With the slightest flick of the wrist, Vern Raburn, the 57–year–old CEO of Albuquerque–based Eclipse Aviation, has his five–seat Eclipse 500 microjet purring softly. The cabin, a minimalist beige on beige, is space–capsule quiet. As the glass dashboard flickers to life, tendrils of colored light blossom into digital gauges and animated maps, accompanied by soft carillon tones that barely puncture the silence. In high–resolution graphics, the Eclipse reveals a central nervous system that may be more advanced than ours.
As the whir of turbines gently rises in pitch, Raburn, dressed in jeans and a bomber jacket, is grinning like Alfred E. Neuman riding a homemade rocket to the moon. He lets loose two hyperefficient Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines—each a scant 14 inches in diameter. There's a pleasant G–force tug and we're airborne, slingshotting into the electric–blue New Mexico sky above Albuquerque. We're flying north toward Santa Fe, tracking the Rio Grande as it unspools up the valley. The altimeter is spinning. Raburn hits 10,000 feet and lets out the reins. "We're doing 350 now," he says. "But here's the kicker: We're only burning a third as much fuel as Cessna's CJ1!"
Blending quantum advances in navigational software and jet engines with mass production typical of the auto industry, Raburn is attempting nothing less than reinventing the airplane. The 33.5–foot Eclipse 500 is cheap to maintain, easy to fly, reliable, nimble, and safe. Incidentally, it comes with a Wal–Mart price tag: $1.5 million (a third as much as the latest CJ1).
In May 2006, Raburn won the Collier Trophy, the aerospace equivalent of the Nobel Prize. (Former recipients include Orville Wright, Howard Hughes, Chuck Yeager, and the crew of Apollo 11.) He and his flying computer, the Avio, which monitors the Eclipse 500's vital signs, were anointed by the Collier judges for leading the microjet (technically "very light jet," a.k.a. VLJ) revolution: an emerging wave of faster–smarter–cooler airplanes weighing less than 10,000 pounds that many—including, of course, Raburn—believe will open the skies to legions of travelers who never imagined they could afford to fly in a private jet.
Raburn made aviation history again in July 2006, when the Eclipse (which weighs no more than an SUV) became the lightest VLJ to receive provisional certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. Competition is hot on his trail. Cessna's VLJ, the Mustang, was certified last September; Embraer, Piper, Honda, Adam, and Spectrum expect their designs to get the FAA nod over the next few years. Even Toyota is rumored to have a VLJ project hidden in a back room.
