What a year! 2007 was an amazing combination of so many good and bad things... but for sure, there was NO end of excitement. If there was a "reveal" of the year, it HAS to have been the first sight of the super-secret Eclipse Concept Jet program... which only Eclipse, ANN and a few others knew ANYTHING about until the opening morning of Oshkosh 2007.
Eclipse Aviation -- and company CEO Vern Raburn, in particular -- certainly have a flair for the dramatic. At a kickoff press event early Monday morning, before the gates opened at AirVenture 2007, the planemaker took the wraps off a concept model of its Eclipse Concept Jet: a single engine, four-passenger, slightly futuristic-in-appearance V-tailed aircraft intended to test the waters in the emerging Personal Jet category.
But the planemaker didn't stop there. A line in Chief Operating Officer Peg Billson's speech describing the concept model -- an offhand remark about "flight testing" -- was drowned ...
