"The wonder isn"t that the airplane took so long to get built but that it got built at all." Robert Goyer Editor-in-Chief, Flying Magazine Vern Raburn - high tech entrepreneur - was a man with a dream and strong opinions. The dream: build a low cost, high speed twin-engine jet aircraft; to completely change personal air travel and Eclipse the competition. The strong opinions: when comparing the standards of thinking in aviation to those of Silicon Valley, Raburn said of aviation, "People think we can"t do it because they can"t. It"s the "if it doesn"t exist, it can"t exist" theorem." He said of Silicon Valley, "If it doesn"t exist, it"s a market opportunity." Eclipse Aviation, Raburn"s start-up company, created the airplane, won the prestigious Collier Trophy and went bankrupt. Then, against all odds, it was saved. "The Great Eclipse" tells the story of how crippling culture clashes, supply chain sloppiness, mega-marketing and major mismanagement made the dream a nightmare. Maxwell takes us on a fascinating journey as Raburn"s Eclipse powers through the easy money time of the internet bubble, tumbles on technology and crashes in the global economic crisis. Then, the assets of the company were plucked from the bankruptcy court and a new Eclipse company took flight, managed with a sensible financial and business strategy. Dennis Maxwell has been writing about technology for over 30 years, at General Electric, SRI International, for a number of Silicon Valley high technology films and for Eclipse Aviation. His words have appeared in disparate places, from The American Cinematographer to Congressional testimony. Born in Hamburg, NY, he lives on Johns Island, South Carolina. Students of business seeking an excellent real life company case study involving an industry "game changing" product that suffered from repeated management and financial missteps will find a series of thought provoking business strategy questions in the last section of this book.