What a decade it's been for the Very Light Jet. "From the high to the low, to the end of the show…" for many, if not all, comers on. It does appear, finally, the world will be set right and may continue in motion due to the advent of the much anticipated Very Light Jet. That being said, the players who are out of the game are the ones who many felt were frontrunners to certification. How very wrong we were. Interestingly, the first two VLJ's to receive the government's ticket-to-ride are close to not being very "V.” Both the Cessna Citation Mustang and the Embraer Phenom 100 are the heaviest in the type, which doesn't necessarily reveal anything, but what is revealed is that the two companies with the most experience at building aircraft are the first ones to the finish line. We really shouldn't be surprised: The optimists among us are, the cynics aren't. Right off the bat, let's deal with the deadwood.The recent bang of failures have been heard ‘round the world’, for sure. The highest profile flops are Eclipse Aviation and Adam Aircraft.There certainly are others, but two of the most vocal…no…loudest, if not verbose, self-proclaimed revolutionaries, Vern Raburn and Rick Adam, are almost nowhere to be found. According to sources, Raburn has been spotted around the country in true Elvis style, giving speeches, telling all who will listen that it wasn't his fault. One can only conclude with Raburn, the buck didn't stop with him. No wonder Eclipse is now on the dark side of the moon.

Eclipse gave inspiration to many and arguably spawned an industry, albeit a struggling one. Originally, the Eclipse 500 was touted as a twin-engine, sub-million-dollar, up to six-place, single-pilot, turbo-prop, killer jet aircraft. It would be one of, if not the first aircraft to utilize the new Williams EJ-22 small, but powerful, turbofan jet engine.Problems began when the proof-of-concept aircraft couldn't deliver desired performance. Williams claimed the aircraft was heavier than told and Eclipse claimed the engine couldn't deliver the agreed upon power. It sounded like two brothers fighting in the backyard. "You're a weak sister!" "You're fat!" "Hey, you can't push me around." "Because you're fat!", ad nauseam. Both claims were easy enough to test: measure the output power of the engine and weigh the dang airplane. But, wait. Eclipse kept this data from the public and some strategic partners. They also kept secret the sluggish performance of the plane, even after switching to Pratt & Whitney engines. No wonder we in the media were never granted requests for flights. "Oh, please Mr. Oz, please?"

If only Raburn would have gone off his diet of complaining to the press, eaten some humble pie and worked with Williams behind closed doors, instead of against them, maybe he could have in fact revolutionized not just aviation, but American manufacturing. Guess we'll never know.One has to truly feel for the hundreds of Eclipse 500 owners who have an airplane not fully certified, not under warranty and not what they thought they were buying. At least they have an airplane. What about the thousands of position holders and depositors whose investment evaporated officially in March of this year. These weren't all rich people. Many of them were individuals in small investment groups who took it in the shorts much harder than the hedge fund crowd.There are rumblings of investment groups, Russians and other Russians, and numerous other entities who are mounting a rescue. Don't hold your breath. Then there's Adam Aircraft, helmed into the rocks by Rick Adam. Rick certainly sat in Vern's verbosity shadow, but he had his moments. At least with Rick Adam, you can actually say you feel sorry for the man. After all, he was just acting as a confident CEO, even though he knew squat about building airplanes.Airplanes, plural. Adam Aircraft was introducing two versions of the same airframe. The A500 twin-inline-piston; and the A700 twin jet. The aircraft had a distinctive design with its "boom tail" that some liked and some hated. Severe underfunding and attempting to certify two aircraft simultaneously certainly contributed to their downfall. Didn't anyone tell Adam Aircraft that the FAA is “difficult,” at best, to deal with.

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