For the past few years, the “very light jet” has been a term bandied around an awful lot. The Eclipse 500 is the closest VLJ to certification, with hundreds of orders and dozens of air taxi operators scrambling to launch point-to-point service between small cities. NASA and the FAA are pushing their Small Aircraft Transportation System as the future of air travel. Here’s the thing:

It’s probably not going to work.

Everybody knows that fuel costs are rising; that’s obvious enough at the pump. The impact on the aviation industry is even stronger, with Jet-A passing $4/gallon in many cities and 100LL aviation gas already well past $5/gallon. The E500’s two Pratt & Whitney turbines burn, based on Eclipse’s figures, around 50 gallons of Jet-A per hour. Most of the other VLJ offerings use similar Williams engines, though some use a single turbofan.

The market simply doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe it does to salespeople and executives somewhere, and they almost certainly know more. What I do know is that the air taxis are going to have to find a niche, and it’s going to be difficult. They need to find markets with enough paying passengers to break even, but too few to bring in regional service. Costs are rising. For air taxi work the E500 will probably carry three passengers; while it’s certified for one pilot, most operators will have to stick with two. I’m willing to bet that by the time it’s entering service the seat-mile costs are going to be exceptionally high.

I’m sure it will sell. I’m just not sure about sales hitting the predicted volumes.