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The Great Eclipse: A Dream Design Bankrupted by Marketing and Mismanagement and Saved by a Sensible Business Strategy
"The wonder isn't that the airplane took so long to get built but that it got built at all." Robert Goyer
Editor-in-Chief, Flying Magazine
Vern Raburn - high tech entrepreneur - was a man with a dream and strong opinions.
The build a low cost, high speed twin-engine jet aircraft; to completely change personal air travel and Eclipse the competition. The strong when comparing the standards of thinking in aviation to those of Silicon Valley, Raburn said of aviation, "People think we can't do it because they can't. It's the 'if it doesn't exist, it can't exist' theorem." He said of Silicon Valley, "If it doesn't exist, it's a market opportunity."
Eclipse Aviation, Raburn's start-up company, created the airplane, won the prestigious Collier Trophy and went bankrupt. Then, against all odds, it was saved. "The Great Eclipse" tells the story of how crippling culture clashes, supply chain sloppiness, mega-marketing and major mismanagement made the dream a nightmare.
Maxwell takes us on a fascinating journey as Raburn's Eclipse powers through the easy money time of the internet bubble, tumbles on technology and crashes in the global economic crisis. Then, the assets of the company were plucked from the bankruptcy court and a new Eclipse company took flight, managed with a sensible financial and business strategy.
Dennis Maxwell has been writing about technology for over 30 years, at General Electric, SRI International, for a number of Silicon Valley high technology films and for Eclipse Aviation. His words have appeared in disparate places, from The American Cinematographer to Congressional testimony. Born in Hamburg, NY, he lives on Johns Island, South Carolina.
Students of business seeking an excellent real life company case study involving an industry "game changing" product that suffered from repeated management and financial missteps will find a series of thought provoking business strategy questions in the last section of this book.
Editor-in-Chief, Flying Magazine
Vern Raburn - high tech entrepreneur - was a man with a dream and strong opinions.
The build a low cost, high speed twin-engine jet aircraft; to completely change personal air travel and Eclipse the competition. The strong when comparing the standards of thinking in aviation to those of Silicon Valley, Raburn said of aviation, "People think we can't do it because they can't. It's the 'if it doesn't exist, it can't exist' theorem." He said of Silicon Valley, "If it doesn't exist, it's a market opportunity."
Eclipse Aviation, Raburn's start-up company, created the airplane, won the prestigious Collier Trophy and went bankrupt. Then, against all odds, it was saved. "The Great Eclipse" tells the story of how crippling culture clashes, supply chain sloppiness, mega-marketing and major mismanagement made the dream a nightmare.
Maxwell takes us on a fascinating journey as Raburn's Eclipse powers through the easy money time of the internet bubble, tumbles on technology and crashes in the global economic crisis. Then, the assets of the company were plucked from the bankruptcy court and a new Eclipse company took flight, managed with a sensible financial and business strategy.
Dennis Maxwell has been writing about technology for over 30 years, at General Electric, SRI International, for a number of Silicon Valley high technology films and for Eclipse Aviation. His words have appeared in disparate places, from The American Cinematographer to Congressional testimony. Born in Hamburg, NY, he lives on Johns Island, South Carolina.
Students of business seeking an excellent real life company case study involving an industry "game changing" product that suffered from repeated management and financial missteps will find a series of thought provoking business strategy questions in the last section of this book.
342 pages, Paperback
First published May 20, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 30, 2019
I enjoyed reading this book immensely. Mr. Maxwell put tremendous effort in research and interviews to capture the fine details about the development of the Eclipse Jet and DayJet's rise and fall. This is a must ready for anyone that loves aviation.
March 7, 2013
Good and interesting if you are an airplane buff and/or if you have interest in the aviation industry. The editing is weak - there are several instances where I was confused because the grammar and spelling was incorrect. Reading is straightforward and fairly easy. The writing style is very much fact based , it sort of felt like I was reading an extremely long newspaper article. Maxwell does a great job of not being biased and providing the facts and different points of view. I would recommend it to anyone working in the aerospace industry and anyone interested in the overall operations of an aviation company.
February 23, 2012
I think I liked this book because I worked at Eclipse. But it's also a great story about Vern and some nice insight into the aviation industry.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews