Phenom to the Philippines... Part 1 of 6

Join jetAVIVA's Phenom Acceptance and Delivery Manager, Marcio Luchesse as he and his crew fly a Phenom 100 from Santa Monica to the Philippines. In the next few weeks you will enjoy 6 episodes of his journey.

Here is episode 1 on youtube. Enjoy in HD.

First place!

For the better part of last week I was up in Northern California preparing for and ultimately flying in the annual Paso Robles aerobatic contest. Paso Robles hosts the largest competition of the year for the west coast. On Wednesday morning I flew up to King City California where I worked with Ben Freelove at the Sean D. Tucker school of aviation safety to help me prepare a little bit before the contest. Ben is one of the schools head instructors and a member of the USA Advanced Aerobatic Team. He is an awesome stick.

I stayed the night in King City and had the pleasure of sleeping at the school, which is kind of like being at airplane camp for grown ups. I slept on a futon in the hangar surrounded by beautiful aerobatic airplanes. The next morning the whole group from the school got up, prepped the planes and headed south 40 miles to Paso Robles for the official contest practice day. With the number of competitors (60 overall) flying in the contest, I was only able to get 10 minutes of flying in the contest aerobatic box. Practicing in the contest box is always helpful as each venue has different sight cues that are used throughout one's routine to help orient properly during the contest flights.





On Friday morning, I got my first official contest turn in the box. I ended up having my best contest flight of my short aerobatic career, putting me solidly in first place. That evening, Ben Marcus from jetAVIVA showed up with his girl friend Jessica in a Phenom 100 to show support for my final two flights.







My second flight went OK... I got 2nd place, however, I still had first place overall due to the total points scored between the two flights.






Time finally came for my third and final flight. I felt like my third flight was not my best flight of the series, and it showed in my scores. I got 4th place on the the third flight. However, due to my very strong first flight and relative high placement on the second two flights(out of 20 competitors) combined with a little bit of luck, I managed to squeeze a first place overall finish with only a 2 point advantage over second place (out of a 4000 total points!).





The next contest I'll be competing at will be the USA Nationals Contest in Texas. The best aerobatic pilots in the country will be flying at the national contest and ultimately the champion for each category will be named after the completion of the contest.

Until next time...

Getting a Helicopter Rating

I've been fortunate enough to be able to fly airplanes ranging from the Piper Cub (70 knots maximum) to the Gulfstream IV (480 knots maximum), fly aerobatics in the Pitts Special, fly gliders, the Goodyear blimp, and now a helicopter. There are so many awesome experiences to enjoy in the air. Each is very different and, for me, equally thrilling beyond words.

On Friday, I earned a helicopter rating. If you already have a pilot certificate with an airplane rating, you can get the helicopter add-on in as little as 30 hours, but you should probably plan on 35-40.

Week in the Life (Yes... it is fun)

Well actually, it was more like 10 days.

Wednesday May 26

LAX-IDP

David Chapman and I departed Los Angeles International Airport for the Cessna Citation Mustang factory in Independence, Kansas (IDP). We flew into Tulsa, Oklahoma and drove the rest of the way.

The nice folks at the Apple Tree Inn welcomed us.

Thursday May 27

IDP-DPA

We began the acceptance inspection on this beautiful new Mustang early in the morning. The owner, Dave, owned another Mustang previously, so he took the controls for takeoff and landing.

On the post-flight inspection, we noted a minor problem with the aileron system. It took quite some time to fix the issue and so we were not able to depart IDP until about 9:00 PM.

We had dinner in Independence while we waited for Cessna's maintenance team to do their thing.

Friday May 28

DPA-JAC-SAN

A beautiful day and a beautiful flight from DuPage Airport near Chicago to Jackson, Wyoming.

We stopped for fuel in a beautiful airport in Lexington, Nebraska. I will definitely stop here again. Nice scenery, nice people, and good fuel prices.

Take a look at those beautiful snow-covered Tetons on approach to Jackson.

And now have a look at the Teton's on the Garmin Synthetic Vision Technologies (SVT) display.

Upon arrival in Jackson, I boarded a flight to San Diego with a connection in Denver.

Sunday May 30

SAN-DAY

Delta Airlines - San Diego to Dayton, OH with a stop in beautiful Atlanta... oh yeah.

Monday May 31

DAY-FLL

I drove from the Dayton International Airport area to Wright Brothers Airport south of Dayton. This is where Phenom 100 serial number 29 is based. We are selling this aircraft and I had to take some photos and inspect it.

The pilot who flies this Phenom, Brett, pulled up in his highly modified Pitts S-2C after a short flight over from his home airport.

Then I jumped back on Delta down to Ft. Lauderdale, via Atlanta.

Tuesday June 1

FXE-VNY

One of the partners on Phenom 100 serial number 15 asked me to join him on a flight from Ft. Lauderdale Executive back to Van Nuys.

It was a nice flight with lots of thunderstorm dodging. Thanks to XM weather, we were able to complete the flight safely.

Wednesday June 2

VNY-CCB-VNY-SMO-MYF

My day started with flying with Tian, a client from China. He recently purchased a hangar at Cable Airport in Southern California. He wanted to try both the Phenom and the Mustang before making a final decision, so we took the Phenom to Cable. It's a rather small airport but the Phenom handled it well. In the end, Tian decided on a Mustang and shook my hand on a Mustang purchase over lunch.

Then it was off to San Diego's Montgomery Field in the Bonanza that we fly from time to time. the next day, I'd be flying with one of my client's pilots from San Diego to Sedona, Arizona to provide some mentoring in the Phenom.

Thursday June 3

MYF-SEZ-MYF-SEZ-MYF-SMO

I got to do some fun flying with Bill, who is a former airline pilot and naval aviator who recently got his Phenom 100 wings. Bill flies for a couple of partners based out of MYF with a Phenom 100.

Friday June 4

Phenom 300 Party at jetAVIVA Hangar

I was very pleasantly surprised that one of my clients came all the way from Mexico City to join us for the Phenom 300 reception. The next day, Saturday, we flew the 100 together. I also did another 100 familiarization flight with a client from San Antonio.

Good thing I like to fly, huh?

Phenom 300 Reception

We had a nice evening Friday. Embraer brought over a Phenom 300 to the jetAVIVA hangar for our clients to check out. Check out some pictures and video from the event.

A beautiful new Phenom for an owner in Europe.

Thanks for sharing the video, Marcio!

Santa Monica to Philippines... movie teaser

jetAVIVA's Marcio Lucchese recently completed a ferry flight of a Phenom 100 from Santa Monica to China. The owner of the machine is a film producer and made this small teaser video as a preview of a larger production to be made of the flight:

EBACE 2010

I got to spend some time earlier this month in Geneva, at EBACE- European Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition. While I have been to the NBAA convention in the US, this was my first exposure to the European scene.

The display halls and static displays were bustling and the event reported to be the best attended EBAC of all time. There seemed to be a lot of interest in the light jets in particular, with several Mustang and Phenom 100s on display and many people's first look at the CJ4 and Phenom 300.

Trip to Napa, CA

Heading into summer it was kind of nice flying in a below ISA atmosphere. With the power reduced, we were still seeing a KTAS of 354 in the Mustang. We then enjoyed one of the most memorable tours and tastings of Napa, CA at the Rubicon Vineyard.

Helicopter First Solo... for the 2nd time

In August 2008, I soloed a helicopter. Immediately thereafter, work got really busy and I had to stop.

I've resumed my training and have set some goals to gobble up a bunch of helicopter ratings. Today I got to solo again. Here are some pictures that my instructor took.

After my instructor got out, I did some hovering, pedal turns, pick ups and set downs, and then some pattern work with normal and steep approaches.

My instructor picked up a rock for me from the river bed as a memento. I have one from my first first solo, too. :) Now I have two pet rocks. :)

Fun week of fun aviation fun stuff

From last Thursday thru this upcoming Saturday, I've had nothing but awesome aviation related stuff on my plate. It all started off on last Thursday morning where I had to figure out a way to safely get to Apple Valley airport to compete in the Los Angeles Gold Cup aerobatic contest. The winds were absolutely terrible. Landing a Pitts in calm winds is difficult enough, 35 knots gusting beyond that makes life pretty challenging. Ontop of the challenge of getting the plane on the ground safely, I had my hands full during practice day (Thursday) as the winds were blowing 90 degrees across the aerobatic box (a 1000m x 1000m x 1000m cube in the sky) which you have to stay in when you are flying a contest.

Thankfully, the winds calmed down the following day when the contest actually began. I had one of my better contest performances placing first in the first of two flights, and second in the last flight, which gave me my first first place overall finish. Which was cool.

Arriving back in the office on Monday, we had a great day working with Casey on the CJ market... followed by a fun acro flight with Casey. I hope he doesn't get an acro plane as I don't think I'd like to compete with him as he's an awesome stick.

I'm currently onboard a Virgin America airbus using onboard Wifi headed to Washington DC for an event with the Experimental Aircraft Association's President's Circle. It's a group of the EAA's top donors that get together and have fun doing cool aviation related activities. We're getting a private tour of the FAA and the pentagon as well will have dinner with two congressmen, the FAA administrator, and the secretary of transportation. Should be a fun experience!

Flight of the Meridian

I had the opportunity to ride along with my friend Brian on a training flight in his new Piper Meridian today.

Brian has a few less than 500 hours and decided that jumping from Cirrus to single pilot jet was bit too big of a leap for him at this point, so he's going to build some turbine time in the Meridian first and then move up to a jet.

We met at Gillespie Field near San Diego. Brian's instructor in the Meridian, Bill, is a very experienced in Meridians and is also an A&P mechanic. He had lots of great experiences to share.

The flight plan took was to take us to the mountainous Big Bear, California, but as we approached the ridge, the winds aloft on the G1000 PFD read about 65 knots at 12,000 feet, so Brian wisely chose to divert from Big Bear to another excellent training airport in Thermal, California, near Palm Springs. As we began the turn away from the mountains, we pretty much got pummeled by moderate to severe turbulence. Had we gone any farther, it would have not been fun.

I found the Meridian to be quite a nice little turboprop. Although I didn't get a chance to fly it, it appeared that the airplane's operation is quite simple and that it's easy to fly.

We have quite a number of jetAVIVA clients who have transitioned from single-engine turboprops like the Meridian to single-pilot jets, and many more asking us about trading-in their single-engine turboprops for single-pilot jets all the time. I plan to get checked out in the Meridian pretty soon so that I can be of better service to these clients.

Pretty View of Catalina

On Friday, a client and I were able to overfly Catalina during a Phenom 100 familiarization flight. The weather was perfect and the island and airport just looked absolutely beautiful. It's been awhile since I last landed at the Catalina Airport. I can't wait to go back. Check out these pictures.

Mustang Mentoring

This video marks the beginning of jetAVIVA's relationship with Gerald. Cyrus had just spend several days helping Gerald acquire serial number 510-230 and they came to Medford, OR to pick me up. My job was simple, have fun and start showing Gerald the jet life! Our first mission, figure out how to fit a SR-22 and a C510 into one hangar, then off to visit "the General."

We flew to Fresno to pick up Gerald's daughter and then landed KUDD, Palm Desert. "The General" was the real deal. Highly decorated Ken Miles. We had a great evening and then flew back home. Many more memories to come.

Getting ready for the new office!

For the past 3 years, jetAVIVA has been happily based at Castle and Cooke Aviation at Van Nuys airport. Unfortunately/Fortunately, we've grown out of our space and are moving to a new office located at the Santa Monica airport. The new space is going to be awesome. We just finished up our planning with the interior decorators and furniture people getting ready to make our new digs awesome! Check out the floor plans:

Good practice flight

Had a good practice flight today in the Pitts getting ready for the Apple Valley aerobatic contest. Had to contest with a broken layer of clouds over the box which made doing vertical up lines fun! Had a close call with a P-3 orion going into Pt. Magu when I was setting up for a base entry into the box.

After getting back to the office, Ben was getting ready for his night helicopter lesson. Good times!

Ron, Benji, and Benji in the Pitts

(Not all at the same time, or course).

Ron has been a good friend and business mentor for quite some time. Knowing that he loves racing cars and other high-speed adventures, I figured he might enjoy a ride in the Pitts.

He and his son Benji pulled up in their Dodge Viper. Out of the sportscar on the ground and into the sportscar of the air.

Needless to say... Benji earned his Young Eagles First Flight Certificate that Sunday.