Podcast: Eclipse – The Book

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Key Takeaways:

  • Eclipse Aviation, despite over a billion dollars in investment and extensive promotion for its EA500 jet, ultimately went bankrupt in 2008.
  • The company's downfall was attributed to insurmountable manufacturing and development problems, preventing the aircraft from living up to expectations or achieving profitability.
  • Author Dennis Maxwell, an early marketing developer for Eclipse, chronicles the company's rise and fall in his book, "The Great Eclipse," and discusses the reasons for the "can't-miss" airplane's failure in an accompanying podcast.
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The rise and fall of Eclipse Aviation and its innovative EA500 jet represents one of the more interesting aviation business case studies in recent years. Lavishly funded and relentlessly promoted, the airplane never quite lived up to its billing, and despite more than a billion dollars in invested capital, the company went bust in 2008. In his new book, The Great Eclipse: A Dream Design Bankrupted by Marketing and Mismanagement and Saved by a Sensible Business Strategy, author Dennis Maxwell details how Eclipse came out of the ground with a flourish in 2000 and bagged what it claims were thousands of orders but encountered insurmountable manufacturing and development problems before it could turn a profit. In this podcast, Maxwell details his experiences at Eclipse – he was involved in early marketing development – and explains what finally killed what many assumed was a can’t-miss airplane.

This podcast is brought to you by Bose Corporation and WxWorx XM WX Satellite Weather.

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