Eclipse Also Announces Milestones

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Meanwhile, back at EBACE, Eclipse Aviation last week announced that its Eclipse 500 test fleet has amassed 1,700 total flight hours on its way to FAA certification. Moreover, some 700 of those flight hours were accumulated in the last three months alone. All of which the company says is keeping it on track to achieve FAA certification by June 30, with EASA certification by the end of the year. Certification testing is progressing exceptionally well, and the Eclipse 500 is proving out the robust design, reliability and performance that it was built to deliver, said Vern Raburn, president and CEO of Eclipse Aviation.

The company has five examples of the very light jets in its flight testing program, and says recent accomplishments include:

  • Flight flutter compliance tests demonstrated that the Eclipse 500 was free from flutter, divergence, and control reversal within the aircrafts dive speed envelope.
  • Flight strain compliance tests collected in-flight strain gage data to validate the Finite Element Model used for structural analysis strength compliance.
  • Induction system water ingestion and FOD ingestion compliance tests demonstrated that no hazardous quantities of water or foreign objects were ingested into the Eclipse 500 engines or static pressure system during aircraft operations.
  • Air data performance compliance tests calibrated the aircrafts installed air data system.
  • Electrical power distribution flight tests validated the aircrafts ability to descend from altitude and land safely within the jet batterys endurance.

Eclipse also says it has completed a series of ground tests including ground vibration testing, aircraft High Intensity Radiated Fields (HIRF) tests, aircraft lightning tests, fuel flow and pressure tests, landing gear ground operations and engine firewall tests. Eclipse says its highest utilization jet, N506EA, has a demonstrated dispatch rate of over 99.50 percent.

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