Eclipse 500?
 

hey,

would like a professional opinion..wat do u guys think of the eclipse 500?
i'm looking into purchasing an aircraft for personal use. Apparently eclipse has boasted low costs, but everytime i check up on them they seem to be raising the price of the jet. Also, whats a fair pay for contracting a pilot out to fly it?

Well, the Elcipse 500 has a relativly low operating cost of around $500 an hour. The very light composite material its made out of has got me a little skeptical of its safety record. I'll wait and see how it performs before I pass judgement on it. For pilots try www.linearair.com

Insurance premiums will make this, and most VLJ's very prohibitive when compared to the lower operating costs of comparable turboprops and cabin pistions. I really don't think the VLJ will be an earth-shattering development because there are already two similiar jets on the market (CJ and Premier) with relatively low operating costs and about the same range with payload. Most companies find it cheaper to put two pilots in it than going single pilot in these jets.

Isn't the cruise speed about .65? That sounds slow for a jet. The range is short too. A fast turbo prop is probably a better buy? King Air 350 or Cheyenne 400.

hmm yea it seems like there would be more costs to the eclipse. yea i'm also looking into the king air 350, thats actually where im leaning towards.

the operators who have options for the airplane are only planning on carrying 2 passengers because the weight restrictions will prove to be a problem... there is not much room for passengers in the airplane considering it is essentially the same size as a seneca but with turbofans on the tail... cramped quarters.. not everyone is 150 pounds so getting 5 pax plus a pilot in there is going to be a problem

yea it does seem pretty stuffy from the pics! the king airs seem like a good way to go, been lookin at both the b200 , 350.

350's a nicer plane than the 200 (which is also sweet), but it requires a type.

theres a few of us going in on this airplane, space was one of the issues. we will be using the airplane quite a bit between all of us. looking at bout 20-30 hours of flying time a month at most. whats the average salary for the b200? co pilot / captain
60 - 75g for captain
30 - 45g for co pilot , is that fair?

You'd have to check with the Be20 drivers on this board to be positive, but those seem like higher-than-average salaries to me. At those rates, I doubt you'd have a problem finding applicants (where do I submit a resume? :D ). Also, unless your insurance carrier requires a right-seater, the 200 is a single-pilot plane.

You may also want to check out the Cessna Conquest II with Garrett -10's. The interior is a little bit smaller, but it cruises about 50 knots faster. (325+ ktas)

I just read an article on corporate pay. I can't remember the magazine, but it was this month's. Beechcraft makes an excellant product- I've never flown a bad Beech of any model. One of the fastest turbo-props out there (not currently being made) is the Cheyenne 400 at 350KTAS (no type rating needed = 12,000lbs). I used to fly one back in the '80's. The KA350 is fast too, but I don't know the numbers. There are a lot of Cessna jets too. Old and new, large and small, fast and slow, cheap and expensive. The VLJ's doesn't impress me, yet.

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_bca.jsp

It's Business and Commercial Avaition magazine. A good issue to get if looking at a plane.

The 400LS has carbon fiber Dowdy props... very very expensive to maintain. It is an awesome plane though.

Well I'd want my pilots to be well paid, not underpaid. I can't even believe some of you guys fly for 15-25 grand a year. How do you do that? ur a pilot for god sakes. flying a multi million dollar airplane around on 15 grand a year, with advanced training. how do you guys even accept that salary? i make more then that on my 2 week paycheck!

im currently working some unloggable right seat time in the 200... ops spec says it is single pilot, but im just looking for a little experience... anyways, the guy that is flying is making close to 50 a year and flies about 400 hours a year... the downside is that he has to do everything at all

Welcome to aviation. Please apply as CEO for Continental Airlines, I like the way you think. I made $36K last year flying a 737 full time. Now I fly the 757 and 767 for $55k. :(

Otto, you are kidding, right? Tell me it ain't so. $55K to fly hundreds of people around? $55K to put up with management clowns? $55K to suffer the indignities served up by the TSA?

PS: Sorry for taking this thread off topic. This is my last post on this thread.

I don't think any King Air or a Cheyenne 400 can fly at FL410.

It's true. First year pay and second year pay. Traditionally low and lower still today.

The Cheyenne 400 can. It holds many altitude, time to climb, and speed records. Normally it does not fly at FL410. The best TAS are around FL300. The same is true for the VLJ's.

Consider the C-441 Conquest II. It's faster and the range is better that the King. I used to fly from KFRG (NY) to F45 (FL) in 3.5 hrs. Not a bad deal for a Turbo Prop. Max Alt is 33K....

Here's a fairly opinionated critique of Eclipse:

http://eclipseaviationcritic.blogspot.com/

Grain of salt necessary, but an interesting read.

If you want an actual jet at low cost you can get an older citation and then there is a modification they do in braketville tx that pretty much zero's it out. All you have to do is buy they jet then send it to them. For about 1.2mil they will add new baggage compartments. New engines. Pull the wings and completely redo them. New glass cockpit ect. So if you see an old citation laying around just take the price of it and add 1.2mil to it and that's what you could basically have price wise for a new jet. Operating cost would be nice and low as well as the value of the aircraft shoots up.

As far as what you're wanting you should list some more details. How many people would you like to carry, how far would you like to go, how much baggage ect and also how tall you are.

I fly a Merlin IIIB and it will fly faster further and more efficiently than a Kingair. You can put 9 people plus baggage on it. You don't need a type rating to fly that one because it's at 12500lbs. Now you can put over 14k on it illegally because the only difference between the 12.5k and bigger one is the brake pads. However as stated it's illegal so don't do it :) It has 2k horsepower is extremely quiet on the inside and burns around 600lbs an hour. My boss paid 699k for his and it cost around $750 an hour to operate.

Or you could go with a Cheyenne with some nice PT-6 engines or a jet-prop moves nice and fast with low operating cost.

I would look at the Epic LT, it does like 350knts max and is a single, burns 50 or 60 gallons an hour last time I checked.

other than that I would personally go for the Cheyenne 400LS or the Kingair 300 (not the 350) becuase it's going to be cheaper to buy upfront and only has 2 less seats.

oh btw, I heard someone got an STC for the -400 to put on 5 blade hatzels and are pulling way over 400knts in it.

pretty crazy with 3,200hp at your disposal.

but if you can afford a 350, just go for the avanti, it'll perform like no other.

thanks boys, looks like i've got some research to do. appreciate the insight :)

My advice: don't be the first customer of an aircraft. Don't ever buy the "A" model of anything. Later models are better versions of the original. Go with something tried and true.

I'll second that, when it comes to Eclipse or any VLJ. but the light jets are preety much run out as far as bugs go.

I was looking around alittle more and found the SJ-302

560mph

2,500 miles

single pilot operated

mach .83 high speed cruise and .78 long range

95 gallons an hour at long rnage cruise.

49,000ft celing

and it's under 12,500 pounds

about the early on crash, the pilot was pushing mach .91 which is way over what it was designed to do.

I would buy one.