Pratt & Whitney Canada’s PW610F turbofan engine will power the Eclipse 500, the two companies announced on February 19, ending nearly three months of speculation about how Eclipse would get the program moving again after it terminated its agreement with Williams to use the EJ22 engine.
Eclipse has told its customers that the revised Eclipse 500 will cruise at 375 knots (20 knots faster than the goal for the original Williams-powered airplane), and range will be 1,280 nm (20 nm less than the original). Payload will increase to 2,250 pounds (up 250 pounds). Stall speed also rises, to 67 knots from the previous maximum of 64.5 knots. Certification has slipped from a promised latest date of Dec. 31, 2004, to the first quarter of 2006. These last two items–in addition to a price increase– provide grounds for any Eclipse 500 customer to cancel and receive a full refund of deposit money. The company acknowledged that there have been some cancellations (“requests for cancellation are well under five percent of the 600 individual customer base,” Eclipse CEO Vern Raburn told AIN on February 19), but declined to reveal a number pending the March 7 deadline for canceling. The price has increased from $837,500 to $950,000 for customers with non-escrowed deposits and $975,000 for customers whose deposits remain in escrow. For new orders the price has increased to $1.175 million (June 2000 dollars). Eclipse is quoting a direct operating cost of 69 cents a mile (2000 dollars) with the new engines.
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