We told you recently about the all-new HondaJet for business users. Now, these new light, cheap and fast jets are expected to be certified for flight Thursday, August 3rd. Eclipse Aviation's E500 will be the first "very light jet," or VLJ, to receive a provisional certification by the Federal Aviation Administration. Thousands more are expected to 
Eclipse's "500" model is on-sale and commercially available. The price is $1,295,000.
The NBAA (National Business Aviation Association) defines VLJs as single-pilot jets that weigh 10,000 pounds (4,500 kilograms) or less. They generally have two engines, five or six passenger seats, electronic cockpits and cost half as much as the most inexpensive business jet now in service. (Photo above: Eclipse Aviation expects its E500s to be used as air taxis or flying limousines for corporate travelers).
Six other very light jets are in the process of being certified by the FAA. Honda Motor Co. announced Tuesday (July 25th) at Oshkosh that it will start accepting orders for another VLJ, the HondaJet, this fall.
The FAA officially predicts that 4,500 VLJs will be in service 10 years from now. FAA chief Marion Blakey has called that a conservative estimate. Eclipse alone has orders for nearly 2,500 of the little jets.
The big question surrounding VLJs is who will use them and where they will fly.
Vern Raburn, the founder of Albuquerque-based Eclipse Aviation Corp., predicts VLJs will be used as air taxis: for-hire limousines-with-wings that will take off and land at thousands of small airports. Businesspeople, he says, will be attracted to them because they will get where they need to go faster and with less hassle than on a commercial flight -- and cheaper than on a chartered business jet. (Photo: HondaJet).
VLJs can land on runways as short as 3,000 feet (900 meters), compared with the 4,000 (1,200 meters) or 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) required by the smallest jets now being flown. The FAA says there are more than 5,000 small, underused airports in the United States.
Two other companies hope to have similar jets certified by the end of the year: Englewood, Colorado-based Adam Aircraft and Wichita, Kansas-based Cessna Aircraft Co.
Cessna considers its Citation Mustang an inexpensive business jet, not a VLJ, said Doug Oliver, company spokesman. But, Oliver said, "If the air taxi market comes along, the aircraft is perfectly suited for high utilization." Cessna, which has produced more than 4,500 business jets for the global fleet, has about 250 orders for the Mustang, Oliver said.
(Photo: HondaJet engine).
The other VLJs seeking FAA certification, or FAA validation of their home countries' certification, are:
A Spectrum 33 crashed in a test flight Tuesday, July 25th, in Spanish Fork, Utah, killing both pilots aboard. The cause of the crash is unknown. (Thanks to CNN.COM for this story).
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