INCOMING!

The blog email, eclipsecriticng@gmail.com, has been humming. For those of you following the blog closely I've hinted in the past couple of days at some of the key points, without going into details. I wanted to cross check and verify what was being said, in a sincere effort to make sure that we get as clear a picture as we can of what is really going on.

While there are good things being said about the company, it's been hard not to notice the overall tone of what I am seeing. Below please find extracts from some of the emails over the past couple of weeks. My input is in plain old black, there others are in colour to make it clearer which is which. Anyway, herewith the views being expressed.

From a customers standpoint

"You guys think Eclipse will never make any money, you just don't understand. Here's how:
(1) Build a (somewhat) attractive plane
(2) Design in unreliable systems
(3) Sell a "covers all" maintenance program at $325/hour
(4) When (2) works as planned, tell the customer to bring the plane to ABQ. At $325/hour income to Eclipse
(5) Kinda-sorta fix the problem at ABQ
(6) Rinse and repeat
For higher profits, get the plane to fail so that it can't be flown to ABQ. Tell the customer that if a non-Eclipse trained A&P touches the plane the warranty is void. Then send a fast response team to f*** up the plane, at a mere $5,000 charge. Count your money.
Let's see the critics refute that plan. And yes, sadly, I am a customer!"

The man has clearly been keeping up with our blog! Remind me to buy him a Guinness...

Customer report again, with a listing of 'gremlins'

"There are quite a few little gremlins. Stick pusher warnings, avionics bus warnings, fuel gauge faults, etc. This distilled from multiple customer reports, not all on my plane. The incompleteness of JetComplete is surprising customers, since Eclipse told everyone that AOG coverage was part of the deal, not a $5,000 charge."

A final customer input
"I know the Avio NG upgrade does not contain much of the promised functionality (i.e. no GPS, no Skywatch, no approach charts)."

From the suppliers standpoint

"... a senior (Eclipse) manager told us that "unofficially" they are going to be putting Garmin 400's in every aircraft. Two weeks ago, in a teleconference with Eclipse, we were told that we were going to interface with the Garmin 400 until a future certification.
This may give you some idea of Eclipse's relationship with Garmin. Eclipse is also going with COTS technology. No special or extra work on the part of Garmin."

And another one

"I believe that IS&S has made it prohibitively expensive to make changes. In the meantime, Eclipse is allowed force the hand of their "old" suppliers until all original contractual obligations are met. We want to get those contract guys after our next certification for Eclipse which will fulfill all our original comtractual obligations.

I asked one of them about the current status of older E500's and got this reply

"I do not know what the plans are for the Avidyne-fitted aircraft. Because we have been "forced" to make changes that will make our systems no longer (backward) compatible with Avidyne, I suspect all aircraft will have to be updated. I should add that the Gamin GPS "is the permanent temporary fix" (Eclipse's words) until they get the moving map and other navigation/FMS issues ironed out. By "permanent temporary" we suspect they hope for it to be temporary, but it has the potential to be permanent."

Finally, from a staff standpoint, where I've x'd out anything that (clearly) identifies the person. My heart goes out to the workers on the ground in ABQ, and this is only one of a number of these mails that have reached me.

"We (my wife and I) had been relocated here from xxxx this past Summer.
I'm looking for a way out. I (all xxxx crews) were recently transfered into the xxxx hangar under new management. I'm not at all happy about this. ....I really enjoyed working in xxxx, where I was originally assigned. I had the opportunity to at least cross-train with other people during any down time. This had been part of my job description. I miss it. ....I now get to prep for xxxx during any down time. Transfering's apparently not an option, it's been refused repeatedly. ....I just wanted to hear what you think. I feel so strongly about getting out."

Its not hard to notice some common elements here. Eclipse bullies everyone, over promises, under delivers and then issue threats when asked simple questions. This leads to several, undesirable outcomes for all parties. Customers feel hard done by and tell their peers, which reduces the pool of prospects for the E500. Suppliers stick to the letter of their contracts and quietly seek work from other companies. Some of them will 'no bid' future contracts and this will lead to increased costs. Staff look elsewhere for work and Eclipse have trouble filling postions, which delays deliveries.

So, that's my lot for this week. You all have an amusing weekend.