Little plane that could..coming soon.

[thull]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060727/little_jets.html?.v=1

looks pretty cool

 

[PropStop]

Yeah, those would be fun to fly I bet. Wonder if the military will buy any of them for small exec transport.

 

[Schnugg]

small, fast, would quickly kill a first time plane buyer. I doubt they'll become typical GA transports...too expensive to maintain a jet engine.

Service ceiling?

 

[Ajaxus]

i've been watching that story developing for a few days now, should be interesting to see their effect on smaller airports that normally deal with the smaller sized aircraft.

i would speculate that we would see some decent airtraffic increases and economic increases from this.

 

[thull]

definitely. there's small airports all over Maine, but the only major hub in Portland. weekend getaways from big cities might be more practical. On the other hand, I like maine the way it is..less developed, less people...

 

[thull]

small, fast, would quickly kill a first time plane buyer. I doubt they'll become typical GA transports...too expensive to maintain a jet engine.

Service ceiling?

cruising at 375 knots with a 1,280 nautical mile range carrying 4 occupants. It has a 41,000 foot service ceiling, allowing it to avoid most severe weather.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Light_Jet

 

[Cobra Commander]

I was just at the Eclipse factory in ABQ yesterday. We were supposed to get a tour, but everyone was on vacation after the plane got certified.
But I did get to see one up close a week ago and they are really cool. They have the Garmin G1000 up front (must be nice). It's hard to belive how small they are though.

 

[thull]

flying a little "air taxi" for a living sounds like it would be a great job...

 

[plc67]

The down side is a bunch of airplanes at jet altitudes going 80 to 90 knots slower than everyone else.

 

[MasterBates]

DayJet Requirements:

3,000 hours flight time (excluding helicopter, simulator and flight engineer time)
1,000 hours as Pilot-in-Command (PIC)
1,000 hours multi-engine
500 hours turbo-jet PIC
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) Certification


WTF? I can see them not counting sim time, but TOTALLY discount ANY helo time is BS. I can see 3K total, 1000 Multi, 500 Jet, but 1000 hours in Cessnas counts, while 1000 hours in a Multi-Engine Turbine Helo does not.

Guess I am staying out of the VLJ field as well.

 

[gregsivers]

My sister is working for the company that is building/installing the autopilots on the Eclipse. She's seen one when its flown to the airport she works at in Texas and said its a pretty neat little jet. It was a big deal there as well when it got certified by the FAA.

 

[A4sForever]

...Hell I can't even legally get a Hornet as high as this thing will go... RVSM is a *****.

Wait a minute ... you can't do/go RVSM in one our Navy's finest ??? And you guys think an ADF is "old" ....

 

[plc67]

We usually fly 350 to 410 and I've only seen turboprops on TCAS.
An F18 at non RVSM altitudes must be quite the gas guzzler.

 

[PropStop]

flying a little "air taxi" for a living sounds like it would be a great job...

You can’t get in man. Didn’t you hear, the requirements to be an air taxi pilot are that you be foreign, don’t speak English well, and wear a turban.

Okay, that was completely insensitive…

 

[Fly Navy]

Sounds like the FAA really is working the point-to-point idea. I remember reading that they wanted to scrub the hub-and-spoke system of today and move to a point-to-point system flying smaller jets, such as what we see here. It would revolutionize air travel.

And Portland is far from a hub... it's a spoke