The VLJ era started with a bang on March 6, 2000, when Eclipse Aviation announced the formal launch of the Eclipse 500, a program “designed to apply technological breakthroughs in creating a series of safe, reliable, low-cost jet aircraft that will enable transformation of the U.S. air transportation system.”
Since that announcement, the VLJ industry has ridden the highs (famous predictions of VLJs’ darkening the skies and causing massive air traffic delays) to the current and more orderly reality of a growing but not terribly large new general aviation market segment. In the past eight years, Eclipse reached a zenith of producing nearly one airplane a day and employing more than 2,000 people. Cessna’s Mustang successfully entered service and the company is building production at reasonable market-driven levels. And Embraer, at this writing, is within weeks of certification and entry-into-service of its first purpose-built business jet, the Phenom 100, which now appears to weigh a few hundred pounds more than the 10,000-pound maximum takeoff weight that roughly defines a VLJ. Meanwhile, Eclipse has suffered massive financial problems; VLJ air-taxi pioneer DayJet is out of business and its Eclipse 500 fleet on the block; Adam Aircraft went bankrupt, was resurrected, then foundered again; and Aviation Technology Group has all but disappeared for lack of money. Perhaps surprisingly, there is another new company, Stratos, announcing plans to build a
