You can’t exactly call it a mothball fleet because most — if not all — of the 260-odd Eclipse 500s built and delivered before the company quit production are still in regular use, doing — more or less, considering the “unfinished” status of some of the avionics — exactly what they were designed to do.

Doing it rather well, as far as that goes.

Still, the Delaware Bankruptcy Court considering the matter of Eclipse Aviation’s liquidation is at some point going to have to resolve the matter of who gets what’s left of the spoils — intellectual property such as design and engineering documents, patents for crucial parts, tooling, etc. It’s a decision that’s likely to have a profound effect on the viability of the existing fleet over the years, and perhaps decades, ahead.

No one ever said that navigating Eclipse through dark and moneyless skies would be easy, but it began to look substantially more difficult last week with the apparent collapse and bankruptcy of Rolfe Pieper’s Luxembourg-based ETIRIC (European Technology and Investment Research Center) amidst indictments, lawsuits and counter lawsuits charging post-Vern Rayburn managers of Eclipse with everything from misappropriating customers’ deposits on new aircraft to pay off their own loans to Eclipse, to making unfounded promises of new financing being in the pipeline.

Pieper, who responded to the charges by telling European media that “I’m not worried. I just watch out” is the magic money man who forced Raburn out of Eclipse with sometimes conflicting promises to a.)continue producing Eclipse 500s in the U.S. after refinancing the company with capital from his own private investment group or b.) relocate it to the former Soviet Union, where production would be financed by the Russian government and state bank, which Pieper avowed, were both firmly under the virtually dictatorial control of his bud, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Note: Evidence introduced in a February 2009 filing to force Eclipse out of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy and into a Chapter 7 proceeding indicated that the Russian state bank in question, Vnesheconombank (VEB), was itself insolvent at the time Pieper was touting its willingness to dump roughly $205 million (USD) into Eclipse. (The motion to convert Eclipse’s Chapter 11 filing into Chapter 7, which virtually guarantees the company will be liquidated, was tentatively approved by the court on March 4.)

Edgy — to use as non-judgmental a word as possible — financial machinations are hardly news in today’s economy, but that doesn’t stop them from drawing generally good audience ratings in the reality show of life. Unfortunately, the latest revelations do nothing for existing Eclipse owners and operators wondering if their aircraft will a.) ever be upgradeable to the advanced GPS performance standards and known-icing certification they were promised when they placed their orders and b.) whether the resale value curve of their 500 will be more like that of a 1961 Corvette than it will that of a 1961 Ford Falcon.

Offering hope, on the other hand, are four groups vying for court approval to pick up the pieces and attempt to bring order out of the Eclipse chaos. The three considered most likely to succeed are an effort by air-taxi operator Linear Air, a co-op supported by management company Jet-Alliance and several 500 owners, and an owner/investor partnership suggested by Harlow Aerostructures CEO Phillip Friedman. (The fourth contender is believed to out of the running due to close ties with Roel Pieper. )

Since we discussed Linear’s non-profit, co-op Eclipse Services and Support LLC initiative in a previous post, we’ll concentrate on the other two proposals here.

The most intriguing of all the Eclipse recovery plans is Friedman’s brainchild, New Eclipse Aviation LLC (NEA), which envisions nothing less than the eventual restoration of Eclipse as an independent manufacturer of brand new, state-of-the-art VLJs.

Friedman’s plan, while attractive in that it provides for “at-cost” (approximately $300,000 for complete GPS and glass cockpit makeovers) upgrades, also requires that existing owners invest $150,000 (plus annual support fees) in New Eclipse to qualify for the discounted upgrades.

Looked at objectively, the NEA plan — if fully realized — probably offers the most potential benefits to owners. It would provide for relatively low-cost aircraft upgrades, thus increasingly functionality and resale value, and an owner’s investment in New Eclipse could become highly profitable if the company eventually went into production successfully.

“Fully realizing” a plan, however, is even harder in commercial aviation than in most fields of endeavor. Any breakdowns along the way — such as the failure of a large number of current owners to sign on — could have a catastrophic effect on the financial wind between New Eclipse’s wings.

Without naming names, but perhaps mindful of New Eclipse’s buy-in requirements, the Eclipse Owners Group (EOG) effort, championed by Jet-Alliance CEO Randall P. Sanada and Eclipse owner David Green, has stated that it intends to try and acquire Eclipse’s remaining assets because proposals from some of the other suitors “are shortsighted and place undue burdens on an already overtaxed customer base.”

Far more modest than Friedman’s “resurrection” plan, the EOG’s stated goal is obtaining “full control of the serviceability, modification and long-term reliability” of the existing Eclipse fleet. EOG also put at least a few points on the scoreboard when it signed a letter of intent with Hawker Beechcraft in which the latter contracted to provide service and upgrade support to current Eclipse owners on an ad hoc basis. (The points may or may not stay on the board dependent on whether the original non-binding agreement is eventually superseded by a binding one.)

Bottomline is that with a liquidation auction for Eclipse’s bones anywhere (depending on which predictions you chose to believe) from days to an eternity away, the prospects for existing Eclipse owners isn’t nearly as dark as it could be.

Despite being not quite fuly formed, the embryonic 500 has proven to an efficient, economical and reliable performer for private, small corporation and air-taxi operators. With the cost of new light and very light aircraft constantly escalating by hundreds of thousands of dollars, the value proposition — and the potential vendor and outfitter profit potential — in upgrading the existing Eclipse fleet has increased proportionally.

Sooner or later some entrepreneurial entity, either one of the groups described above or another not yet on the horizon, is almost sure to come forward and provide the Bondo needed to fill the chinks in the Eclipse 500’s armor.

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