Eclipse 500

Eclipse 500
Role	Very light jet
National origin	United States
Manufacturer	Eclipse Aviation/Eclipse Aerospace
First flight	August 26, 2002
Introduction	December 31, 2006
Status	Production Halted
Primary user	Linear Air
Produced	January 2001- November 2008
Number built	260
Variants	Eclipse 550

The Eclipse 500 is a marketing name for the Eclipse Aerospace EA500, a small six-seat American business jet aircraft originally manufactured by Eclipse Aviation and later produced by Eclipse Aerospace.

The Eclipse 500 became the first of a new class of Very Light Jet when it was delivered in late 2006. The aircraft is powered by two lightweight Pratt & Whitney Canada PW610F turbofan engines in aft fuselage-mounted nacelles.

Production of the Eclipse 500 was halted in mid-2008 due to lack of funding, and the company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 25 November 2008. The company then entered Chapter 7 liquidation on 24 February 2009. After lengthy Chapter 7 procedure, Eclipse Aerospace was confirmed as the new owner of the assets of the former Eclipse Aviation on 20 August 2009 and opened for business on 1 September 2009. In October 2011 Eclipse Aerospace announced that they will put a new version of the aircraft, to be called the Eclipse 550, into production with deliveries starting in 2013.

In April 2015 Eclipse Aerospace was merged with Kestrel Aircraft to form One Aviation.

The Eclipse 500 is based on the Williams V-Jet II, which was designed and built by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites in 1997 for Williams International. It was intended to be used as a testbed and demonstrator for their new FJX-2 turbofan engine. The aircraft and engine debuted at the 1997 Oshkosh Airshow.

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