BY KEITH BENMAN, Times of Northwest Indiana
kbenman@nwitimes.com
WHEELING | More than 40 years ago, a pioneering aviator and airport operator named George Priester went to plane manufacturers and asked what had to be done to get his 109-acre private airport in Wheeling ready for the jet age.
Today, airport operators are asking the same types of questions. This time, they don't want to know how to handle bigger, faster jets. Instead, they want to know how to handle a new generation of small jets that some think could revolutionize air travel.
"Many are calling it a 'Wright Brothers' moment' for aviation," Palwaukee Municipal Airport Manager Dennis Rouleau said during a recent morning at the airport.
Known officially as very light jets, or VLJs, the jets will be available for as little as $1.2 million, a fraction of the price of the cheapest business jets on the market now. Perhaps more importantly, they will be fuel-efficient, less noisy and able to land on shorter runways.
Eclipse Aviation won a provisional certification for its six-seat Eclipse 500 twin-engine VLJ in July. It will be delivering the first of them to customers this fall.
Charter operators like Priester Aviation, a company now run by the son and grandson of the late George Priester at Palwaukee Municipal Airport, are waiting to see what the new jets will mean for their business.
Company president and COO Andy Priester is not so sure the jets will take the industry by storm like some are predicting. He thinks the personal jet market will feel the effects before charter companies.
Companies that will produce the first of the jets include Eclipse Aviation, Honda Motor Co., Cessna Aircraft Co. and Embraer.
Honda, Eclipse and Embraer already have visited Palwaukee, Rouleau said. They wanted to show off their product and get a look at facilities.
VLJ manufacturers already are predicting the jets can be used as on-demand "air taxis." They say someone will be able to call for a reservation a couple of hours ahead and be whisked to an airport 500 miles away for little more than the price of an airline ticket.
That has airports like Palwaukee looking at how they can increase business by serving the jets.
"It will increase traffic but, more importantly, it will expose general aviation to more and more people and make it affordable to more and more people," Rouleau said.
If the jets live up to their promise, it could mean greatly increased business for airport fixed-base operators Signature Flight Support and Atlantic Aviation. Signature recently built a new $6 million flight support center at Palwaukee.
The same factors that have caused the charter business to take off in the last five years also will drive the VLJ market, Priester said.
That includes the ability to land at small airports in destinations not served by regular passenger airlines, and the ability to avoid the security and other hassles at large airport terminals.