Story ID: 308Eclispe
Eclipse’s Chicago Outpost Keeps Fleet Flying
By: Mark Huber
Caption: The company’s Chicago maintenance base is a big part of One Aviation’s product support efforts.
Word Count: 1065
Hangar 4 is full. That’s not unusual and hasn’t been for the last six years at Chicago Executive Airport, where One Aviation’s Eclipse Aerospace unit maintains one of its two factory-owned service centers.

“We’ve been busy for six years,” said One Aviation president Ken Ross. Ross is part of the team that rescued the original Eclipse Aviation from bankruptcy in 2009 and has helped run the company ever since. Eclipse combined forces earlier this year with Kestrel Aviation to form One Aviation (Booth C13216).

“After almost seven years now people should start having more comfort with us. This company continues to improve the product and grow,” Ross told AIN. “Last year we delivered 14 airplanes, not counting the [remanufactured] Total Eclipses and Special Editions, which were another eight. So cumulatively we’re pushing over 20 aircraft. This company, while finishing and modifying the airplane, was also selling remanufactured airplanes. We’ve had a lot on our plate. We’ve grown the fleet from 260 to 282 and we’ve touched almost every airplane and finished them and taken them further than originally designed.”

Now One Aviation is focusing on the marketing of new Eclipse 550s, Ross explained, “letting the world know that we’re out there. We outsell the Mustang and the Phenom 100 when you add our remanufactured airplanes. We are really competing against the TBM 900 when you look at our niche.”

He thinks Eclipse would sell even more units if it weren’t for the stigma attached to obtaining a type rating, which he thinks is overblown. “Our type rating is really an easy program, and we have a great safety record. The training is easy and simple: The aircraft has many redundant systems that lower than pilot workload to make it very, very easy. I think our space will grow. I think the new Cirrus jet will make our space grow. Those pilots who want to fly a jet will realize that flying a slow single-engine jet that needs a parachute versus flying a twin-engine jet that flies higher and faster above the weather, and that burns less fuel–they will end up with an Eclipse jet at the end of the day.”

Ross said that getting a competent pilot up to speed in an Eclipse is not difficult. “We can take a pilot who has a single-engine instrument rating and type them in the aircraft and at the same time give them their multiengine instrument rating. We’ll do that in the aircraft at the same time because the aircraft has very benign characteristics for a multiengine aircraft. There is no adverse yaw. We had one customer with as little as 198 hours’ total time be certified and typed in the aircraft. One of our European distributors went from a Cirrus to the Eclipse. She is a tremendous pilot. It is an aircraft that lends itself to the training environment.”

The Eclipse jet will likely be used for airline ab initio training in the coming years, Ross asserted. “We have been in talks with the U.S. military to use the Eclipse as a trainer as well. If people are going to learn on EFIS and glass cockpits, they might as well learn on it from the beginning versus the traditional way from a single-engine piston to the turboprop and then a jet,” he said.

Almost all of the original 260 legacy Eclipses in the field have received substantial upgrades over the years, including the Innovative Solutions & Support-based Integrated Flight Management System (IFMS) avionics suite or the more recent Plus Package, which includes items such as new cockpit hardware, software, anti-skid brakes and glass-faced windscreens.

“Today two-thirds of the fleet is upgraded to IFMS or greater,” Ross said. “There are about 40 planes total that have the Avidyne avionics. Some have the Garmin 400s, which act as the navigation system for ILS and GPS approaches. Upgrading those airplanes to the Plus package will run for $700,000 on up. A lot of those airplanes are on the secondary market and the new buyers come in and do the upgrades. When they are done they have an all-in cost that is extremely competitive with a [remanufactured] SE or a new 550. Those airplanes come with three-year warranties and three-year maintenance plans. Those are the highest in our industry and in our class; no one else offers that. Our new airplanes come with a five-year warranty and a five-year maintenance plan. All scheduled maintenance and inspections are covered by the factory. We think that is the most attractive maintenance program and warranty in the industry.”

Ross said Eclipse is deferential to owners who have been with, and at times suffered with, Eclipse from the start. “Those who have significantly invested in the airplane and still own them had preferred pricing [on upgrades]. The intent always was to recognize that customer first and treat them with respect for sticking with the company through its turbulent years prior to our acquisition. Since that time 30 to 35 percent of the fleet has changed hands and has new owners.”

Eclipse is continually improving its product support, according to Ross. “Ninety-eight percent of our AOGs are solved within 24 hours domestically, 48 hours worldwide. We are continually trying to lower prices on a variety of items including batteries and other high-utilization items. We have customer service reps in Albuquerque and Chicago. When you call our toll-free number it is usually out of Chicago.”

Eclipse has additional non-owned service centers in the U.S., in Boca Raton, Fla., and San Diego and others in Johannesburg, Dubai, Istanbul, Germany, UK and Holland. The Eclipse jet is certified in 46 countries, and 92 are flying internationally from Singapore to South Africa. “We’re pretty well dispersed,” Ross said.

At the Chicago service center, he said, “We touch about 20 percent of the fleet. At both factory-owned locations–Albuquerque and Chicago–we’ll have 20 airplanes at any given time, doing service and performing remedial upgrades, or converting some aircraft to special editions. We’ll run through a third of the fleet at this location annually and probably the same in New Mexico.”

The Eclipse jet, he concluded, “is a very sophisticated little airplane. There’s never been a Part 23 airplane with autothrottles, and we’ve added anti-skid brakes.”