The Eclipse Aviation 500 is a small six-seat business jet aircraft manufactured by Eclipse Aviation.

The Eclipse 500 is the second of a new class of Very Light Jets (VLJ), following the delivery of the first VLJ, the Cessna Citation Mustang in late 2006.

The Eclipse 500 is based on the Williams V-Jet II, which was designed and built by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites in 1997 for Williams International. It was intended to be used as a test bed and demonstrator for their new FJX-2 turbofan engine. The aircraft and engine debuted at the 1997 Oshkosh Air show.

The V-Jet II was an all-composite structure with a forward-swept wing, a V-tail, each fin of which was mounted on the nacelle of one of the two engines. Williams had not intended to produce the aircraft, but it attracted a lot of attention, and Eclipse Aviation was founded in 1998 to further develop and produce the aircraft