Eclipse 500 Program Update
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Pilot Report 2 Business & Commercial Aviation ■ July 2005 www.AviationNow.com/BCA Eclipse 500 Program Update We fly the first VLJ in production configuration during a break in the race to March 2006 certification. Text by Fred George most of the engineering and development. gines. Raburn and his determined team eval- Photography by Phil Forbert Both would share the revenues from sales. uated alternative engine designs, such as the “In aviation, it’s always the engines that Agilis TF1000, Honda HF118, Honeywell have changed things. Sam’s company already LTF101 and Pratt & Whitney Canada had won NASA’s GAP [General Aviation PW600 in late 2002, and the following ight years ago, Vern Raburn, president Propulsion] contract. I liked this engine tech- February tapped P&WC to provide the and CEO of Albuquerque-based nology because it was a game changer. I saw PW610F — a 900-pound-thrust derivative EEclipse Aviation, made the biggest this as a really, really, really cool opportu- of the PW615F chosen to power Cessna’s gamble in light jet aviation since Bill Lear in- nity,” Raburn explained. Dr. Williams’ FJX Citation Mustang. Fuel capacity would be in- troduced the Learjet 23 in 1963. Raburn bet GAP engine evolved into the 770-pound- creased by adding small tiptanks. Eclipse also that folks would buy hundreds, if not thou- thrust EJ22 fanjet, intended to power what raised the price to nearly $1 million for ex- sands, of twin turbofan aircraft if they could would become the Eclipse 500. The isting customers. New orders were taken at be sold for less than $1 million. Best known Williams V-Jet II proof-of-concept aircraft $1.2 million. Type certification and initial outside aviation circles as a high-tech indus- was the inspiration for the Eclipse 500. The customer deliveries were rescheduled for first try entrepreneur, Raburn is a strong believer price was pegged at $837,500. quarter 2006. in price elasticity, a concept he claims is often The Eclipse 500, powered by Williams But the PW610F wouldn’t even be ready ignored in general aviation. The main lesson EJ22 engines, first flew on Aug. 26, 2002. It for flight test until late 2004. So, in May 2003, from the personal computer world is clear: was its last flight with those fanjets, as well. Eclipse resumed flight tests with a pair of Offer more value and drive down price, and Ongoing problems with the EJ22, according “interim” Teledyne Continental model 382- you’ll wear out a lot of ballpoint pens sign- to Raburn, forced Eclipse to drop the 10E cruise missile engines mounted on its ing sales contracts. Williams engine by year’s end. aircraft. This enabled Eclipse to continue Raburn’s vision was shared by Dr. Sam Some folks thought that was the end of the aerodynamic development of the airframe, Williams, chairman of Williams Intern- Eclipse 500 program, but they soon came to even including leading edge ice shapes, pend- ational, who dreamed of reinvigorating gen- realize that the airplane was powered more ing the arrival of its new Pratts. eral aviation by developing a new generation by Raburn’s passion than by Williams’ en- Always pressing the limits of technology, of affordable turbofan engines. Both men felt Raburn planned to fit the PW610Fs with that there was nothing wrong with the gen- brushless AC starter/generators that would eral aviation market that breakthrough air- have several times the TBO of conventional planes at lower prices couldn’t cure. Lear had DC starter/generators with brushes. priced his light jet at $495,000 in 1963 dol- Potentially, this would lower operating costs lars, a fraction of what contemporary jets cost and increase dispatch reliability. at the time. Raburn and Williams both Nice try, but no go. The vendor couldn’t dreamed of selling a new generation of jet develop the electronics needed to support the aircraft for not much more in mid-1990s dol- start function of the brushless units on time, lars — millions less than the least expensive so Eclipse had to fashion its own monstrous entry level jet at the time. kluge kit, mounted in the cabin, in time to As always in aviation, the pacing item get the engines started for the first flight in would be propulsion. Williams believed he fourth quarter 2004. Not unexpectedly, there could build and sell light turbofan engines for were several fits and starts as Eclipse’s engi- as little as $50,000 in volume production. neers struggled with the starter electronics. Raburn immediately was hooked on the con- Predictably, Eclipse reverted to conventional cept, so he joined forces with Williams to de- DC starter/generators for its subsequent velop a radical new very light jet (VLJ) flight test and production aircraft. powered by Williams’ revolutionary turbofan Compounding the start problems, Eclipse engines. Raburn would raise most of the cap- also had numerous problems with the ital for the program. Williams would supply Vern Raburn, Eclipse president and CEO Hispano-Suiza FADEC and some growing www.AviationNow.com/BCA Business & Commercial Aviation ■ July 2005 3 Pilot Report Raburn believes that composites are too Pratt & Whitney Canada PW610F much of an unknown commodity in the avi- The Eclipse’s PW610F engines are FADEC-equipped for easy operation and rugged for ation community regarding such issues and low operating cost. At entry-into-service in 2006, they’ll have a 1,750 HSI midlife in- that composite construction isn’t well suited to high-volume production. Still, he has high spection interval and a 3,500-hour TBO. Projected overall cost is about $150,000 per hopes for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner as a com- engine, according to Eclipse officials. posite pioneer. Having a thermodynamic rating of 1,112 pounds of thrust, they’re flat-rated to 900 Old aluminum construction methods, pounds of thrust for takeoff aboard the Eclipse 500 and capable of 990 pounds of thrust however, are expensive since it can take from in APR. The engines feature a 14-inch, one-piece, integrally bladed fan and deep-fluted ex- 4,000 to 5,000 labor hours to build a light jet haust mixer nozzle for improved high-altitude performance and lower FAR Part 36 noise airframe. Raburn knew he would have to levels. P&WC isn’t using any exotic materials inside and the engine will have modest a slash those hours to keep his price low. pressure ratio by today’s standards. The result is lower overall operating costs. Accordingly, Eclipse employs high-speed P&WC is having plenty of success with the 1,000- to CNC milling and friction stir welding 3,000-pound-thrust PW600 series, all of which Similar to CNC milling processes used by Bombardier, Dassault and Raytheon to fab- will be FADEC-equipped. Cessna has se- ricate their latest aircraft, Eclipse is the first lected the PW615F for its aircraft manufacturer to use such techniques Citation Mustang and to build a VLJ. Wing spars, chord-wise Embraer tapped the frames and bulkheads, among many other PW617F for its newly major airframe components, begin life as announced VLJ. P&WC large billets of aluminum fed to CNC mills is banking on the that remove 90 to 95 percent of the mass to PW600 to be a large transform them into complex shaped parts. production volume en- CNC milling makes possible construction of gine, rivaling the success one-piece components that replace built-up assemblies of dozens of parts joined by hun- of the PT6A turboprop in the dreds, if not thousands, of fasteners. last century. Unlike Bombardier and Dassault that have extensive in-house manufacturing cen- ters, Eclipse won’t do any heavy construc- pains with the PW610F. Hispano-Suiza re- nologies embodied in the 500. Raburn often tion or machining at its assembly plant at mains one of Eclipse’s problem vendors, ac- has said that the aviation industry is so risk Albuquerque International Sunport. cording to Raburn, but he cannot say enough averse that technological progress is painfully Instead, the company farms out processes good things about product support from slow, manufacturing costs are among the like CNC milling to other firms, such as Pratt & Whitney Canada. highest of any industry, quality is marginal Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI), Ducommon In mid-2004, Raburn invited B&CA to and reliability is low. This is why airplane AeroStructures, Compass Aerospace and witness the first flight in late November, prices are so high and they cost so much to Empresa Nacional de Aeronáutica in Chile. rescheduling several times until Dec. 31, operate, according to Raburn. These firms have high-speed CNC mills when at 10:16 a.m., the first flight of s.n. 1087, When Raburn embarked upon the Eclipse and manufacturing methods that can sup- the first Eclipse 500 in full production con- project, he “saw a technological convergence port high volume production of major figuration and powered by the PW610F, took that could change everything except aerody- subassemblies. place. We watched the entire first flight from namics.” It was time to abandon World War Friction stir welding (FSW), now used ex- inside Raburn’s Turbo Commander as he II aircraft manufacturing methods, he said, tensively in missile and marine construction, flew chase on the test aircraft. Both aircraft along with “Rosie the Riveter in her polka was invented by The Welding Institute at taxied into the Eclipse Aviation compound dot hat whistling ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle University of Cambridge. It uses a spinning afterward, where Raburn led a celebration at- Boy.’” He saw, for example, the potential for mandrel that bears down on a lap joint hard tended by nearly 1,000 people.