Word around the hanger today is that the Eclipse 500 was certified for Flight Into Known Icing (FIKI), something Eclipse Aviation has been promising for several years. (Read the Aero-News Network article here). The entire production cycle of the Eclipse 500 hasn’t been an easy one, from a slow delivery schedule to a recent price increase.

However, Eclipse Aviation has just recently started taking orders on their new, and smaller, Eclipse 400. The 400 made a surprise appearance at Oshkosh last summer as a concept jet. You have to think that all the lessons learned with 500 will improve production of the 400.

Pretty dang cool looking, if you ask me. (More photos here).

Men’s Vogue (you know you read it) has an article about the rough and tumble world freighter pilots. A close friend of mine was freight dog for many years flying an antiquated Boeing 727 before transitioning to a major carrier and a new Airbus 318. Just a few months after starting with the new carrier I was fortunate enough to catch a flight from Ft Myers to Denver with him as first officer. He told me that while he enjoyed the modern, computerized 318 he really missed actually having to fly the steam gauge 727.

Best quote from the article? Four Floors of Whores. Read on…

Freight dogs famously fly decrepit, “clapped-out,” analog-only hand-me-downs from the passenger airlines, and brushes with the reaper, duly embellished, make for great table rants over pitchers of Watney’s at dog hangouts like the Petroleum Club in Alamaty, Kazakhstan; the Cyclone in Dubai; Sticky Fingers in Hong Kong; and the legendary Four Floors of Whores in Singapore, which, according to the dogs who frequent it, is a model of truth in advertising. It’s an article of faith among freight dogs that George Lucas based Star Wars’ famed cantina scene on the scuzzed-out cargo skippers at Bryson’s Irish Pub, a flyboy Rick’s Café adjacent to Miami International Airport through which generations of pilots have passed in a sort of demented finishing school. “We tend to be the rogues of the airline world,” Tony Baca, a 747 cargo captain, told me recently. “The airline pilot is all prim and proper. We’re not. It’s a whole different culture.”

Read the whole story here.

I found this link on the Ancient Pelican blog, a freight dog himself for seven years.

I attended a Very Light Jet (VLJ) Expo yesterday at the Wilson Air Center at the Charlotte Douglas Airport. The conference (link here) had most of the VLJ players including Eclipse, Cessna, Diamond, Embraer and Piper however the only real, fully functional jets on hand were the Eclipse 500 and Cessna’s Citation CJ2+ and Citation Mustang.

Diamond had their DA-42 piston twin and Cessna also had a Columbia 400. There was a 3 foot model of the Cirrus Jet and a full mockup of the Spectrum Freedom (I think, or maybe it was the Independence). I was disappointed that the Diamond D-Jet wasn’t present.

But enough of the mockups and models I was there for VLJs.

The first jet I checked out was the Eclipse 500. It was much smaller then I thought, even on a VLJ scale, but a crowd favorite with a long line to climb inside for a look. I only got to poke my head in the cabin door. As you can imagine, the interior of all these VLJs is pretty snug but with all the style of a German sports car. I wish I would have push my way through the crowd to check out the avionics, but I really wanted to see the Citations.

Cessna had their newly acquired Columbia 400 (Cessna purchased the assets of the bankrupt Columbia Aircraft) separating the Citation CJ2+ and the new Citation Mustang. The CJ2+ is spectacular and refined. Tan leather cabin seats, plush carpeting and Collins Pro Line avionics suite. Everything needed to travel in comfort.

The Mustang is Cessna newest jet and one directed at the pilot/owner transitioning from a high performance twin piston or turboprop. It doesn’t have all the cabin refinements of the CJ2+ but it does have the Garmin G1000 avionics suite that is becoming more common in single engine pistons. With more and more GA pilots adopting the G1000 they should feel comfortable sitting at the controls of the Mustang.

I don’t have any exposer to the Garmin G1000 but a Cessna sales rep demonstrated the basics. Everything needed to fly and fly safe is encompassed in two 13 inch primary functional displays, one each for the pilot and co-pilot, and a larger 15 inch multi-functional display in the middle of the panel. The Mustang has a FADEC control system to managing engine performance. This plane has to be a blast to fly.

What was interesting about having all these aircraft together was how small the VLJs look in person. Equally interesting is how large the piston Diamond DA42 and the Columbia 400 look up close.

All I can say is the Citation Mustang is a long way from the Cessna 152 i fly, but maybe not that far.

Links:
Cessna CJ2+
Cessna Mustang
Diamond DA-42
Eclipse 500
Columbia 400