Your take on VLJ's?

saleenfan...

I think that you are pretty much spot on. I put up a post here

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=198299&page=4

First though, I wouldn't put too much stock in problems with Cessna. In my experience Cessna gets it right every time. They will fix any issues and make sure you are satisified with the airplane. Really, they have the best customer service and if there are bugs now, they will fix it.

My opinions on the VLJ's and yours pretty much are in line with mine.

While the "advertised" VLJ numbers sound pretty good, the reality is that they don't carry much for very far and you will likely get assigned lower altitudes where the turboprops are almost as fast and are burning about half the gas. The Epic LT is a pretty impressive aircraft, with the ability to fill the tanks, fill the seats (ok, you can't carry much baggage if you do, but still it's pretty impressive) and fly a 1200 mile leg.

At 360kts, that is going to put you in the air for a little over 3 hours (and more if the airplane is slower), which I think is about the normal bladder limit for most folks. It's no fun to have your eyes floating at 30k ft, so I think that it some of the high end turboprops are going to need a potty, even it it isn't used very often, it falls in the almost necessary features if you are going to have that much full seat range.....

A King Air has always been a pretty fine ride. Needs a bit more speed in today's market, but it is still a classic.

Kinda funny how the classics hang in there. Planes like the DC3 then, and the King Air now (in production now for 44 years!!!), are still around for a long time. Not because they were the fastest thing in their markets, but because they offered the best value in terms of payload, range, and operating economics. Hard to beat.

 

Kinda like it was supposed to be right after WWII, with all the trained pilots around, they thought that there would be a Bonanza in every garage, but it didn't happen. It cost too much and the money wasn't there, the returning pilots all went out and bought houses and cars and the aviation industry went into the tank.

VLJ's were gonna be the next big thing in transportation, you would go to the local airport, hop on a jet taxi and buzz 600 miles to your meeting, have the meeting, and be back home for dinner. Problem is, when compared to airline travel the VLJ is still pretty expensive and when fuel costs went thru the roof, it got more so.

I still think there is a charter market out there, and a Mustang is going to have a lot better economics than a Lear 45, so it will increase the overall market and that's a good thing, but I don't think that the VLJ/air taxi thing is going to be as big as it was supposed to be.

The only caveat on that is if the airlines continue to screw up with poor service and stay greedy on ticket prices as fuel drops. Then the air taxi market could come out of this pretty strong. Make no mistake, traveling the airlines today has about the same appeal as taking the bus. Not so long ago flying the airlines was a pleasure. Now it is about as pleasant as having a root canal or a prostrate exam. The airlines wanted to make it so that everybody could afford to fly and they did. Problem is, if you do that the airlines can't make any money at those prices so they are in real pickle. If nothing else it is going to get more interesting over time.

 

BINGO!!! And the people who detest commercial (that happen to have money left) will start flying charter, air taxi, whatnot...

Saleen...does it make a difference that you have Mustang #1 as to why it's in being serviced so much? Honest question because I think I may have told you that we are doing our demo in the Mustang on Wednesday and trying to gleen as much info as possible. The nice thing for me though is when I have problems with it we take a 4 minute hop across town instead of the time it takes from UND. I hope the bugs are worked out as their numbers get higher...I had heard over 200 is kind of the tipping point on this aircraft, but don't believe everything you hear.

I will say this, I was absolutely not impressed with the Eclipse's service on the phone. It took me getting through to a VP to get an answer and he still was not able to help me. We switched our approach earlier this year to Cessna and so far has been able to answer all questions and hasn't left any doubts in my mind (yet).

We are going to test her out on Wednesday. 6 guys (not fully fueled), stormy weather, going to need some runway...I believe Martin Lawrence's Bad Boys II quote with Dan Marino applies.

 

The Mustang is going to be an excellent airplane, and very successful. I think Cessna got the right mix of cabin size, price, and economics on that airplane. The only thing I'd like is a bit more speed, but it's still no worse than the old Citation 501 I used to fly. If only it had the performance (and looks!) of a Lear 24, which has basically the same cabin.

Of course, you can buy an RVSM Lear 24 for around $500k, and while it will cost you quite a bit more to operate (3x, at least), it's way more fun to fly and a much better performer. Think M.78 at FL430 with the power pulled back. If you're only going to fly 100 hours per year and Jet-A stays below $10/gallon, the economics are probably in favor of the Lear.

 

While the 24 may be faster than the Mustang, the Mustang should be much more forgiving (like most other straight wing Citations). It takes an experienced pilot to safely fly the 24. The margin at altitude between stall speed and Mmo on 24s with an unmodded wing is tight and the onset of mach tuck can happen extremely quickly. Back in the 80's the FAA put the 24 through a Special Certification Review because of the mach tuck problems that led to numerous crashes of Lear 24s and 25s.

 

True (I have a lot of experience in Learjets, including all the LR-JET variants except the 28/29). However, there aren't that many un-modded 24s flying around-- at least not ones with RVSM and decent equipment, and a Century III/Softflite airplane is actually quite forgiving at altitude, assuming you keep it within it's limitations.

A 24 or any other Learjet is more likely to bite a novice on takeoff and landing than at altitude. And with proper training and supervision, it's quite manageable.

This one, for instance:

http://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft-for-sale/LEARJET-24D/1976-LEARJET-24D/1134109.htm?guid=8B6194AF56E64E8497849C6A38CFC84B

 

BJ,

So you are going to give us a report on the demo flight, right?

Jeff

 

I think the jury is still out on the VLJs. I do agree with what you say but there is potential to be a very productive class of aircraft. I understand the traffic issue, but I think there will be less and less waypoint flying and more direct routing. Hopefully these jets will use the smaller regional airports and reduce some of the traffic at the larger airports. I commend the designers and manufacturers for attempting this, as technology has given them the ability to do so. Let's face it, since Concorde flew its' final flight, this is an interesting approach to travel.

 

338 kts at FL320...the weather was beautiful. Felt like we could've taken off on my sidewalk. I thought it was way too soon for our pilot to be pulling up for takeoff, but the mustang did it with 5 on board and probably one of the shortest take offs I've ever been on. Flying backwards was a first for me too. Wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be, in fact it was nice given that those are the seats that recline. Eased up to 320 in 23 minutes, hung a loop around salina and back to ict. It wasn't loud except for initial takeoff. Our pilot put her down in a 40 mile crosswind (thank you Kansas) and she was smooth. Was very impressed with the 3 axis auto pilot and on a separate note, the food in the executive dining room at cessna was quite delicious. A VERY GOOD EXPERIENCE. Didn't get this attention when I phone Eclipse 9 months ago...in fact, I didn't get any attention until I got ahold of an SVP at Eclipse, then what answers I got were not helpful. Guess this works out for the better. I live 4 miles from the Wichita Cessna service center. It's a bit farther to ABQ...

BJ
ICT
Quite Possibly a Mustang Owner

 

BJ,

Are they offering any contractual guarantees for operation cost? How much softness do they admit to on the production backlog?

Jeff

 

I have 2 friends with Mustangs and both have owned them for more that 1 year, our airport is very high at around 7,000 feet, both of them have problems with load and range the runway is actually very long and they take most part of it when taking off with 5 people on board, I would take a King Air any day and there are lots of small jet bargains right now, I really think buying a Mustang is a mistake unless you are the pilot.

 

jgc, which airport, just curious. We will do some colorado airports, but rarely a leadville run...most of our market validation suggests ict to den, mdw, dfw, stl, msp, mem and the like, but I agree with load issues. Something we have to take into account. Oddly enough, we have several doctor groups who absolutely refuse to fly on anything but jet...the king air is a great plane, but if they don't want to fly...

Jeff, Contractual guarantees and backlog only came up briefly...can fill you in on the side. I may have some questions for you.

We will most likely start with open market mustangs anyway.

A larger cj isn't a bad option for us rob, but this is for charter and a brand new aircraft will work best for us as the downtime is generally less. Let's just hope all the funding comes through...made contacts in the final 20 minutes of NBAA (jeff you were there) that may have secured $10MM that we need to move forward.

By god I hope this works. selling the ferrari to start this thing...

BJ

 

BJ,

I will be glad to help you on some of the detail clauses to negotiate for. Directly from Cessna may be needed since individual owner probably won't have these in their agreements.

Any luck on find a viable deal for your QV?

Jeff

 

Don't bet on that. The cost will be less for the first year (I don't know the specifics of the Mustang warranty, but I've done a lot of research on other Citation warranties, and it's not as simple as the one for your car), but the down time will be comparable, or more, to a late model used airplane with the issues worked out. Especially a CJ.

 

I suppose I should rephrase...time down meaning roll it across the ramp to cessna or fly it approximately 4 minutes. But it is definitely worth talking to a few mustang owners, you are right in saying not to bet on that.

Good input fellas, thanks.

The QV has a potential buyer. Will know more tomorrow. Hate to do without her for a few years, but it's the price of admission.

 

Don,

For an individual owner used can make a lot of financial sense. If, as I partially understand what BJ is up to, they are looking at a fleet proposition then there are certain factors that can make new more attractive.

All aircraft with the exact same interior - passenger sees all aircraft as indistinguishable.

All aircraft with exact same avionics package and panel arrangement.

No equipment aberations that make unique spare requirements with the fleet.

With new it is possible (sometimes) to get trade-in value guarantees from the OEM. This makes financial type happy that there is a "backstop" to their risk.

With new it is possible (sometimes) to get guarantees on operational costs and in service reliability.

There are multiple warranties in play between the engines, avionics, airframe and general interior that are going to control the cost exposure of the first X years of each aircraft. Unlike used each aircraft will start at the zero point in all warranties and for any MSPs.

Operating costs are direct out of pocket expenses while the asset can be financed. I would expect that the VLJ is going to have a significantly lower fuel burn which will be a big component on the chargeable per-hour rates.

I would expect that BJ's operation would be planning to have aircraft replacement in some amount of scheduled years. He may also want for marketing purposes to be able to say "new".

The Original Flight Options, when they used used aircraft, regularly talked about do interior fleet standardization programs. It was only talk because when they got the numbers to make each aircraft type have the same configurations and same features the cost was always more than they wanted to put in. The result was that they had a fleet of one off aircraft that was a problem to support.

Jeff

 

BJ,

In this market it looks like you will be able to probably get an equivalent QV for an equivalent number for a while. Look pretty flat line on the values right now.

Jeff

 

yeah, figured $25.5k was a pretty dang decent price on my 308 qv...Maybe I need to leave the keys in it in the drive...insurance might pay better...geeze

 

Jeff--

For a fleet operation, I agree completely. I remember when Flight Options was principally using used aircraft, and the issues they had. I had several recurrent sessions with Flight Options guys, back in the day.

The good thing was that the Flight Options guys had actual experience with just about every failure mode on the aircraft!

 

Not to mention standardization of aircraft...the savings are tremendous, not just indirect savings from customer attention, but the need for dealing with 1 type of aircraft only streamlines everything. We will also be doing the pro parts, pro tech and pro advantage so in theory (in theory only) the only variable real cost is fuel. There are always surprises lurking round the corners though. BJ

 

I live in Toronto, and this Mustang is on our ramp at Buttonville Airport tonight. It is serial number 510-122 N230BF and it's leaving for Europe the morning via Goose Bay.