Does anyone have any first hand (you've flown and or paid the bills) operational experience with the Phenom 100? I'm not in the market, but I find the airplane pretty interesting in comparison to the Mustangs or the yet to market HondaJet. The Garmin avionics suit is a plus, as is the real rear lav.

Wondering what the weakness's or trouble prone systems are?

I shopped hard for one in this thread.
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=71253&hilit=phenom

I've flown a couple and love the plane. But at the end of the day for me, buying a "mini jet" with no range defeats the purpose of having a jet. But that's just my mission. You'll have to run the math for your mission.

holy crap, that's a long thread

Go ahead and tell me your mission as "jets" are my favorite topic.

The mission for "mini jet" in my opinion is the same as that of a TN Bonanza. You'll just be looking cooler. Same useful load. Same range.

Phenom and Mustang etc. have plenty of good buys right now. They're cheap because utility is low and OPEX is high. But they look sh$% hott.

I have to confess. I demo'd one today for sheets and giggles. I like the G1000 aspect of it, but having been exposed to the GTN's, I would rather have the G3000 with touch screen. The Prodigy version with the systems synopsis gives great overview of whats going on beneath the skin. Much like PL-21 stuff on bigger airplane.

The airplane is seriously easy to operate. I have some experience in other jets, and the systems make sense and Embraer kept things simple. I love the big airplane presence it has with the air-stair door, and stance on the trailing link gear. The airplane has an abundance of baggage space(external), and for an entry level jet, the lav is the real deal where it belongs.....in the rear of the cabin.

One of the perceived negatives is it's range. When you get into this level of investment on an airplane, I would want 1200nm range with IFR reserves. it's a stretch to make 1000 with pilot and 3 pax.

My mission from a distance standpoint is helter skelter. I go from 200 miles to 1400 miles. Probably the typical legs are in the 300-500nm range. Most of the time I'm flying with 2-3 passengers.

If I could stomach the $4.5 for an entry level jet, the Phenom would likely rise to the top of the choice options. Cessna has never got it right on styling for the citations except once, and that was the Citation X. The Honda will probably end up being a pretty good airplane, but they are too late to this party.

So........now I need to double down on lottery tickets.

Pilatus

Why spend $4.5MM? There are so many for sale with like 100 hours on them. You'd lose your butt paying $4.5MM.

I hear ya. That airplane has a great record, and good perf. numbers. I'm one of those 2 engine guys

Ha. oh.

I've spent too much time in the Lear and Challenger 300 sims with failed engines. You would think flying around on one all the time would make me convert.

I think the PC-12 is the cats meow when it comes to ultimate utility and flexibility. I think their new jet will do well against the CJ.

Pilatus

Why spend $4.5MM? There are so many for sale with like 100 hours on them. You'd lose your butt paying $4.5MM.

Sims. Yeah, I've spent a lot of time in the sim with engine out in the PC12. That's why it's a sim.

Pilatus jet is much larger and faster than CJ. Not in the same league or price point.

My hangar neighbor has one. I have flown it. I can't attest to the $ numbers, but if you PM me, I can hook you up with him. He flies it A LOT. He upgraded from a TBM-700 and he loves it.

As for flying it, it is a breeze to fly. The Garmin is pretty easy.

The biggest issue is getting it booted up without a glitch... Anything out of the ordinary on Start up requires a reboot...

E-very
M-echanical
B-reakdown
R-equires
A-n
E-lectrical
R-eset

The guys I bought my King Air from stepped up to a Citation Bravo. Seems like a nice little Jet. They love it.

You can buy a Premier 1 pretty cheap these days as well. Lots of bang for the buck. But good luck on the parts down the road.

Just happen to be in the middle of buying a 2010 Phenom 100. We test flew the Mustang, M2 (CJ1+), Eclipse and the Phenom. I also created a pretty detailed cost model of the Mustang, M2, and Phenom using our planned/typically annual trips ranging from 200nm milk-runs to 2000nm west coast, the cost of the Pratt and Williams engine programs, and the cost of the Embraer and Cessna service programs; basically all-in. I assumed insurance and hangar are equivalent.

The number come out pretty much as expected. The Mustang is the least expensive to operate, the Phenom is in the middle and the M2 is the most expensive. However, the delta between them is very very small, around 1%.

The range and payload is nearly identical between the Phenom and the M2; and yes the range is pretty short at ~1200nm with three or fewer on board. I have spoke with several CJ1 and Phenom owners that are moving up to the next level in order to get the range. The good news is with the FADECs hot starts are easy!

The Phenom market is tighter than it would appear. About 1/3 of the planes on Controller are in Brazil. You have to pay a HUGE VAT to get them out; most just say for sale in Brazil only. Secondly, two are listed as in the US but they are not. One is in South Africa the other Germany (recently sold). I looked at the African plane, beautiful. However, the cost and risk are just not worth dealing with and the owners are seriously pig-headed. The other couple planes are in Canada so you have to pay quite a bit of $$ to inspect for US airworthy and put N #'s on the tail. That process can take a month or more.

Anyway, I had assumed we were moving into a KA 90 series until I started running the numbers. I simply don't need the payload and the short-field so that benefit didn't out weigh the added operating costs. The Phenom cabin and cockpit are bigger and more comfortable as well (hard to believe but true). Ultimately, the decision came down to the same $$ buys a 10-20 year old airframe, with an ad hoc mix of old-new avionics, and no systems integration OR a 4 year old like-new airframe still under warranty with completely integrated systems.

We also tried-on the TBM, Meridian, and PC12. The PC12 was amazingly roomy and has impressive performance numbers; however, they are at a price premium so we'd pay much more money for an older aircraft. Secondly, they are huge so finding a hangar would be nearly impossible. Third, I really like having two engines.