Small, speedy, cheap jets may transform flying

updated 2:30 p.m. ET Jan. 18, 2006

WASHINGTON - America's already crowded skies are about to become more congested.

Taking off for the first time this year will be small, speedy, cheap jets that big airlines worry will cause traffic jams around major metropolitan areas.

Called "microjets" or "very light jets," they've been likened to SUVs with wings. With two engines and seating capacity for five or six people, they cost half as much as the most inexpensive business jet now in service.

Three thousand of the little jets are already on order at three manufacturers. Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Eclipse Aviation has 2,350 on back order and expects to receive Federal Aviation Administration certification for its E500 by June. The first E500 — which takes less than five days to make — will be delivered 10 days later.

The FAA and airline pilots are wary of the sudden emergence of a new class of jets. But Vern Raburn, the brash founder of Eclipse Aviation, scoffs at the notion that VLJs will blacken the skies.

The airlines and manufacturers that have been around for decades have the attitude, Raburn said, that "if it hasn't been done before, it can't be done or it won't be done or it shouldn't be done."

"The question is exactly where they're going to be flying," said FAA chief Marion Blakey. "How much is in congested airspace? It's probably not knowable at this point."

Supporters of the little jets predict they'll go to out-of-the way sites, in the vast empty skies between more than 5,000 small, underused airports.

"We're going to offer service where the airlines don't," Raburn said.

Duane Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, the largest pilot union, said it's more likely the new jets will swarm to the busy airspace above the 35 biggest airports, through which 95 percent of all air passengers travel.

"A lot of these guys aren't going to want to go to a farm patch in Scribner, Nebraska," he said.

The FAA predicts at least 4,500 VLJs will be in service 10 years from now, though Blakey concedes that's a conservative estimate. NASA projects 20,000 in 2010.

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