By Andrew Webb
Journal Staff Writer
Eclipse Aviation completed more than 100 aircraft in 2007— far short of earlier predictions but a feat nonetheless compared to other aviation companies, its founder said.
The company said it had built and issued certificates of airworthiness to 104 aircraft since Dec. 31, 2006, making it the "fastest general aviation jet aircraft manufacturer in history to produce its first 100 airplanes."
The previous record was held by Cessna, which reached 100 Cessna Citation 550 aircraft after about 18 months, Eclipse said in a news release.
The Cessna Citation 550, or Citation II, began production in 1978.
Doug Oliver, a spokesman for Cessna, said he could not verify the production rate.
"I'm not going to waste time looking up data from the 1970s so Eclipse can boast. We're concerned with selling our own airplanes," he said. "It doesn't matter who produces what in how many months."
Eclipse is headquartered in Albuquerque and employs about 1,600 people.
Founder and CEO Vern Raburn sought to adapt techniques used in the computer manufacturing industry to building aircraft. He had previously predicted that hundreds, and at one time, up to 1,000 Eclipse 500 jets, would be delivered in 2007.
But the first year of production was plagued with delays, including supplier holdups, internal processes that didn't work as planned, and last-minute changes to the plane, ranging from redesigned windshields to replacing the $1.6 million jet's computerized "brain."
The delays led to a rumored cash crunch as Eclipse failed to reach a one-plane-per-day production goal, and even to layoffs of some aircraft assembly technicians near the end of 2007.
Given those challenges, Eclipse said more than 100 planes is a significant achievement for a startup company that had never built an aircraft.
"We're transforming how jets are built and how people travel," Raburn said in a news release. "It's an audacious goal and one that stretches us every day to go beyond what seems possible. Day-to-day setbacks are inevitable, but the reality is that we have created a new aircraft category and are bringing a new breed of jet to market at a rate never before seen in general aviation."
The company isn't saying how many of those jets have been delivered to customers.
But company spokesman Andrew Broom said deliveries to date were "pretty close" to the number of completed and certified planes.
Eclipse has trained about 150 pilots and has nearly caught up to the demand for pilot training, Broom said.
"In the coming months, we'll be able to schedule training before the person comes to take delivery," he said.
Broom was cautious about predictions for customer deliveries in 2008. "It's in the hundreds of hundreds," he said.
The company said it has orders for more than 2,500 planes.
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