Eclipse A Little Late, Mustang A Little Early, Adam Moves Forward

As AVweb reported in December, Eclipse’s certification schedule slipped to sometime in June after a parts supplier fell behind, but the company is still hoping to deliver airplanes sometime this summer. A final assembly building is under construction and there’s a total of more than 1,000 test hours on the fleet of five flight test aircraft. Eclipse says it can build an airplane in five days, as quoted by The Associated Press. Cessna’s Mustang continues flight tests aiming for first deliveries in late 2006 and Adam, which upstaged both of its principal competitors by flying its A700 jet prototype to EAA AirVenture in 2003, is getting ready for the first flight of its first type-conforming jet, perhaps by mid-February. The type-conforming model rolled out in November and, at last report, was getting its door fitted, apparently one of the final tasks to be accomplished. First deliveries are anticipated in 2007. And while the A700 was seemingly an afterthought to Adam’s original aircraft, the push/pull piston twin A500, it could be the company’s future. There are about three times as many orders for the jet as there are for the propeller aircraft.