Borrowing a play from the automakers’ book to create buzz around a show, Eclipse unveiled its Eclipse Concept Jet (ECJ) on the first day of Oshkosh. The little single-engine jet was built in great secrecy in Virginia by a firm specializing in one-off creations. Eclipse managed almost total surprise except for a number of people at Oshkosh who saw the little jet with its enormous V-tail land at sundown on Sunday evening and spread the word.
Eclipse says it has no plans to actually build the ECJ, and notes correctly that a very tiny number of the dozens of concept cars shown each year ever reach production. However, Eclipse was free with some pretty amazing performance projections for the ECJ, including a ceiling of 41,000 feet, range greater than 1,000 nm and speeds above 340 knots. When it came to discussing price, Eclipse founder Vern Raburn danced around the topic, but ladled out broad hints that his target was $1 million.
