $450-500k, update the avionics and still have hundreds of thousands left to pay the fuel and maintenance. Not really that much speed difference, either...


Trapper John
 
Trapper John said:
$1.4 mil less 20% is $1.12 mil. I could buy an MU-2 with decent remaining times for $450-500k, update the avionics and still have hundreds of thousands left to pay the fuel and maintenance. Not really that much speed difference, either...
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That's true. Having flown both, though, no contest from purely piloting standpoint. A 1950s design is a far cry from a 1990s design. The Eclipse is WAAAYYYYY easier to fly, and, I believe, likely to be safer simply due to reduced workload. Hard to fly an MU-2 without getting sweaty.

However, as you say, from an OWNERSHIP standpoint, it's an entirely different matter!
 
Ken Ibold said:
Sell the engines for three times that and dump the rest in the boneyard?

Oh, wait, no other aircraft uses them!
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As to the airplanes, I suspect that the difficulty (cost+time) making the existing airframes useful would greatly exceed any possible benefit making it unlikely that anyone with any sense would undertake it. I assume that PW would be willing to support the engines. Maybe I should develop a STC to put those engines on Something like a Duke. Probably make the Duke cheaper to operate than with the current engines. Might be a bit faster too!
 
Trapper John said:
Very true. It will be interesting to see what the market says about the value of used Eclipses. A used, low-time VLJ with no FIKI, poorly integrated avionics and no warranty...hmmm...$200k?
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Put it in the Experimental category and fix all that. :D
 
lancefisher said:
Maybe I should develop a STC to put those engines on Something like a Duke. Probably make the Duke cheaper to operate than with the current engines. Might be a bit faster too!
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That would be pretty cool! Might even be quieter, too. I wonder what the static thrust is for the engine/prop combination on the Duke?


Trapper John
 
I'm guessing the owner of that one that ran off the end of the runway in Brandywine KOQN a few months ago is hugging his pilot for comming in to hot now.
 
AdamZ said:
I'm guessing the owner of that one that ran off the end of the runway in Brandywine KOQN a few months ago is hugging his pilot for comming in to hot now.
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No kidding - that calls for Champagne!
 
Trapper John said:
$1.4 mil less 20% is $1.12 mil. I could buy an MU-2 with decent remaining times for $450-500k, update the avionics and still have hundreds of thousands left to pay the fuel and maintenance. Not really that much speed difference, either...


Trapper John
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The analysis isn't complete until the cycle is complete. You have to assume a sale at some point. Good luck on moving either one of those sows.
 
wabower said:
The analysis isn't complete until the cycle is complete. You have to assume a sale at some point. Good luck on moving either one of those sows.
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Fair enough, but a lot of worn out MU-2s ended up as freight dogs. How many Eclipses could pull that kind of duty?

OK, let's substitute an old King Air (C-90?) for the MU-2. Do you think we could find one with decent times/cycles left that's passed all the alphabet checks for, say, $700k?


Trapper John
 
Much less, actually. Many real nice airplanes for less than $500k.

Trapper John said:
Fair enough, but a lot of worn out MU-2s ended up as freight dogs. How many Eclipses could pull that kind of duty?

OK, let's substitute an old King Air (C-90?) for the MU-2. Do you think we could find one with decent times/cycles left that's passed all the alphabet checks for, say, $700k?


Trapper John
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Well if they weren't screwed before, they're surely screwed now!

Eclipse headed toward chapter 7 liquidation, all 800 employees laid off

Eclipse Aviation Corp. said it will not contest a motion by senior secured creditors to convert Eclipse’s bankruptcy proceedings to a Chapter 7 liquidation.

The company said it has suspended all business operations and expects the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware to promptly appoint a trustee to oversee the liquidation of assets.
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Eclipse Creditors Want Chapter 7
Eclipse Finally Fails, Fails Finally

Kind of sad, really - There was a lot of promise. An easy-to-fly jet, cheap to buy, operate, and maintain. They created the entire VLJ concept that many GA companies are betting their future on. Hopefully the others will have better luck, Cirrus in particular.
 
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flyingcheesehead said:
Well if they weren't screwed before, they're surely screwed now!

Eclipse headed toward chapter 7 liquidation, all 800 employees laid off



Eclipse Creditors Want Chapter 7
Eclipse Finally Fails, Fails Finally

Kind of sad, really - There was a lot of promise. An easy-to-fly jet, cheap to buy, operate, and maintain. They created the entire VLJ concept that many GA companies are betting their future on. Hopefully the others will have better luck, Cirrus in particular.
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Richard said:
They'll make it up on volume.:rofl::rofl::rofl:
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This is why it is often called the "Bleeding Edge" of Technology
 
Hmmm someone is gonna get a Type Certificate pretty cheaply out of this deal.
 
smigaldi said:
WOW! And still they went bankrupt. That really stinks! But it is hard to recoup NRE sometimes!!
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Mac McClellan wrote an "I told you so" story in his Flying column this month. Pretty amazing the amount of capital they were able to attract, even when it was clear they were going to lose gobs of money per unit.


Trapper John
 
Once these guys licked the friction stir welding thing, there didn't have to be nearly as much "bleeding edge" in getting this business profitable as they intentionally took on. They did it to themselves by losing focus on things like the hoogy floogy avionics that got dropped onto the critical path of the business schedule. Criminal.
 
A friend of mine flies an Eclipse jet for a group. He says he likes the plane and enjoys flying it, but it is annoying that the de-ice systems aren't (and now I suppose never will be) certified.

A few of the people I've talked to seemed to be of the opinion that Eclipse bit off more than it could chew and tried to reinvent the wheel too much, which is what caused a number of their issues. I don't know enough about the plane to comment, but it seems plausible.

I do think it's sad to see them go, though. It was a really cool plane in my opinion, although there are a few other planes I'd buy first.
 
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