Another nice thing about dry leasing. We were named insureds on the Citation II we leased. All included in the payment. The chief pilot could name the pilots covered in the plane. $25MM smooth.

I’m little sad ☹

I just finished combing through the Phenom listings on Controller for a company that I flew a loooooong time for before the economy hiccupped.

Not a single Phenom that was listed checked all my “little Phenom boxes”.
I ended up digging through my files and reaching out to people I have previously spoken with. Still nothing. ☹

To answer a couple of questions from the last page. The 10 year and gear inspection were not a hidden secret or a conspiracy. I have been talking about it for 9 years. Considering the amount of work involved, the price is reasonable (for an airplane) and the airframes and gear have been coming back mostly clean.

The Citation (CJs) fleet will have had three doc 10s (36 month) vs one ten year and an expensive ADS-B / WAAS upgrade. Who do you think has spent less money on maintenance over ten years?

Reputable people have been instructing owners for years that they needed to curb the airplane “a long time ago” to avoid this predicament if they wanted to “step up” It’s rather ironic that no one headed that advice and the poorly equipped or poorly planned execution (sale) will have a negative impact on the Phenom market… It appears that many of the strong Phenoms are hiding in the corner and the owners that wanted to “game” the system and “outsmart” everyone are a victim of their own strategy. Unfortunately, the flood of Phenoms will have a negative impact on other aircraft with similar performance.

It’s not so much the money issue, because the “take” price should be reflective of the maintenance status. The issue is the time the airplane is out of service if the 120-month stuff hasn’t been complied with… And many of the airplanes are also close to HSI or OH, so that quickly becomes two strikes. A third strike is many of the Phenoms currently for sale are JSSI and P&W now requires payment in advance for JSSI work and that takes more time to facilitate.

The scary thing is we are only ¾ of the way through the first year (December 2008) of production. This could be a very heavy anchor on the market for a long time. I pity the good owners that understood that jets are expensive, and 10 years is a big year for the Phenom (compared to 36 months for the CJs) and coincidently want to trade into another airplane now.

If I had a choice to be visiting the service center a “few” times a year in something else or one time a year (less brakes and tires) in a Phenom, I know what I would choose. Because the Phenom inspection schedule gets progressively larger each year and then “resets” after the ten-year stuff and EMB keeps improving the original airplanes with updates, a Phenom with fresh gear and ten year should serve its new owner very very well!

Edit - With the lead time involved in scheduling MX now. I would hate to be the Phenom built between September - December 2009 and not have a plan in place for MX.

Mustang doesn't have the CJ Doc 10 inspections. It's set up on 12-month progressive inspections. It had WAAS from the get go, and ADS-B was a $9,900 install. I'd bet I've spent less money on my 10-year old Mustang than if I owned a P100.

Clint,

Thank you for pointing out that I didn't separate all of the differences between the 525s and the 510.

I shouldn't have assumed everyone would be familiar that the RC Proline and the Garmin 1000 (variant) are not the same.

Congratulations on your cost of ownership. Do you have Dante perform the maintenance?

Edit - I have removed the "Mustang" from my offending post. Based on comments in this thread by Mustang owners, the Mustang "cruises at the same speed as a Phenom" and is "more economical to operate" and has "longer range" "better support", carry more, and uses less runway.

Admin, Sam's question of "Mustang vs Phenom 100" has been answered. Please close this thread.

The Mustang, Phenom, CJs, King Airs, PC-12s, C-150, & 414, GIV, Falcon 7X are all nice airplanes... Just different strokes for different folks. I'm thankful to participate in the gift of flight.

P100 is a nice jet, no doubt. I know a couple guys that have them. They can cruise faster than I, but they don’t range quite as far. Doesn’t really make much difference in the grand scheme of things. There comes a point where you’re splitting hairs. They spend a little more on opex, but everyone seems happy. That’s what counts.

Clint,

This statement is very misleading “but they [Phenoms] don’t range quite as far”. You have a very nice airplane that, 99% of the people on Beechtalk would love to own. I would love to have a Mustang to fly my family around in. It’s a great airplane and would far exceed the mission wants for my family.

How many normal-sized people and baggage can a Mustang fly (SOBs including the captain) before you need to start offloading fuel? I know the answer. If I didn't fly both airplanes, and this thread was my only source of information, I would come away thinking the Mustang outperforms the Phenom in every way. That's not true.

A “LITE” Phenom (<7,000 lbs) with the gross weight increase service bulletin can carry 2,400 lbs of fuel with six (6) SOBs and luggage. This gives the Phenom a seats full range of approximately 900 nm with fat reserves. Get a Phenom with 5 or 6 seats in the back (8 total) and you can fill the cabin and carry enough fuel to fly regional trips comfortably with two more SOBs than you can seat in a Mustang. In Beechtalker language this is an early C-90 with full epic. What you give up (VLJ vs C90 or any king air) is takeoff/departure and landing performance (I’m not just talking about TOFL).

Don't think for one blink of an eye, I'm trying to detract from the Mustang, because I'm not. I love the Mustang. The fact that the Mustang is much slower, smaller tube, has a limited seats full range and doesn’t have a proper lav are huge differences, none of which should detract from a Mustang. For many people, the Mustang will check all the boxes for a great airplane. I would love to own a Mustang!

Can anyone chime in with runway performance of the Mustang? Phenom is not the greatest runway performer, but Mustang seems somewhat better. Can you characterize how it performs on shorter runways?

Assuming half the premium is available for claims (the rest on overhead, broker commission, legal, etc), that's $35K/year on a $5M risk, to break even, you'd have to have one loss every 143 years. Or, you'd have to have only one loss among 143 aircraft you underwrite per year at the same hull rate.

And that's just assuming the premium is only hull coverage and not liability.

Not clear to me the insurance has gone "crazy" from the numbers you posted.

Mike C.

General consensus is that the Mustang will get into any (except ice) 4000’ strip. The Phenom needs every bit of 5000’.

Aaron, the two guys I know that own P100s told me they have shorter range. I'm going off of their comments. I've never flown one. They have early model serial numbers, so maybe that makes a difference. My Mustang only holds 2700# of fuel, which leaves room for three men or two couples. With six you lose 45 minutes of fuel, which puts the zero wind range at 950nm with VFR reserve. Sounds about like your P100. Both nice airplanes, but as you pointed out they have differences.

Aaron can you expand on this - with ~50 P100 on the market there seems to be an option for every price range.

I just sold my P100 (#58) in and moved up to a P300 (#68). I expected my P100 to sit on the market for a while, but it sold within two months even with the gear inspection coming up in October. Agreed that the 10-year gear inspection has been known for a while, although I think in the early days owners hoped EEC eventually would cover the overhaul. It still seems pricey compared to the overhauls of similar weight aircraft. MX facilities I talked to said that several >50,000 lbs class birds have less expensive overhauls.

Is it an inspection or an overhaul?

An inspection is required, an overhaul is not. This is true EVEN IF the overhaul is specified in the inspection program selected under 91.409(e)(f). The FAA recently issued statements to this effect. You are only required to do the inspection parts of the program.

To be clear, an inspection is checking for airworthiness, checking that the part meets objective criteria such as dimensions, lack of cracks, etc.

An overhaul is adding new life to a part, that is, undoing effects of wear and age so the part will last longer.

Are there life limited parts in the gear system? Those have to be replaced regardless when the life is used up (age, hours, or cycles), but typically this isn't the case for light jet landing gear.

Mike C.

We are based at the runway shown in this video and have been for over 6 years. When we began operations here the runway was 2764' x 30' and it worked fine. It has since been lengthened to 2964' and 40' blast pads added to each end, so for takeoff there is 3004' of pavement available.

It is still 30' wide.Landing as shown in the video is a non event. The Mustang has incredible brakes. The turnoff made in the video is 2500' from the beginning of the runway and requires nowhere near max braking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdcQyijlgg8

[youtube]https://youtu.be/GdcQyijlgg8[/youtube]
One way to get more runway for landing is to lower the threshold crossing height (TCH) as seen in this video.

The landing tables are based on 50 ft TCH. If you maintain a 3 degree slope from TCH to touchdown, which is natural and ordinary, you have let 1000 ft of runway go past before touchdown. So the landing figures have about 1000 ft of unused runway built into them.

If you lower TCH to 12 ft, say, then you will touch down 250 ft from the runway end and have 750 ft more runway to use to stop.

And this is exactly what happens in this video.

Mike C.

The mustang has awesome brakes. In my quest to replace my 2+ (which was damaged in Midway - not by me), I have been looking at all sorts of aircraft. The 2+ was overkill for me on 95% of my missions and doesn't fit in the hangar as easily, so I was zeroing in on a Mustang, M2, or 1+. The Mustang (and 2+) brakes are MUCH better than the 1+ and M2. I am told that is because the Mustang and 2+ have a digital controller vs an analog one. I can't verify that independently.

I do know that every P100 operator that I talk to (and I know several and we track some at SierraTrax) will tell you that the performance on takeoff AND landing in hot and high is very tough (before the E model). I have seen a few P100s run off the end of runways.

Ultimately, I am leaning towards a 1+ over the mustang because I wanted the extra 100-150nm of range I would get, the climb performance, hot wing, and the lab in back. The Williams engines on their TAP program also are much better than the P&W engine programs (I had a friend who just about had an expensive R&R on his Mustang and he is on programs). That being said - you do not run Williams engines that aren't on programs.

I do notice the braking action on the 1+/M2 though. The plane is 2000 lbs heavier than the Mustang, but it takes at least an extra 1000 ft to stop (in my opinion).

-Jason