MicroJets,Welcome to the 1940s

Among aircraft buffs, the postwar boom in light aircraft is almost the stuff of legend. A lot of companies began making private aircraft to sell to the returning GIs.

Globe Swift. North American Navion. ERCO's Ercoupe. Republic Seabee. Stinson Voyager. All went into production just after the war and production halted, more or less, within a few years. In most cases, it was not resumed. And those are airplanes that made it into production and hundreds, if not thousands, of them were made. This, for instance, is a listing of type certificates granted up to 1958, a fair number of those aircraft were not make in quantity.

Those in aviation who remembered that history were very skeptical when the big rush came to design and fly microjets. The makers of those jets are thinning out. Adam Aircraft has laid off all of its workers. ATG, who was working on a two-seat jet for sales for both civilians and for a military trainer, apparently shut down in December. Eclipse secured a large cash infusion, though the price for that may mean that their airplane will be built in Russia, not in New Mexico, and this was after getting many of those holding orders to greatly increase their deposits.

The VLJs are showing signs of the same blood-letting that occurred among the single-engined aircraft makers sixty years ago. This time, as was true 60 years ago, Cessna will be one of the survivors.