The rise and fall of Eclipse Aviation and its innovative EA500 jet represents one of the more interesting aviation business case studies in recent years. Lavishly funded and relentlessly promoted, the airplane never quite lived up to its billing, and despite more than a billion dollars in invested capital, the company went bust in 2008. In his new book, The Great Eclipse: A Dream Design Bankrupted by Marketing and Mismanagement and Saved by a Sensible Business Strategy, author Dennis Maxwell details how Eclipse came out of the ground with a flourish in 2000 and bagged what it claims were thousands of orders but encountered insurmountable manufacturing and development problems before it could turn a profit. In this podcast, Maxwell details his experiences at Eclipse — he was involved in early marketing development — and explains what finally killed what many assumed was a can't-miss airplane.
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