Eclipse writing production checks...

Implications: ...but can the company cash them in the cold light of day? Doesn't look like it when even the simplest of claims ("We're the fastest!") turns out not to be what the courts would call, "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth...".

Analysis: It seems the disease of making misleading aerospace claims is spreading from the top down -- next week Airbus will report record orders for 2007 which will include initial orders for numerous A350 widebodies placed as long ago as 2005. Orders can be cancelled anyway and are only a snapshot -- production and delivery is the key.

So what prompted Eclipse ceo Raburn to claim last week that the company had set a new "record" in certifying 100 jets faster than any general-aviation manufacturer had ever done? Was he justly proud of his company's achievement in building roughly 105 Eclipse 500 Very Light Jets (VLJs) in 2007 or was he just playing with words?

Production is NOT certification... Eclipse Aviation is reported (http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/bizav/1025-full.html#196870) only to have certified ONE 500 with the Avio NG package and none at all of the first 100 or so aircraft for flight potentially requiring anti-icing measures. The NG suite, which provides centralized control of virtually all the Eclipse 500's systems and avionics functions, only received the FAA's certificate of airworthiness at the end of last month. Eclipse plans to retrofit its 2007 production aircraft with the new equipment by the end of this year (and has to foot the retrofit bill itself).

So, what you see is not always what you get, it seems. Eclipse at times continues to attract less-than-stellar attention despite the fact the 500 VLJ is one of the most promising GA aircraft to have emerged in recent years.

Nonetheless, more completed production and less convoluted PR might be a good maxim here, for both Eclipse and no doubt for Airbus next week...