Initial worries about insurance have proved unfounded. But it’s not generous or cheap, especially for jet-newbies

By Jon Doolittle

The long-awaited age of the VLJ has begun. The Eclipse 500 and the Cessna 510 Mustang are the vanguard of the new movement. Eclipse is now building almost one new jet airplane each work day. Cessna delivered 45 airplanes in 2007 and is ramping up to build two Mustangs a week.

There are already close to 200 VLJs out there. By this time next year that number will have more than doubled, and soon other manufacturers will be swelling the

Although it can be said to have invented the owner-flown jet, you still get the feeling that Cessna seems to view jet airplanes as the province of experienced pilots. Eclipse apparently believes that any pilot with good skills can fly if trained right. Eclipse’s require-ments for new pilots is 500 hours with instrument and multi-engine ratings—right about where many underwriters used to consider insuring a Saratoga pilot transi-tioning into a Seneca.

ranks of Jet-A consumers. …