Even an irrepressible optimist sometimes get repressed. I feel a bit sad at the departure of Vern Raburn as chief executive of Eclipse, the very light jet maker that has not yet fulfilled his hopes of transforming air travel.

Mr Raburn has paid the price for the fact that it has proved much harder than he promised to built a cheap, snap-together small jet that would be used for air taxi services and bought as an alternative to small turbo-prop aircraft.

Mr Raburn is a entertaining talker and he went out in style, noting that “debt-holders don’t have much of a sense of humour” about missing financial targets. “It cost more money and took more time than we had promised and there’s a price to be paid for that,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

Whatever his flaws, he brought Silicon Valley insouciance and self-confidence to a deeply traditional industry. There will presumably be a lot of people who are pleased that his showmanship did not quite work out, but I am not among them.

July 29th, 2008 in Aerospace | Permalink